Top Ten Books I Read Out of My Comfort Zone

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This Week’s Topic is Ten Books I Recently Read That Were Out of My Comfort Zone

• Beneath The Bonfire: Stories – Nickolas Butler
  • This was the first book of short stories I read for myself in a long time so that’s why it’s being included. It’s not out of my comfort zone in any way but it is something different from my usual reads.
• The Nightingale – Kristin Hannah
  • This was my hands-down favorite book of 2015 so it always makes me laugh that I really didn’t want to read it at first. I’m not huge into WWII historical fiction,  but omigosh everyone should read this book. Okay, gushing over.
• Ten – Gretchen McNeil
  • I love mysteries and all things Agatha Christie. What I do not usually love is retellings. So it was a bit of a surprise when I picked up this obvious retelling of And Then There Were None. Not my favorite book by far but it did make me happy I read it and I think I’ll give some other more modern retellings a chance in the future now.
• The Martian – Andy Weir
  • Is it bad to say I loved this book but I skimmed anytime it got too technical?
• Doctor Sleep – Stephen King
  • When I was in junior high I read everything Stephen King I could get my hands, then one day I just stopped. This and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon were my attempts to get back into King novels this past year and re-read old favorites and ones I never read to begin with.
• Still Alice – Lisa Genova
  • Science…I actually read a lot more sciencey books this year than usual (usual being zero). This was just out of my usual comfort zone and I actually read Left Neglected immediately after because I liked it so much.  Also, not a part of this but the best science book I read all year was Brain On Fire and I will continue recommending it to everyone I meet until my death.
• Foxcatcher – Mark Schultz
  • I really enjoy nonfiction and read a fair amount of biographies and athlete biographies if they’re interesting enough (this Barry Bonds one is incredibly good). This was my first foray into wrestling books so that is why it makes the list. Although, I grew up around high school and college wrestling so the Schultz story was not completely new to me before reading this book. If you want a better look into the actual incident and Foxcatcher gym definitely watch the 30 for 30 about it on netflix right now.
• The Wild Truth – Carine McCandless
  • Not necessarily a retelling but more of a background piece into the childhood of Alexander Supertramp aka Chris McCandless aka the kid from Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild.
• In the Heart of the Sea – Nathaniel Philbrick
  • Historical nonfiction about whaling in nantucket in the Xyears…This was my definition of left-field book
• Brooklyn – Colm Tóibín
  • I do actually really like historical fiction when it’s about period I’m truly intrested in. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to me that I would fall in love with this book becuase I also loved “Tis?? I can’t wait to see the movei? Anyone here seen it yet?