The 2009 Books
Dec. 30th, 2009 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leahbobetDespite my inability to get it through my head this year, I have most of my gifts put together, there is a chicken in my fridge for the big New Year's Eve dinnerstravaganza, and it is time to do this post. I'm leaving the Grand Metrics for tomorrow, since I do plan to write a bit tonight.
So here's what I read this year:
#1 -- Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Stories
#2 -- Ekaterina Sedia, Locomotive to Crimea (in draft)
#3 -- Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories
#4 -- Chris Coen, Kith and Kin (in draft)
#5 -- Nicholas Christopher, The Bestiary
#6 -- K.J. Parker, Shadow
#7 -- Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman, The Fall of the Kings
#8 -- John M. Ford, The Last Hot Time
Not-#9 -- Helen Oyeyemi, The Icarus Girl
#9 -- Peter S. Beagle, The Innkeeper's Song
#10 -- Claudia Dey, Stunt
#11 -- Sean Stewart, Clouds End
#12 -- Patricia C. Wrede, Searching for Dragons
#13 -- Patricia C. Wrede, Calling on Dragons
#14 -- Madeleine L'Engle, Troubling a Star
#15 -- Scott O'Dell, Sing Down the Moon
#16 -- Patricia C. Wrede, Talking to Dragons
REREAD -- Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing With Dragons
#17 -- Sean Stewart, The Night Watch
REREAD -- Madeleine L'Engle, Dragons in the Waters
#18 -- Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion
#19 -- Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth
#20 -- John M. Ford, The Dragon Waiting
#21 -- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
#22 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, Brothers in Arms
#23 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, Mirror Dance
#24 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr
#25 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign
REREAD -- Michael Stackpole, Once a Hero
#26 -- Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That
#27 -- Carrie Vaughn, Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand
#28 -- D.J. Taylor, Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London's Jazz Age
#29 -- Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Raises Hell
#30 -- Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
#31 -- Mike Carey, Thicker Than Water
#32 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, Falling Free
#33 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, Diplomatic Immunity
#34 -- Alan Bishop and Mark Bostridge, eds., Letters from a Lost Generation: First World War Letters of Vera Brittain and Four Friends
#35 -- Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Not-#36 -- Samantha Henderson, Heaven's Bones
#36 -- Connie Willis, Remake
#37 -- Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
#38 -- Robert Charles Wilson, Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America
#39 -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
#40 -- Jedediah Berry, The Manual of Detection
#41 -- Lisa Mantchev, Eyes Like Stars
#42 -- China Mieville, The City & the City
#43 -- Merrie Haskell, The Herbalist's Apprentice (in draft)
#44 -- William Gibson, Spook Country
REREAD -- William Goldman, The Princess Bride
REREAD -- Catherine Bush, Minus Time
#45 -- Caitlin R. Kiernan, The Red Tree
#46 -- Maggie Helwig, Girls Fall Down
#47 -- Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
REREAD -- Lloyd Alexander, Taran Wanderer
REREAD -- Lloyd Alexander, The High King
#48 -- Amanda Downum, The Drowning City
REREAD -- Gael Baudino, Maze of Moonlight
REREAD -- Gael Baudino, Strands of Starlight
REREAD -- Gael Baudino, Strands of Sunlight
REREAD -- Michelle Sagara, Into the Dark Lands
REREAD -- Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted
REREAD -- Louise Titchener, Greenfire
#49 -- Howard Akler, The City Man
#50 -- Joe Ollmann, This Will All End In Tears
#51 -- Stephen Geigen-Miller and Greg Beettam, Xeno's Arrow #1
#52 -- Richard Kadrey, Sandman Slim
#53 -- Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring
#54 -- Daniel Rabuzzi, The Choir Boats
#55 -- Octavia E. Butler, Fledgling
#56 -- Cordelia Strube, Lemon
REREAD -- Jim Munroe, Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gasmask
#57 -- Emma Bull and Steven Brust, Freedom & Necessity
#58 -- Tory Woolcott, Mirror Mind
REREAD -- Nicole Kornher-Stace, Desideria
REREAD -- Emma Bull, Territory
#59 -- A.M. Dellamonica, Indigo Springs
#60 -- Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow
#61 -- Piers Anthony, With a Tangled Skein
#62 -- Piers Anthony, Being a Green Mother
#63 -- Piers Anthony, For Love of Evil
REREAD -- Patricia McKillip, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
REREAD -- Patricia McKillip, Heir of Sea and Fire
REREAD -- Patricia McKillip, Harpist in the Wind
REREAD -- Paul Kropp, Ellen/Elena/Luna
#64 -- Connie Willis, Lincoln's Dreams
#65 -- Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
#66 -- Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man
#67 -- Emma Bull, Bone Dance (in progress)
There are a couple notable trends this year: one is that I reread a lot of already-owned books this year. This is what I do when I'm stressed. You can pretty much pinpoint the months I was having a rough go of something by those clusters of rereads.
