***2013: Best Reads, Worst Reads, Stats, and Thoughts about Your Reading

I see that some people are starting to post their best books of the year so I thought I would start this thread so we have a place to see everybody's thoughts.

This isn't just for your best books, but for any other information you would like to share about your reading for the year, whether the worst books, stats, thoughts, or anything else. If you like to pick a number (i.e., 5 best, 10 best, etc.), go right ahead, but I for one will eschew numbers because I'm in the happy position of having read a lot of great books. However, I won't be posting until the end of the week, at the soonest. But for you early birds, we're eager to see your lists.

Top ten fiction, in (approximate) order of favoring
1. Creation - Simply amazing historical fic. Completely packed with information presented in an engaging story. Marvelous.
2. Watership Down - Children's classic that I'd sadly never read. Full of humor and touching moments, in the struggle to survive.
3. The Good Lord Bird - Fabulous historical fic about John Brown and the time period leading up to the tiny bit most people know about him. Wonderful story, made me laugh and cry.
4. Evolution Man, Or, How I ate my father - This was a hilarious and also kind of poignant, in its satirical way, look at humans & evolution.
5. Master of Petersburg - Really wonderful writing, historical fic that captures the feel of Dostoevsky quite well.
6. Alias Grace - Great fictionalized depiction of a true brutal murder and the woman convicted of it, brilliantly done.
7. The Gun Seller - Hilarious thriller, with pretty much every cliché & trope imaginable, but intentionally. Almost a satire of the genre but not quite. Great romp!
8. Bend Sinister - Couldn't possibly make a "best" list w/o including Nabokov! Even with parts being over my head, his writing is just phenomenal.
9. Cat's Cradle - Amusing satiric apocalyptic story, what's not to love? Put me in mind of Tom Robbins, whom I adore.
10. Temple - Great fast-paced action-adventure-suspense/thriller with multiple layers and storylines going on.
Top five non-fic picks
1. Education of a Felon - Edward Bunker's biography, he was a fascinating man with a really interesting life.
2. Schindler's Ark - Everyone knows about this amazing tale.
3. An Air War with Cuba - Not the best read (it was a bit dry) but full of information most people have no idea about.
4. Black Elk Speaks - There's complaint about Neihardt and how much of it was his voice/reinterpretation of what Black Elk said, but even still, Black Elk was quite a man and his story is more than worthwhile reading.
5. My Promised Land - I have never seen anyone provide such an unbiased look at Israel before. Shavit does all the research and conducts all the interviews to give both sides of the picture, the "triumphs and tragedies" of Israel. He doesn't attempt to sway one way or the other, just gives all the background.

Dishonorable mentions
Sultan of Monte Cristo - Miserable piece of dreck, bad writing and horribly stealing someone's characters as a gimmick to get attention. Had the characters been original and not a twisted crap version of things from Monte Cristo, it might've been halfway decent.
Boy Who Played With Dark Matter - (same author/series as above) Because this one was slightly more original (though it's a bit too Wrinkle in Time-y, really), it was a little better, but it's not worth anyone's time.
Kafka on the Shore - I gave this one 3.5★, the writing was fine, I mostly enjoyed reading it, but what it left me with in the end? No good.
The Kite Runner - This was one of the most morbid depressing things I've ever read, with no redeeming value whatever, about a selfish brat who grows into a naïve ignorant adult.

My top six that I read this year:

The Stranger by Albert Camus- If the world goes on without us after we die, is life meaningless?

Hi, This is Conchita and Other Stories by Santiago Roncagliolo- Once again, we are all going to die in the end. Was my reading morbid this year or what?

The Trial by Franz Kafka- If life and death are absurd, bureaucracy might be even more absurd.

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh- I find fiction about the opium trade to be interesting, but I don't know why.

The Fortune of the Rougons by Emile Zola- I'm a sucker for contemporary critiques of nineteenth century society.

Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison- How does how we choose to self-identify when we are young determine who we become?

