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2016: The Year in Books

17/12/2016

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I'm on holiday. I AM ON HOLIDAY! <cue Kermit flailing> 
Until January 9. But I don't feel like I'm on holiday yet--it's still sinking in. I know the end of it will be here too quickly, so I am going to try to enjoy it, to forget about work and stress and *stuff*. I plan to travel, eat, drink, sew, and READ. And on that topic, here is what I read (so far) in 2016:
  • Diary of a Witchcraft Shop by Trevor Jones and Liz Williams
  • Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand (a re-read because I assigned it to my students)
  • Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (also a re-read, and then I loaned it out, and now I can't figure out who has it. And I've got the 2 other books in the trilogy...still unread.)
  • Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock (another re-read)
  • Viper Wine (another re-read because I assigned it, but I had wanted to read it again because I felt very WTF after the first read. I love it even more now.)
  • Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (ditto on re-read)
  • The Three by Sarah Lotz (ditto ditto)
  • The Girl with All the Gifts by Mike Carey (I love his Felix Castor novels, and I loved this, too.)
  • The Year of the Ladybird by Graham Joyce (I found this very meh and not ghostie enough.)
  • Pure by Andrew Miller (I found this in the charity shop and loved the cover, so bought it and another by him; it was excellent, but the second book is still on the shelf.)
  • Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin (a book on breaking bad habits and re-programming yourself to take up good ones) (and on that note, I also read most of Productivity Ninja)
  • I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron (I wish she was still around to make more great films)
  • Nod by Adrian Barnes (really cool book about the end of the world happening because people suddenly cannot sleep)
  • What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund
  • All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders (loved this)
  • Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear (totally loved this--it was worth the wait for me to finally pony up the bucks on Kindle)
  • Uprooted by Naomi Novik (I liked this much more than I expected to--it surprised me)
  • Eliza Rose by Lucy Worsley (I love LW on telley, and this was a fun historical fiction for the YA set)
  • The Painter by Will Davenport (odd book I picked up in the charity shop about 'what if Rembrandt had been in England and painted a portrait'? with two parallel stories: a historic and a contemporary. It was okay, but I wasn't a huge fan of the modern half of the story.)
  • Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (this took me 2 tries because the first copy I had was messed up with 50 pages reprinted inside; I found another copy at the charity shop and really enjoyed revisiting this character from The Shining.)
  • The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natahsa Pulley (I might need to re-read this. I got to the end and felt like I had missed a really vital sentence somewhere that would have helped the whole thing gel in my mind. I really enjoyed it, but, like with the first read of Viper Wine, I don't know if I got it.)
  • Astray by Emma Donoghue (collection of wonderful stories inspired by true bits of history)
  • Borderline by Mishell Baker (one of my Clarion peeps wrote this, and it is wonderful. I can't wait for the next book with this protagonist.)
  • Gardener to the King by Frederic Richard (lovely little novel translated from the French about Louis XIV's gardener)
  • Lock In by John Scalzi
  • My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix (by another of my Clarion peeps--I totally loved this and didn't expect it to make me tear up at the end!)
  • The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley
  • The Fireman by Joe Hill (so good--I do love pandemics!)
  • Immoveable Feast by John Baxter (I got on a non-fiction kick about food and France)
  • Everything Belongs to the Future by Laurie Penny
  • Restoration by Rose Tremain (I have wanted to read this for years and finally came across a copy at the charity shop--I'm in the middle of the sequel now)
  • The Most Beautiful Walk in the World by John Baxter
  • Ghostwritten by David Mitchell (my first Mitchell read, and it won't be my last)
  • The Perfect Meal by John Baxter (I told you I went on a Baxter kick)
  • The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge (my first Hardinge read, and definitely not my last!)

That makes 37 books. By no means a record for me, but it was a busy year. Next year the plan is to read 52--it's a nice match, books to weeks. I have a research project that will require wide reading of post-apocalyptic books (some re-reads), so that will help with the numbers!


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    Tiffani Angus

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