Mogsy: Best of 2015 and the Year in Review
What an amazing year in books! At the time of this writing, so far in 2015 I have read and logged a total of 209 titles onto Goodreads, which breaks down as follows:
- 2 serial episodes
- 4 anthologies/collections
- 9 novellas
- 194 novels
Here’s the Goodreads spread for what that looks like:
I apologize in advance for how haphazard this is going to be, but as you can probably imagine from looking at the above chart, narrowing down my Top 10 or even my Top 20 list of books to feature as the best read in 2015 is going to be tough, if not impossible. That’s why I’ve opted not to do a traditional list. Instead I’m going to break it down into different genres/categories and highlight all the books that were my favorites of the year, books that I thought were most memorable, and/or any books that I think should be getting more attention. All you have to know is, I loved them all!
You can see my reviews and more information about the books by clicking on the images and following the links.
Fantasy
Starting off with Fantasy, the biggest category, this year I discovered a new-to-me authors like Michael R. Fletcher, Ken Liu, and Seth Dickinson, and then there’s also The Fifth Season which made me wonder why it took me so long to finally read N.K. Jemisin!
I also found new favorite books by authors I’ve read before, like Skyborn, Black Wolves, Uprooted, Master of Plagues, and The Mechanical. Then it’s a parade of fantastic sequels! I always love it when a book lives up to or surpasses its predecessors, and this year Tower of Thorns, The Liar’s Key, and The Price of Valor all went above and beyond.
Science Fiction
2015 was a great year for Science Fiction as well. Some highlights include the best Star Wars book I’ve ever read (Lost Stars), a pre-2015 book that blew me away (Dark Eden), my first adult sci-fi novel by Ian McDonald (Luna: New Moon) and another amazing Expanse sequel (Nemesis Games).
This year The BiblioSanctum also once again participated in the month-long Sci-Fi November event, and to see a more detailed list of all my top sci-fi reads this year, be sure to check out the Top Ten post I put together for the wrap up!
Horror
I felt it was a pretty light year for Horror, relative to previous years. Still, 2015 saw a couple of outstanding Horror reads, like Day Four by Sarah Lotz and The Fifth House of the Heart by new-to-me author Ben Tripp.
Urban Fantasy/Paranormal
I didn’t read as many UF books this year, so the ones I loved were truly memorable. Flex was a fun surprise, and One Good Dragon Deserves Another is another self-published gem by Rachel Aaron. And finally, Dark Ascension by M.L. Brennan is the amazing ending to her Generation V series and it was so good it made me cry!
Young Adult
Perhaps the biggest surprise this year was how many awesome YA titles there were. My two top favorite books of the year are in this category, Ink and Bone and Walk on Earth a Stranger.
Ryan Graudin surprised me with her adventurous Wolf by Wolf and Alan Michael Nelson did so as well with his horror/UF Hexed. There were some great sequels as well, like Earth Flight, Half the World, and Firefight. Despite my reservations, Illuminae ended up impressing the hell out of me, and this year I also finally started Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle – loved the first book!
Books Read in 2015…
Number of pages read:
Longest book: 780 pages
By a male author: 50.7%
By a female author: 44.4%
For review: 82.5%
Audiobooks: 25.2%
On My Shelves (some crossover):
Fantasy: 56.3%
Science Fiction: 30.0%
Young Adult: 19.9%
Urban Fantasy: 16.9%
Horror: 7.2%
More on The BiblioSanctum:
Mogsy: Best of 2014 and The Year in Review
The BiblioSanctum 
What a fantastic year! 😀 and well done on reading so many books!! That’s about 100 more than me!
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I confess, I am a bit of a reading fiend 😀
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I neeeed to get round to reading some of these! A couple of them I should be getting for Christmas… though goodness knows when I’ll get round to them.
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Hopefully you’ll get some time during the holiday to catch some reading – that’s what I’m banking on! 😀
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Wow, this is an impressive collection! Some of your favourites from the fantasy and YA sections made it onto my best of list as well. I have Illuminae at home, I borrowed it from a friend, it looks like a massive book and I’m a bit scared to dive into it because it got so much hype! I have a love-hate relationship with hyped-up books.
I’m adding new books to my tbr list right now! 😉
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Oh yes, Illuminae is a MASSIVE book. BUT! It does go quick. So much of it is visuals, and I guess I blew through it much faster than I expected. I understand the reluctance because of hype, though. I approached this one very carefully myself, but it ended up impressing me 🙂
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A great list there! I need to find the time to do mine too.
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I look forward to seeing your wrap up and summaries!
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Wow, your stats always impress me! I see several books that made my lists, which is no surprise. I think Ink and Bone was probably in my top 5 overall. I split my lists up between adult and YA, just to make it easier on myself. Great list, I swear 2016 is the year I read Marillier’s series;-)
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I honestly did not expect my YA list this year to be so big! Last year I think I scraped and scrounged to come up with a top 5. 2015 though, wow, what a great year.
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That’s… just… staggering, Mogsy. Good for you for getting so much reading done this year!
I’m waiting until January to post my year-end lists; I’m trying to fit in two more books (including the one I’m currently reading) before the end of the month, so things are still in flux. But as of right now… two of your picks will definitely make my list, and a third has a pretty good shot.
