December Books

8495173It was not a specific resolution to write about the books I was reading throughout the year -- but I kept up with it the entire year, so hooray me!

In December, I've been a little attention-challenged when it comes to books -- no fault of the books. Just me trying to do too much as the year winds down -- making the January Shimmer, prepping for The Honey Mummy publication,putting a tree in the living room, tending to a mom with unexpected flu, baking all the things, wrapping the rest of the things -- Oi! I picked up The Clockwork Dagger by Beth Cato, but was  promptly diverted by Hild, by Nicola Griffith, and then found myself opening The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley. Each book is still on my bedside table -- and each is enchanting in its own way. When I want to escape the real world (and that's pretty much always these days, given the news), these books take me straight away.

I've read some really good things this year. My goal was to read seventy books, since I read sixty-five last year. Always do more, right? Apparently I read eighty-one books this year, because why not?

I read more books by women than by men, which seems to be my normal pattern. I still have a lot of work when it comes to reading books by authors who are not white, so I'll try to focus on that as 2016 arrives.

What did I love best? That's so hard to say, because I read so many damn good books. Here's what I got to this year!

  1. Eleanor, Jason Gurley
  2. Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell
  3. Shimmer 23
  4. An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, Chris Hadfield
  5. Good Omens, Gaiman and Pratchett
  6. If on a winter's night a traveler, Italio Calvino
  7. Labrynthian, Sunny Moraine
  8. Girl on a Wire, Gwenda Bond
  9. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
  10. The Lumberfox, Ava Lovelace
  11. The Museum of Extraordinary Things, Alice Hoffman
  12. Trading Rosemary, Octavia Cade
  13. Under the Skin, Michel Faber
  14. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
  15. The Dream Lover, Elizabeth Berg
  16. Well Fed, cookbook
  17. Midsummer Moon, Laura Kinsale
  18. Uncertain Magic, Laura Kinsale
  19. Sing Me Your Scars, Damien A. Walters
  20. The Buddha in the Attic, Julie Otsuka
  21. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Kate Wilhelm
  22. Sag Harbor, Colson Whitehead
  23. Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler
  24. Shimmer 24
  25. The City & The City, China Mieville
  26. The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi
  27. Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel
  28. Collected Stories, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  29. Mr. Fox, Helen Oyeyemi
  30. The Stress of Her Regard, Tim Powers
  31. Vermilion, Molly Tanzer
  32. Justice Calling, Annie Bellet
  33. The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
  34. Shimmer 25
  35. Rat Queens Vol 1
  36. No Proper Lady, Isabel Cooper
  37. Inksucker, Aidan Doyle (in draft)
  38. Alien, Alan Dean Foster
  39. Sextrap Dungeon, Kurt Knox
  40. Ammonite, Nicola Griffith
  41. The Gate to Women's Country, Sherri S. Tepper
  42. Giallo Fantastique, ed. Ross Lockhart
  43. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman
  44. The Magician's Mistake, Katherine Sparrow
  45. The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland & Led the Revels There, Cat Valente
  46. Heat Rises, Richard Castle
  47. Letters to Zell, Camille Greip
  48. Rat Queens, Vol 2
  49. Magonia, Maria Dahvana Headley
  50. Updraft, Fran Wilde
  51. Shimmer 26
  52. The House of Shattered Wings, Aliette De Bodard
  53. Nunslinger, Stark Holborn
  54. The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
  55. Archivist Wasp, Nicole Korner-Stace
  56. The Shadow Revolution, Clay and Susan Griffin
  57. The Undying Legion, Clay and Susan Griffin
  58. Gutshot, Amelia Gray
  59. The Conquering Dark, Clay and Susan Griffin
  60. Wylding Hall, Elizabeth Hand
  61. Last Summer at Mars Hill, Elizabeth Hand
  62. Delia's Shadow, Jaime Lee Moyer
  63. The River of No Return, Bee Ridgway
  64. The Time Tutor, Bee Ridgway
  65. Shimmer 27
  66. Lost Angeles, Lisa Mantchev
  67. Walk on Earth a Stranger, Rae Carson
  68. Vengeance Road, Erin Bowman
  69. Binti, Nnedi Okorafor
  70. Life and Death, Stephenie Meyer
  71. The Pleasure Merchant, Molly Tanzer
  72. Nancy Drew, The Clue of the Black Keys
  73. Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell
  74. The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter
  75. Cocaine Blues, Kerry Greenwood
  76. The Pleasure Merchant, Molly Tanzer
  77. Shimmer 28
  78. Waking the Moon, Elizabeth Hand
  79. Carry On, Rainbow Rowell
  80. Hild, Nicola Griffith
  81. The Winter Sea, Susanna Kearsley