The other is that I rarely read anything new when it came to genre fiction. This year, I read backlist. I read literary novels. I read Toronto books by Toronto authors about Toronto. I read graphic novels. I read WWI and 1920s research books. But I didn't especially read new genre fiction.
This is the second year in a row where I've been feeling like I am just Not The Target Audience (tm) for most of what's coming out in genre: I'm not especially fond of either paranormal romance or military SF, and those seem to be where a lot of energy is focusing -- and not wrongly, since the paranormal romance makes money and we all like having that. A lot of my favourite genre authors didn't have books out this year, the hard SF section felt exceedingly thin, and that odd, niche style of fantasy I like didn't make much of an appearance, either. When it did it was spectacular -- see: The City and the City and The Manual of Detection -- but it was pretty far between.
It is also, methinks, possible that my tastes are just changing. I may be becoming more of a literary reader. But that's something to revisit next year, to see if it bears out.
Stuff I loved gibberingly and unabashedly, and would handsell like an evangelist at Rapture time if still at the bookstore: The Last Hot Time, Pattern Recognition, The Manual of Detection, The City & the City, Girls Fall Down, Freedom & Necessity, The Maltese Falcon and weirdly enough The City Man, which I didn't think much of right after finishing and then had grow on me slowly and steadily. I had good luck, by and large, with the Coach House Books list: even the stuff which made me occasionally roll my eyes and I didn't so much love gave me some take-home value.
The to-read shelf is decently stocked at the moment, although it's mostly with more Dashiell Hammett, literary novels, essays, and nonfic, and hopefully once I'm through that some of the 2010 books I'm looking forward to will be available. Or I'll discover a rich vein of criminally-neglected backlist. Or someone will have written me some goddamned hard science fiction already.
So here's what I read this year:
#1 -- Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Stories
#2 -- Ekaterina Sedia, Locomotive to Crimea (in draft)
#3 -- Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories
#4 -- Chris Coen, Kith and Kin (in draft)
#5 -- Nicholas Christopher, The Bestiary
#6 -- K.J. Parker, Shadow
#7 -- Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman, The Fall of the Kings
#8 -- John M. Ford, The Last Hot Time
Not-#9 -- Helen Oyeyemi, The Icarus Girl
#9 -- Peter S. Beagle, The Innkeeper's Song
#10 -- Claudia Dey, Stunt
#11 -- Sean Stewart, Clouds End
#12 -- Patricia C. Wrede, Searching for Dragons
#13 -- Patricia C. Wrede, Calling on Dragons
#14 -- Madeleine L'Engle, Troubling a Star
#15 -- Scott O'Dell, Sing Down the Moon
#16 -- Patricia C. Wrede, Talking to Dragons
REREAD -- Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing With Dragons
#17 -- Sean Stewart, The Night Watch
REREAD -- Madeleine L'Engle, Dragons in the Waters
#18 -- Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion
#19 -- Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth
#20 -- John M. Ford, The Dragon Waiting
#21 -- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
#22 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, Brothers in Arms
#23 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, Mirror Dance
#24 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr
#25 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign
REREAD -- Michael Stackpole, Once a Hero
#26 -- Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That
#27 -- Carrie Vaughn, Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand
#28 -- D.J. Taylor, Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London's Jazz Age
#29 -- Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Raises Hell
#30 -- Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
#31 -- Mike Carey, Thicker Than Water
#32 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, Falling Free
#33 -- Lois McMaster Bujold, Diplomatic Immunity
#34 -- Alan Bishop and Mark Bostridge, eds., Letters from a Lost Generation: First World War Letters of Vera Brittain and Four Friends
#35 -- Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Not-#36 -- Samantha Henderson, Heaven's Bones
#36 -- Connie Willis, Remake
#37 -- Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
#38 -- Robert Charles Wilson, Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America