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I know what you mean! I like to squeeze all the reading time I can get out of the year. This time though, I plan on vegging out over the holidays between Christmas and New Years, so I decided to do all my scheduling ahead of time and did my wrap up post earlier than I did last year 🙂
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Woah. That.is.awesome^^ Congrats on getting so many good books in this year Mogsy!! Uprooted was a favorite of mine this year too, and Raven Boys was as well back when I read it last year 🙂 Juliet Marillier, Dark Eden, Walk on Earth a Stranger, Wolf by Wolf and (obviously) Firefight are ALL on my tbr shelf. Seeing them here just makes me want to read them more LOL!
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I was so glad that I finally got to read Raven Boys! Now I need to catch up with the rest of the series, hopefully before the final book comes out 🙂
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High five to you! Well done, this is a great list.
I wish I could use Goodreads for this but I’m not as good at getting all my reviews up there – I think I’ve got about 80 or so on there – trying to get to 120 books read (which is around the number I used to manage to read!)
Here’s to just as good a 2016 for you.
Lynn 😀
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Haha, yeah I am a bit OCD and obsessed with using Goodreads as an organization tool. It does make creating these summary/stats posts easier at the end of the year 🙂
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What a good year
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Hear hear!
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Wow what a year! Uprooted made my list too I’m not sure if Firefight will, but Steekheat definitely! There are some here I’m glad to see as they’re on my want to read list. I’m planning on the Stars Wars book soon! Tower of Thorns has gotten so many excilent reviews I have to read it!
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I foresee Uprooted making many top lists this year, it really was a great book! And yay for Star Wars! I’ve been jumping up and down trying to get everyone I know to check out Lost Stars, lol 😀
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Amazing year! And you highlights some books I need to find time to read. All the ones on your list I have read, completely agree with
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Can’t wait to see everyone else’s Best Of lists and Year End Wrap Ups 🙂 Really interested to see what will be on yours (and prepared to add even more books to my TBR!)
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Great picks! Looks like you had an excellent year of reading – I definitely plucked reading ideas from your recommended reads 😀 Just finished the Lives of Tao and LOVED it. Glad I finally got to read some Wesley Chu.
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I’m so glad! Wes is a super nice guy and I agree his books are super awesome. 🙂
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Uprooted, OGGDA, and Walk on Earth a Stranger will all be on my “best of” list too! I’m reading Tower of Thorns right now, and I feel pretty confident saying that it’ll also be on there. Long live Mariliier!
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Long live Marillier! My new war cry 😀
Hope you’ll end up enjoying ToT as much as Dreamer’s Pool! 🙂
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Holy crap, that’s a lot of books! I struggled to get to 100 (okay, technically as of the time of this comment, I haven’t quite made it there yet, but I’m only 2 books away, so unless something goes horribly wrong with the rest of the year I ought to be able to make it); I can’t imagine reading quickly enough to read 209 things unless they’re all graphic novels. And even then…
There are some excellent books on that Best Of list, too! Some I’ve read, and some I just want to read!
Have a great and happy 2016!
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Go go go, you can do hit 100, I know you can! And yeah I know I kind of…inhale books 🙂 Audiobooks help with the amount of books I “read” too, I think ever since I started them the number of titles I read per year jumped by an order of magnitude. Hope the holiday season is treating you well, and happy soon-to-be 2016! 🙂
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Fifth Seasons, Baru Cormorant, and Flex made my Best of the Year list too!
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Saw your list today, awesome picks! 🙂
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209 books in one year is unreal! I’m jealous 😛 What I find most impressive is how well balanced your male:female authors reading ratio is! That I find completely amazing; it’s basically 50/50.
Keep up the reading and I hope next year is even better! (If that even possible) 🙂
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It was even closer last year, I think – IIRC it was like 51 to 49! This year I read slightly more books by a male author and quite a bit more anthologies/male-female co-authored books. I don’t do anything to try to keep the ratio half and half, somehow it ends up being close most years anyway 🙂
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One question, how do you manage to read so much? Do you have a special system or do you just read every second of the day that you can?
I guess that’s two quedtions.
I can usually read one normal sized novel in 10-15 hours so I can read about 30 books per year due to me only reading on my vacation (30 days here in Sweden). Since noticing you on Goodreads where you seemed to like every book that I liked, I’m inspired to try and read during working days too, to get up to at least one book a week.
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Believe it or not, I get asked this quite a lot 🙂
I’ve been told I’m a fast reader – I average about 100 pages per day, and all my reading time pretty much boils down to about an hour and a half to two hours each night reading in bed before I sleep. An average sized novel ~300-400 pages takes me about 5-6 hours to finish, and that’s usually 2-3 days it takes me to finish a book
But the other thing is audiobooks. Ever since I started listening to them, the number of books I complete each year has jumped by an order of magnitude! I listen when I’m vacuuming the house, working out, gaming, doing art, walking the dogs, doing the dishes, or whatever activity that makes use of my hands but doesn’t require that much brain power. An average sized novel is about 10-12 hours in audio. I listen to audiobook on at least 2x speed (otherwise the narration feels too slow for me) and that means I can finish an audio in about 5-6 hours as well. So, potentially, if I spend an entire day working in the garden, I could finish one whole book in that time! It’s happened before 🙂 I know it’s not “reading” in the strictest sense, but I’ve come to enjoy books this way and now I can’t imagine living without my audiobooks. I do encourage you to give the format a try, if you think that might interest you!
And that’s it, my “secrets” to reading so much 🙂 I hope you have fun with your reading goals in the new year!
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Thanks for the quick reply. Tried audiobooks but it just isn’t my cup of tea…I found myself rewinding the “tape” because my mind drifts off and I stop listening to the story.
Enjoy your reading too!
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