OK, I'll play, but only because Shardik told me to. (Shardik is a bear on a poker chip I flip to make decisions when I'm undecided). But this makes me feel dirty. Why? I don't really know. I guess it's the "look at me" aspect of it, and I think my obsession with myself is a little unhealthy sometimes, and stroking that exacerbates the problem. 
 It's not a real book review. Not that I don't talk about me in my reviews; I certainly do, but the stories are related to the book being reviewed. This right here is just a "look at what I've done this year y'all!" thingamajiggy, and I'm not sure that anybody cares. Do I care what y'all've done? Well, maybe for some. I know; I don't make a great deal of sense, and it's rather hypocritical of me, but... 
 Yeah. That. And I suspect I might be a bit touched in the head, but so far that hasn't done anyone any harm that I know of, so we'll roll with it. 
 Enough of that, let's look at what I've done and what I think about it so you can bask in the glory of my wisdom? (Damn, if this ain't mental masturbation, I don't know what is.) Not only am I a shameless review self-promoter but a review whore as well, so I review everything I read because maybe, just maybe, it will come in handy for someone. If you would like to see any reviews for this year that aren't already linked in this entry, check out my 2016 shelf. I don't go into everything I read in here; some are just lumped into a category or not mentioned at all... I see you're heartbroken about this. Sorry. 
 It looks like I reread a lot of books. 16 total, though several of them are poems, short stories, and children's books which really shouldn't count. A Christmas Carol is an annual reread I refuse to give up because it's just too awesome. Same for "Giant Grummer's Christmas" which is a short story found in The Tall Book of Christmas but doesn't have a unique page on this site. I count audiobooks as "reads" also, and I listened to It and Peter Pan again during my more mundane tasks at work because I love them so much. (The books, not the tasks a monkey could do with its butt but still need to be done). I also got The Gunslinger in before I moved back to chores that required brainpower and couldn't be done while listening to a book. When I get to those jobs again next summer I might hit the next few Dark Tower books again, or maybe the Harry Potters. I only listen to books I've read for real before because if I get distracted I can stand to tune out a few minutes of listening and not get lost. I suck at multi-tasking. It's a guy thing. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. 
 As for rereads that might as well have been first reads, I reread the Escape from Lost Island series which I hadn't read since middle school. Back then I thought they were the bee's knees, but as an adult I see the many flaws, and I understand why they were there for a hot minute then immediately booted into obscurity. (It's a shame such isn't the case for The Maze Runner series.) I loved rereading the Lost Island books but confess that nostalgia was the catalyst for that emotion. I read all six books during tax season (and the timing was perfect; I need light reading at that time of year). I also set a book aside to do it, and that brings us to... 
 ...A Series of Unfortunate Events. I started those in 2006 during the bad times and quit reading them at book five due to apathy. Not just apathy with the books, apathy with everything in the universe. Late 2006 was a strange time where a lot of changes occurred. I made it back to normalcy (well, as close to it as I'm ever able to get) in 2007, but didn't resume reading the books even though I got the rest of them for Christmas in '06. On the shelf they stayed until February 2016 when I once again got decisively engaged with the series. Everything was going just fine until I got to one sentence in The Slippery Slope, and I had to put the series aside to calm down. (I told you I don't think I'm wrapped too tight sometimes, and my mental well-being is even more fractious at that time of year.) Luckily I had Lost Island on standby, and that was able to occupy me for a couple of weeks which gave me time to chill. I finished the Unfortunate Events series without further butt-hurt incidents. I'm glad I read it, but am pretty sure I'll never reread it. Lemony Snicket definitely ain't for everyone. 
 Thanks to Snicket I was able to get a lot of kids books in this year, though his weren't the only ones. Mary Poppins, The Worst Witch, and Pinocchio have now been moved from the "to read" to the "read" shelf along with a couple others. 
 Unfortunate Events wasn't the only longstanding project I completed. William Shakespeare's Tragedy of the Sith's Revenge came out, so I was able to finish the Shakespeare's Star Wars series, and I'm glad to say it ended on just as high a note as it started on. That's one of the only new-to-print books I read this year, though it was published in 2015. I'm not good at reading brand new books unless it's Stephen King or Joe Hill, both of whom had decent new books out this year, but I'm totally OK with that; I prefer the oldies and classics. And speaking of King... 
 ...I haven't completed my read-all-of-Stephen-King's-fiction project, but with Dreamcatcher I did hit a milestone: I've now read every novel he's ever written without collaboration and using his real name. Black House will take care of the collaboration part, and I plan to hit that in 2016 as well as all (or most) of the Bachman books. After that it's the short stories and novellas. It's nice to finally hit a checkpoint in this project I started February 1, 2004 when I first picked up It. 12 years is a long time, but Jeezum Crow, he's written a ton of stuff. Also, it's ironic that the first book of his I read is still my favorite. 
 And while I made great progress on some of the projects, the forward motion in others has been painfully slow and has downright stalled in one of them. Reading all the novels Charles Dickens and Mark Twain have written is another goal of mine, and I'm afraid I didn't complete a single novel for either (save the annual Christmas Carol reread), though I did hit a few of their short stories and other pieces. 