#39 -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
#40 -- Jedediah Berry, The Manual of Detection
#41 -- Lisa Mantchev, Eyes Like Stars
#42 -- China Mieville, The City & the City
#43 -- Merrie Haskell, The Herbalist's Apprentice (in draft)
#44 -- William Gibson, Spook Country
REREAD -- William Goldman, The Princess Bride
REREAD -- Catherine Bush, Minus Time
#45 -- Caitlin R. Kiernan, The Red Tree
#46 -- Maggie Helwig, Girls Fall Down
#47 -- Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
REREAD -- Lloyd Alexander, Taran Wanderer
REREAD -- Lloyd Alexander, The High King
#48 -- Amanda Downum, The Drowning City
REREAD -- Gael Baudino, Maze of Moonlight
REREAD -- Gael Baudino, Strands of Starlight
REREAD -- Gael Baudino, Strands of Sunlight
REREAD -- Michelle Sagara, Into the Dark Lands
REREAD -- Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted
REREAD -- Louise Titchener, Greenfire
#49 -- Howard Akler, The City Man
#50 -- Joe Ollmann, This Will All End In Tears
#51 -- Stephen Geigen-Miller and Greg Beettam, Xeno's Arrow #1
#52 -- Richard Kadrey, Sandman Slim
#53 -- Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring
#54 -- Daniel Rabuzzi, The Choir Boats
#55 -- Octavia E. Butler, Fledgling
#56 -- Cordelia Strube, Lemon
REREAD -- Jim Munroe, Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gasmask
#57 -- Emma Bull and Steven Brust, Freedom & Necessity
#58 -- Tory Woolcott, Mirror Mind
REREAD -- Nicole Kornher-Stace, Desideria
REREAD -- Emma Bull, Territory
#59 -- A.M. Dellamonica, Indigo Springs
#60 -- Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow
#61 -- Piers Anthony, With a Tangled Skein
#62 -- Piers Anthony, Being a Green Mother
#63 -- Piers Anthony, For Love of Evil
REREAD -- Patricia McKillip, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
REREAD -- Patricia McKillip, Heir of Sea and Fire
REREAD -- Patricia McKillip, Harpist in the Wind
REREAD -- Paul Kropp, Ellen/Elena/Luna
#64 -- Connie Willis, Lincoln's Dreams
#65 -- Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
#66 -- Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man
#67 -- Emma Bull, Bone Dance (in progress)
There are a couple notable trends this year: one is that I reread a lot of already-owned books this year. This is what I do when I'm stressed. You can pretty much pinpoint the months I was having a rough go of something by those clusters of rereads.
The other is that I rarely read anything new when it came to genre fiction. This year, I read backlist. I read literary novels. I read Toronto books by Toronto authors about Toronto. I read graphic novels. I read WWI and 1920s research books. But I didn't especially read new genre fiction.
This is the second year in a row where I've been feeling like I am just Not The Target Audience (tm) for most of what's coming out in genre: I'm not especially fond of either paranormal romance or military SF, and those seem to be where a lot of energy is focusing -- and not wrongly, since the paranormal romance makes money and we all like having that. A lot of my favourite genre authors didn't have books out this year, the hard SF section felt exceedingly thin, and that odd, niche style of fantasy I like didn't make much of an appearance, either. When it did it was spectacular -- see: The City and the City and The Manual of Detection -- but it was pretty far between.
It is also, methinks, possible that my tastes are just changing. I may be becoming more of a literary reader. But that's something to revisit next year, to see if it bears out.
Stuff I loved gibberingly and unabashedly, and would handsell like an evangelist at Rapture time if still at the bookstore: The Last Hot Time, Pattern Recognition, The Manual of Detection, The City & the City, Girls Fall Down, Freedom & Necessity, The Maltese Falcon and weirdly enough The City Man, which I didn't think much of right after finishing and then had grow on me slowly and steadily. I had good luck, by and large, with the Coach House Books list: even the stuff which made me occasionally roll my eyes and I didn't so much love gave me some take-home value.
The to-read shelf is decently stocked at the moment, although it's mostly with more Dashiell Hammett, literary novels, essays, and nonfic, and hopefully once I'm through that some of the 2010 books I'm looking forward to will be available. Or I'll discover a rich vein of criminally-neglected backlist. Or someone will have written me some goddamned hard science fiction already.
