best books of 2015

January

Isn't it funny how intentions go by the wayside every time, and yet we still manage to be surprised when they do? I started this year full of optimism and goals. One of those goals was to read 52 books - a feat I managed in 2013 but not 2014. And if I didn't make it to 52 books, surely I would surpass 2014's book count of 32. And yet, here I am having read 31 books this year. In all fairness, this has been a very tough year for me full of excessive amounts of mostly work-related stress. But even amid all of that, I have some very fond book-related memories. Mainly reading books aloud in the car with Joe on our summer roadtrip. We read The Circle by Dave Eggers, The Shade of the Moon by Susan Beth Pfeffer, and most of Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris. Below is a list of some of my favorites from 2015.

Recipes & Cooking

• An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Alder
• Super Natural Every Day: Well-Loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen by Heidi Swanson
• Wintersweet: Seasonal Desserts to Warm the Home by Tammy Donroe Inman - This book was beautiful to look at and perfectly organized by main ingredient (apples, pears, etc).

Fiction

• The Winter Pony by Iain Lawrence - This book was so sad! Told from a pony's point of view, this book chronicles the Scott expedition to the South Pole.
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
• The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
• The Circle by Dave Eggers
• The Martian by Andy Weir

YA Fiction

• Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
• Grounded: The Adventures of Rapunzel by Megan Morrison

Non-Fiction

• The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
• Nature Anatomy by Julia Rothman - I intended to buy this beautiful book for my niece and nephew this Christmas, but ended up going with a couple other books as it wasn't available at my local book store. Next year, though...
• Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat - A funny/sad story about an ecologist turned environmentalist who lives for a time among the wolves of northern Canada.