My Favourite Books of 2015/Reading Challenge

My Favourite Books of 2015

Since it's New Years Eve, I thought it would be fun to see which books made the deepest impression on me this year. Basically, I went to look through my tags. I like most books I read, but very few make me stick the 'life-impacting' tag on them. This year, only four books made the cut. The title will link to my review of the book.

1. Face to Face with Jesus by Samaa Habib

This first book, I actually read at the end of 2014, but review went up on Jan 5, 2015 so 😁

Anyway, you want to see courage in action? This lady and her family have more courage than entire countries. It takes a lot to risk death just to believe in Christ. Puts my little complaints into perspective and makes me see how trivial they are.

When I say this book is powerful, I really mean it.

2. Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

This book is basically behavioural economics, but it's super interesting and easy to understand.

I love the examples in this book, and to see economics being relevant is a 👍🏼👍🏼 for me.

One teacher recommended I read Predictably Irrational ➡️ Fooled by Randomness ➡️ The Black Swan in that order. I've only got The Black Swan to go, and the copy is already in my hands.

3. The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany

From what I've heard, this book is a huge influence on the Fantasy genre, and after reading it, I can see why. The language is beautiful. Simple beautiful. It reminds me a lot of Chesterton, but for fiction.

I could quote the whole book, but I randomly pulled up one and it is still so beautiful:

And little he knew of the things that ink may do, how it can mark a dead man's thought for the wonder of later years, and tell of happening that are gone clean away, and be a voice for us out of the dark of time, and save many a fragile thing from the pounding of heavy ages; or carry to us, over the rolling centuries, even a song from lips long dead on forgotten hills.

I want to be able to write as lyrically as this one day.

If the book has a flaw, it's that it's too dream-like, and the characters never feel real. But what a beautiful dream this book is.

I should go look for his other books.

4. The King in the Window by Adam Gopnik

I actually read this once in MG, but the book stayed with me for so long that I hunted down the title, found out it was out-of-print, and bought a second hand copy from Amazon.

This is a story about how an ordinary boy, living in a strange land, can do extraordinary things with the help of his friends. He might even become the King of the Window.

This post was taken from my Dayre

2016 Reading Challenge

I hadn't thought of reading challenges for next year at all, but yesterday, I saw the non-fiction reading challenge by The Introverted Reading and was like "that is definitely my challenge for the year". 

I've decided, I want to sign up for the Master Level, which is to read 16-20 non-fiction books in 2016. If anyone has any recommendations, let me know!!

And oddly enough, I have nothing else to say. I'm just really looking forward to the challenge :D I was also looking at the translated books challenge, but I want to read more books in Japanese, not just translated, so I guess I'll pass.

See everyone next year!