My top reads of the year:


Thinking About the Earth: A History of Ideas in Geology by David Oldroyd
The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance by Henry Petroski
Salvador by Joan Didion
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
Seeking Palestine: New Palestinian Writing on Exile and Home by Penny Johnson
One Man's Justice by Akira Yoshimura
The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell
Rough-Hewn Land: A Geologic Journey from California to the Rocky Mountains by Keith Heyer Meldahl
Bedrock: Writers on the Wonders of Geology by Lauret E. Savoy, Eldridge M. Moores, and Judith E. Moores
On Parole by Akira Yoshimura

Other really good books:

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
Going Bovine by Libba Bray
When she Woke by Hillary Jordan

I put together a top 20...

1. Beloved (1987) by Toni Morrison
2. Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace (2012) by D. T. Max
3. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1601) by William Shakespeare
4. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader (1998) by Anne Fadiman
5. Seeking Palestine (2013) by Penny Johnson & Raja Shehadeh
6. Jerusalem : Chronicles from the Holy City (2012) by Guy Delisle
7. Miami (1987) by Joan Didion
8. Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971) by Keith Thomas (I'm only 2/3 through this)
9. Song of Solomon (1977) by Toni Morrison
10. The Trophies of Time : English Antiquarians of the Seventeenth Century (1995) by Graham Parry
11. Strike sparks : selected poems, 1980-2002 (2004) by Sharon Olds
12. Sula (1973) by Toni Morrison
13. The Clockwork Universe (2011) by Edward Dolnick
14. Steve Jobs (2011) by Walter Isaacson
15. The Third Reich (2011 - but written 1989?) by Roberto Bolaño
16. Black Box (1986) by Amos Oz
17. Bomb: The Race to Build--And Steal--The World's Most Dangerous Weapon (Audio Book) (2012) by Steve Sheinkin (highest ranked audio book)
18. The year 1000 (Audio Book) (1999) by Robert Lacey & Danny Danziger
19. The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris (Audio Book) (2011) by David G. McCullough
20. The Bluest Eye (1970) by Toni Morrison

Themes
- the Old Testament - no related books here. Fizzled out in April
- Toni Morrison - all four novels I read are here. Fizzled out in July
- Prep to re-read Infinite Jest - DFW's biography is #2. This fizzled out in July
- Poetry - Sharon Olds is here. This kind of died June/July too
- Israel/Israeli Literature - three books here and the theme lives
- History of Science kicked off in July with Trophies of Time. Three books are here and The Year 1000 is sort of on theme. Theme is still alive
- I started trying audio books in September. Three of those books are here, and still going.

Best fiction:

1) Between Friends by Amos Oz

- Moving and atmospheric interconnected shorts set on a typical late 1950s kibbutz in Israel. I wonder why I liked this one...

2) Facing the Music by Larry Brown

- Original and powerful voice of the blue-collar south. Fantastic debut collection of grit, misfits and pathos from the gone-too-soon Mississippian.

3) All That Is by James Salter

- A life - beautifully told. From the WWII Pacific to a career in Manhattan publishing, Salter's protagonist makes his way through the twentieth century. Masterfully written and truly lasting.

4) Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas

- The classic 'play for voices' of a night and day in the life of the Welsh seaside village of Llareggub. Wonderful imagery and fabulous language - best heard told by Richard Burton and the wonderful all-Welsh BBC cast.

5) Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

- The classic depression-era tale of migrant workers George and Lenny in their search for opportunity in California. Beautiful and heartbreaking. Expertly read audio version by Clarke Peters.

Best non-fiction:

1) The World From My Front Porch by Larry Towell

- Gorgeous photo-book of life on an Ontario family farm across twenty-odd years. Home, history and life are here.

2) Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

- A Christmas present in 2012 and I've enjoyed making many tasty dishes from throughout the year - and will continue to in the future! Superb Levantine recipes of a mixed Jewish (Sephardi, Ashkenazi AND Mizrachi origins) and Arab background.

