This year I read 106 books. If you want to see the list you can check out my Goodreads account HERE. Last year people wanted to know the breakdown between audio books and books I actually read. Audiobooks still count as reading. It uses a different part of your brain to hear the book rather than see the words but you still retain the information. This year I read 83 books and listened to 23. I was honestly surprised when I looked up the numbers I expected the audio to be higher. This year I couldn't narrow it down to 5, so here are my top 6 books of the year.
# 1 Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
I spent a good part of the year reading books about sleeping and trying to figure out how to get a better night's sleep. This one was the most informative. It was an easy read and gave lots of examples. He really focused on how sleep is important to our overall health.
#2 The Radium Girls by Kate Moore
This book was the start of a long list of reading about radium poisoning. It is not an easy read if you empathize with others. The stories of what these girls went through are heartbreaking. It was terrifying to read the real accounts of what the radium did to their bodies and how the companies denied that it was the radium. It is not a light-hearted book, but it stuck with me all year. It's a fascinating part of Illinois history that I learned about when reading this book.
#3 Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn
Kate Quinn is one of my favorite historical fiction authors. She does such an amazing job of bringing the history alive. This is about a female sniper from Russia during WWII. Her story is fascinating. I spent a large part of the book wondering how much we really know about her? How much of her story is Russian propaganda? Regardless of what is truth and what is fiction, it was a book I couldn't put down.
#4 The Tiffany Girls by Shelley Noble
This story is about the women who worked for Tiffany Glass. It takes place as they are getting ready for the exposition at the Worlds Fair in Paris. Oh, how I wish I could attend the World's Fair. Any time I read about it in history books it sounds like a wonderful experience. The women in this story are fictional. Their story is based on how the glass company worked at the time. Listening to the stories about how the large stained glass pieces of art were made was incredible. If you enjoy stories based on art and the women who created them you would enjoy this book. I also learned after reading this that the Tiffany Glass Company and the Tiffany Jewelry Company are not the same.
#5 The Five by Hallie Rubenhold
I debated on whether or not to include this book. It was not a fun read. It took me months to finish. But here I am months later and still thinking about it. It is a historical account of the victims of Jack the Ripper. After reading about these poor women's stories it was heartbreaking. Besides just being sad, the author did talk a lot about how women at this time had no rights or voice. They were completely dependent on men. If you're not family with this time period it may have been new information but she harped on it a lot and it got old. I just wanted to hear more about the women. I would love to find recent information about Jack the Ripper with new forensic and profiler information. After reading this book I really wonder if it was a serial killer or just random murders that they lumped all together.
#6 I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys
Immediately after finishing this book, I told my kids they had to read it. If you want to know what it is like to live in a communist country this is a good book to start with. It is based in 1989 Romania. You follow a young man through his life in Romania during this time. It was a great thought-provoking read. It was unnerving to hear about so many places that were at war then that are still at war today.
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