December Books

It 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