3) Katherine Avenue by Larry Sultan

- Photo-book: Domestic landscape of childhood and adolescence is explored with photos of his parents, their home, and their experience of the American Dream. Later we see suburbia serving as sets in the pornographic industry. It culminates in a series of Latino day labourers undertaking prosaic tasks on the suburban periphery.

4) 1948: A Soldier's Tale - The Bloody Road to Jerusalem
by Uri Avnery

- Hard hitting memoir of Zionist pioneer at war for Israel's independence. Overall, a very powerful and important piece of writing. The imagery and sense of feeling that Avneri gets down on paper will remain vivid in my mind for a very long time.

5) Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation by Aili McConnon

- Amazing and inspiring tale of one of the greatest ever professional road-racing cyclists of all time become an anti-Fascist with the advent of WWII and risk his life to help hundreds of Jews escape into hiding.

Most disappointing:

1) The Cloudspotters' Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney

- Nice premise. Started well - became repetitive and dull.

2) Our Man In Havana by Graham Greene

- Great story, lots of fun. AWFUL, and I mean AWFUL audio-book production almost ruined it. Do NOT go there.

3) Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré

- I'm a fan of le Carré, but I hate Michael Jayston's smarmy voice - so I had to abandon this audio-book. Will start again with the book itself one day.

My Ten Best Books of the Year:

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov -- I read this as part of a group read and I'm so glad I finally read this. Nabokov's narrator is unreliable and vile, but the language and writing, as well as Nabokov's understanding of the damage done to the titular character, make this one of the best books I have ever read.

The Collector by John Fowles -- I read this because of the happy coincidence of SantaThing bringing me the book and a Fowles in February themed read. This is a chilling and masterful story and while the setting is very much England in the 1960s, the events and the justifications of the main character are just as apt today.

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James -- Seriously, you guys? Group reads are the best thing for getting me to actually get to those books I always mean to read but am distracted from by lighter fare. And Victorian novels are always awesome. I need to read more of them.

Economix by Michael Goodwin -- Who would have thought that a comics explanation of economics would be both so clear and readable. If you'd like to understand how we got to where we are but find that the mention of Keynesian or supply side economics sends you instantly to sleep, this is the book for you.

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides -- This was largely a case of the right book at the right time, but Eugenides's third novel is both well-written and utterly compelling, with three main characters I felt I knew as well as my best friends.

Salvation on Sand Mountain by Dennis Covington -- Covington takes the world of snake-handling, poison-drinking Pentecostal churches in southern Appalachia and treats it with curiosity and respect. It's utterly fascinating.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers -- Another group read. McCullers's tale of sad and lonely people in a small, Southern town is utterly heart-breaking and unforgettable. She doesn't pull a single punch.

Tenth of December by George Saunders -- Not only is this collection of short stories incredibly diverse, ranging from internal domestic tales to dystopia at it's harshest, but Saunders is at the top of his game. We'll be seeing a lot more of this author.

TransAtlantic by Colum McCann -- McCann ties together three historic characters with ties to both Ireland and the new world through the women they interact with. His language is poetical and the interconnected stories shine.

Dear Life by Alice Munro -- This was my introduction to the Nobel prize winning author and I'm hooked. Her stories are quiet domestic tales with an uncomfortable underbelly. She's subtle but intense.

And because there are always a few stinkers out there:

A Few Terrible Books I Regret having Wasted Time On

The Execution of Noa P Singleton by Elizabeth L. Silver -- This is the most laughably bad novel I have encountered -- and I've read my share. The writing makes submissions to the Bulwer-Lytton contest sound like Chekov.

Black Irish by Stephen Talty -- Proof that just because you're a respected non-fiction writer, doesn't mean you can write fiction. This one features every bad cliche in the book and winds up making no sense at all.

Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry -- With a protagonist who essentially kidnaps a child on a whim, then moves in with a man she suspects of murder, not a single action taken in this book makes the slightest sense.

