2009 in Books

[megwrites]

It's that time of year when we all start looking back at what we've done and making our lists and checking them twice and tabulating what we've done. Or read, in my case.

Here are the reading stats for 2009:





The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir
Marie Antoinette: The Journey - Antonia Fraser
The Life of Elizabeth I - Alison Weir
Mainspring - Jay Lake
Thebes at War - Mahfouz Naguib
Crystal Rain - Tobias Buckell
Heart of Stone - C.E. Murphy
Storm Front - Jim Butcher
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach
The Demon and the City - Liz Williams
Soon I Will Be Invincible - Austin Grossman
The Becoming - Jeanne C. Stein
Colors of the Mountain - Da Chen
Happy Hour at Casa Dracula - Marta Acosta
Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts - Maxine Hong Kingston
Snake Agent - Liz Williams
Thunderbird Falls - C.E. Murphy
Dead Witch Walking - Kim Harrison
The Walls of the Universe - Paul Melko
Eifelheim - Michael Flynn (unfinished)
Kindred - Octavia Butler
Ghost Brigades - John Scalzi
The Princes In the Tower - Alison Weir
Waiting - Ha Jin
All The Windwracked Stars - Elizabeth Bear
Red Seas Under Red Skies - Scott Lynch
The Pretender's Crown - C.E. Murphy
Kitty and the Midnight Hour - Carrie Vaughn
Old Man's War - John Scalzi
Throne of Jade - Naomi Novik
Born on a Blue Day - Daniel Tammet
Valley of Strength - Shulamit Lapid (unfinished)
Touch the Dark - Karen Chance (unfinished)
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent - Galen Beckett
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch
Sharp Teeth - Toby Barlow



Reading Stats
Books Attempted: 37
Books Completed: 34
Average Time to Read A Book: 10.4 days
Most Read Author: (tie) Alison Weir or C.E. Murphy with 3 books each
Longest Book Read: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch - 784 pages
Shortest Book Read: Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston - 224 pages
PoC Authors Read: 6
Female Authors Read: 18
GLBT Authors Read: 2 (to my knowledge).


Genres:
Nonfiction/Science: 1
Non-fiction/Memoir: 3
History/Biography: 4
Science Fiction: 7
Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance: 12
Fantasy: 5
Mainstream/General Fiction: 2


5 Best Books I Read in 2009 :

5. Colors of the Mountain - Da Chen. Great memoir, funny and tragic and poignant and painful, lyrically told, a great adventure and a peek into a place I hadn't been before. A tale of simple hope and endurance in hard times, of friends, family, hard work, victory, defeat, and all the things that come with growing up - no matter where you are.

4. Red Seas Under Red Skies - Scotty Lynch. Rip-roaring adventure, hilarity, heists, wonderful plot, great dialogue, awesomest lady pirates in existence and great characters. The chemistry between Locke and Jean is perfect Buddy Cop (or Buddy Thief) and the plot keeps one guessing until the end. Fun, twisting, and cinematic to read.

3. The Princes In the Tower - Alison Weir. Impeccably researched, a fair and balanced look at an oft maligned ruler and the turbulence of the period in which he lived as well as the treacherous politics all around. Weir tells the story not of the one-dimension villain of Shakespeare and Tudor histories, but of an ambitious ruler in a troubled time, a man who - despite his appalling actions - did have his good sides.

2. Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts - Maxine Hong Kingston. Riveting, searing, painful, and often mind-bending, this memoir leaves claw marks on its readers with the unfiltered exploration of Kingston's childhood and inner universe.

1. Kindred - Octavia Butler. Possibly one of her finest works, Butler, who is rightfully remembered as probably the best science fiction writer of our times, examines so many themes (slavery, family, freedom, obligation, love, hate) with both elegance and a kind of honesty that scathes a reader and compels deep, troubling thought and tells a harrowing story with characters that, while not always likeable, are nothing short of compelling.



5 Worst Books I Read in 2009:

5. The Becoming - Jeanne C. Stein. Bland, stripped-down vampire story with no real flavor to commend it, a half-written plot and nothing added to the genre with no characters worth caring about.

4. All The Windwracked Stars - Elizabeth Bear. Melodramatic, overwritten Norsepunk, illogical, ill-explained and lacking in worldbuilding with a plot that doesn't satisfy and characters that either bore or annoy.

3. The Walls of the Universe - Paul Melko. A ripoff of every time-travel episode you've ever seen with a too-lucky, bland, white bread cast of characters that read like talking cardboard and a meandering plot.

2. Soon I Will Be Invincible - Austin Grossman. Whiny, superficially thoughtful superhero farce that tries hard to be Watchmen without understanding what made it great.

1. Dead Witch Walking - Kim Harrison. Irritating, too-stupid-to-live Mary Sue heroine traipsing through a plot with more holes in it than swiss cheese and a world that's more black lipstick and fake leather than actual darkness or magic. Everything I dislike in Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance is in this book and turned up to eleven.

Comments

[lilacfield.livejournal.com]

Your post just convinced me to read the Locke Lamora novels - I had doubts before because I was afraid there wouldn't be cool or likeable female characters.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

The Locke Lamora novels are VERY well written. I will warn you that Book 2 does a way better job of be inclusive of the ladies than the first book. The first book has fewer female characters, but the ones there are come across fairly well and are three-dimensional characters.

But the lady pirates in book two make it all worth it. Without spoiling anything, there's one moment when the captain says, "Mommy's gotta go kill these bastards, you stay here, baby" that made me laugh out loud. It's really quite wonderful. Drakasha deserves her own series of books.

They're definitely, in my opinion, worth reading.