 I didn't get very many "classics" done this year either, and those that I did do weren't very meaty. I hope to do better with this next year, but I rarely know what I'm going to read next before I'm standing in front of my book shelf putting a completed work back and perusing my inventory. I could be in the mood for one thing in particular for days, and that could be tossed out the window on a whim when I reach the jumping-off point. Poor Dumas, Hardy, Dostoyevsky, Hugo, Verne, Wells, and several others have been waiting patiently for years for me to read their works, but I have so much to read and so little time. I'm sure that's a sentiment none of y'all have any experience with... 
 There was progress with the Dickens Christmas stories project, but it looks like it's going to go at least one more year. I was approached by someone who is doing her doctoral dissertation on Dickens who wanted my thoughts on a few of his Christmas stories, and ain't that just flattering as hell?! I don't know how much help I can be to someone at that level of education, but I was quite honored notwithstanding. (And really, I was only asked because I'm one of the few people who's ever read some of these obscure works). I'll answer her questions for the four others I read this holiday season in a couple of days after I finish Mugby Junction and The Wreck of the Golden Mary. 
 And as if having all these incomplete projects loitering about me isn't enough, I decided to start a couple new ones, though one of them won't take long. I plan to hit a few Edgar Allan Poe stories every October for spooky month reading, and kicked that off with a few of his which, I'm sorry to say, kinda sucked. Luckily I know some of his better known ones will be coming up in 2017, and I'm excited to dive into them. The other project is about The Hardy Boys. After discovering that the two books I had for them were PC revisions, I sought out the originals so I could compare them. I plan to finish that early 2017. 
 Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior is currently my read-a-few-pages-here-and-there book that stays on the shelf next to my chair, and it will take a while at the current pace, but that's just fine. Everyone ought to have such an animal standing by. This thing is a scream, but I think it's works best for me in small doses. 
 Books for my betterment: I enjoyed The Screwtape Letters, but Battlefield of the Mind is getting my "ugh of the year" award. Joyce Meyer may have helped a lot of people, but this thing makes me gag. And I don't know if I'll ever finish Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. Completing it is a goal for 2017, but it was also a goal for 2016... and 2015... and 2014. In fact, it looks like I haven't touched it in over a year though it sits on the shelf right next to the Miss Manners book by my chair. It's not that I don't like it; I actually do, but anything that isn't a novel takes effort for me to read it. That's just the way I'm put together. It was like that for Screwtape even though I really liked that. Self help, history, memoirs, biographies, short stories; I need to grit my teeth and trudge into anything that isn't a novel. For novels I can just let go and let it take me wherever it will; there's no effort involved unless it starts to get bad. 
 I made a couple of new friends on here this year, and one of them is a real live author! Check out his stuff here. I've read only one of his books so far, and I kind of took it to the woodshed, but I found the author himself waiting there with a switch so he could beat it even harder than me, so we're still cool. Life After Dane is on the docket for 2017 because that's one Mr. Lorn said he wouldn't make any changes to. The other cat's actually a frenemy since we have philosophical differences galore, but reparteeing (yeah, I know I just made up a word; it's getting late and I should go to bed) with him is a joy. Same with other older friends on here I've never met in real life. It's odd that the majority of my cyber-friends on here lean in the opposite direction than I on most issues, but they still don't see fit to kick me to the curb, nor do I feel compelled to do it to them. Perhaps I've matured...? NAH! 
 I gave up facebook three years ago partly because after years of evidence I had to face the fact that I couldn't use it responsibly (and it's a shame others who suffer from my malady can't recognize it in themselves and follow my example), so Goodreads is the only social media site I use. It's where I get my "look at me" fix for my writing, and though I still go off my nut once in a while, it's much better than the facebook days. I think it's because there's a book focus here, and it behooves me to rein myself in if I get too out of line and off topic... most of the time. At least my rants will be related to the book in some kind of way and I'm not just shooting off at the mouth about any old thing that comes to mind. 
 But enough of that. Now we come to the moment that nobody's been waiting for: Pierce's favorite new read for 2016. (Books read in a previous year aren't allowed to compete for this honor; it's just a rule I made. Otherwise A Christmas Carol, It or Peter Pan would always be winning.) This was nowhere near as tough as 2012, but there were still a couple of contenders. Just because a book is five stars doesn't automatically make it a "favorite for the year" finalist; some three and four star deals can vie for the award. Flaws which take away stars in an objective rating don't always detract from my enjoyment, and if I give points for historical significance or the like, that doesn't mean I enjoy the book more. But this year my fave is also a five star book. It came down to two. 
 Runner-up is The Memoirs of J. Sidna Allen: A True Narrative of What Really Happened in Hillsville. I had to buck up and march into this since it's not a novel, and it's not great literature, and has a lot of things I can pooh-pooh, and only gets four stars from me, but when all was said and done, I really enjoyed it. Most of it is due to family connections, but it's too much to explain here. Check out the review if you want the rest of the reasons. 
 Winner: Tarzan of the Apes! It, too, has its shortcomings, but this book just blew me away, and I definitely plan to reread it one day. If Tarzan is unable to fulfill his term as my favorite book of the year, then Sidna Allen is welcome to try to kick his ass, but I'm afraid that would be a slaughter in T's favor. 
 For those of you who saw this through to the end, thank you. You have appeased my ego which really doesn't need anymore inflation, but I'm sure something will come along soon enough to puncture it and put it back in its proper place. 
 Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR! Have a fantastic 2017! (Unless you've made other plans, of course).