Best of 2013:

Fiction & Poetry:
Waiting for an Angel by Helon Habila (2004, Nigerian)
Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah (1992, Zanzibar/Tanzania)
Tuner of Silences by Mia Couto (2009, T 2012 Mozambique)
The Quiet Girl by Peter Hoeg (Danish, 2006, Translated 2007)
MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood (2013, Canadian, dystopian satire, 3rd in trilogy)
One Who Disappeared by David Herter (novel, 2011, US, SF/F, 3rd in trilogy)
Hitting Trees with Sticks by Jane Rogers (short stories, 2012, picking away)
Under the Keel: Poems by Michael Crummey (2013, Canadian

Nonfiction:
I Still Believe Anita Hill, edited by Amy Richards (2013, nonfiction, essays)
My Heart is Boundless: Writings of Abigail May Alcott, Louisa's Mother, edited by Eva LaPlante (2013)
Seeking Palestine: New Palestinian Writing on Exile and Home; Penny Johnson and Raja Shehadeh, editors (2012))

Crime fiction:
For cultural insights: Moonlight Downs by Adrian Hyland (2002, Australian)
Sentimental favorite: Standing in Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin (2013, UK)
Series winner: The DCI Alan Banks series by Peter Robinson. I read at least 12 of his books in 2013

Note: This 2013 list inspired me to go back and compile a list of my favorite books from all the years here on Club Read. Not a compilation of end of year favorite lists, but a new list of titles picked from the entire years' list of titles, this expanded favorites 2009-2013 list is posted on my 2014 thread.

Summary of my 2013 reading in general (full list of books on my thread, of course):

Looking at my list of books read in 2013 I note that ALL of my short fiction has been authored by women, and all of my nonfiction has been edited by women. My novel reading has roughly 50/50 gender parity. Roughly 25+% of my fiction and 40% of my poetry reading is in translation. My crime fiction comes from: Canada, Iceland, Scotland, England, Australia, Norway, Sweden

Since I’m relatively certain that I won’t finish any other books this year, I’m ready to post my end of year reading roundup. There’s a slight possibility I will finish one more book, but I’ll just update my stats if need be.

Overall, 2013 has been a much better reading year than I expected to have time for. My second son was born in February of 2013, and we were blessed with a good sleeper so I’ve actually had a decent amount of time and awake hours to read. I read 55 books - fewer than recent years, but still a decent amount - and discovered some new favorites. Here is the breakdown!

55 books by 51 different authors

29 women authors/22 male authors

4 nonfiction, 51 fiction

3 rereads

37 new-to-me authors

Favorites of 2013
Possession by A.S. Byatt
The Summer Book by Tove Jannson
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Germinal by Emile Zola

Almost favorites of 2013
Morality Play by Barry Unsworth
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
Of Human Bondage by Maugham
A Room with a View by Forster
The Forsyte Saga by Galsworthy
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Silas Marner by George Eliot
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

Least Favorite Books of 2013

Heart of Darkness by Conrad
A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor
Illuminations: a Novel of Hildegard von Bingen by Mary Sharrat
A Passage to India by Forster
there but for the by Ali Smith
The Thinking Reed by Rebecca West

I read so many really good books this year, that it is hard to pick favorites, but here are my picks at the moment

Favorite Fiction 2013

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
--I can't believe that I never read this before.

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
--Undine Spragg, the character I loved to hate. Written in 1913, the story could be about any number of the beautiful, spoiled celebrities one reads about in the glossy magazines today.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
--I couldn't put it down, and when I finished, I didn't want it to end.

At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill
--The 1916 Easter Uprising in Ireland is the backdrop to this beautiful coming of age love story of two 16 year old boys.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
--This is a story of love and loss, passion and longing, old money vs. new money, marriage, adultery, and perhaps most of all agnosticism vs. the faith of Catholicism. The writing is beautiful.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
--My favorite quote "EACH TIME YOU HAPPEN TO ME ALL OVER AGAIN."

Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell
--How could you not love a book that is intelligent and witty with lots of literary references thrown in. The dialog is quick, crisp and very British. It was named one of the favorite hundred mysteries of the century.

Regeneration by Pat Barker
--This book is the first in Barker's WWI antiwar trilogy, and was a Booker Prize nominee. The third book in the trilogy won the Booker Prize in 1995.

Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
--In JCO's hands, this fictional story of Marilyn Monroe's life was so much more "real" than fiction. More like "embroidered truth".

The Lucia & Mapp series - Queen Lucia; Lucia in London; Miss Mapp; Mapp & Lucia; The Worshipful Lucia by E. F. Benson
--I loved this "new to me" series which takes place in a 1920's small British town where the lives of everyone are fodder for gossip and one-upmanship.

Favorite Non-fiction

Team Of Rivals: The Political Genius Of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
--The detail is rich and the use of diaries and letters provides so much of the actual sentiment's of those involved.

No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin
--Goodwin won the Pulitzer Prize for her history of Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt, and of the home front during World War II.

Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World by Joan Druett
--This non-fiction story is a page turner that reads like fiction. If it were not for the fact that the story is true, you would find it implausible.

Seeking Palestine: New Palestinian Writing on Exile and Home Edited by Penny Johnson and Raja Shehadeh
--Recommended for anyone willing to listen with an open mind. It provides much food for thought.

Favorite Audio

The Matthew Shardlake mystery series - Dissolution; Dark Fire; Sovereign; Revelation by C. J. Sansom, Narrated by Steven Crossley
--Shardlake is a lawyer during the time of King Henry VIII.

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini
-- Full of colorful people. Part satire, part love story, it made me laugh and it made me care about a few of the characters.

This is all so interesting! I want to click on so many of the titles you all have mentioned, but that would only distract me from trying to finish another book (or being convinced I can finish it by the end of the year) so I can post my own list and statistics. I hope to do that by the end of the weekend or the beginning of next week.

I had several reading projects this year and they all turned up some gems

It was Albert Camus centenary and I re-read L'Etranger and La Peste both of which I thought were so much better second time round, masterpieces of modern literature. His essays in The Myth of Sisyphus rank right along side them.
I read seven books by Camus in total and the following were also wonderful
Resistance Rebellion and Death
Lyrical and critical essays
Between Hell and Reason: Essays from the resistance newspaper Combat

I read 14 books by H G Wells and I found something to enjoy in all of them but the best were:
War of the Worlds
The Country of the Blind and other stories
Tono Bungay
The Island of Doctor Moreau
The Time Machine
The wheels of Chance
Love and Mr Lewisham

I continued with my reading of 15th and 16th century works and the following were major discoveries for me
Machiavelli and his friends: their personal correspondence Niccolo Machiavelli
The Book of the Courtier Baldassare Castiglione
Orlando Furioso Ariosto
Gargantua and Pantegruel Rabelais
Rabelais and his world Mikhail Bakhtin
In Praise of Folly and other writings Desiderius Erasmus
Poems Clarendon medieval and Tudor series: John Skelton

Also some History books: two excellent books by Ian Mortimer Fears of Henry IV and Henry V's year of Glory and the incomparable Johan Huizinga's Erasmus and the Age of Reformation

Reading some science fiction classics also turned up some gems, many of which were re-reads for me
1984 George Orwell
Brave new World Aldous Huxley
Earth Abides; George R Stewart
The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury
Frankenstein Mary Shelley

I read four novels by Olaf Stapledon all very good but Starmaker is a real classic

My book group even managed to come up with a few of five star reeds:
Mrs Dalloway Virginia Woolf
Billy Budd sailor and selected tales Herman Melville
The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne.

I also enjoyed She by H Rider Haggard

I also must mention What to listen for in Music by Aaron Copland
and John Coltrane His Life and Music

I did not read very mush modern or contemporary literature (from 1950 onwards) but the following I would give 4 stars:
Red Sorghum Mo Yan
Limassol Yishai Sarid
Enders Game Orson Scott Card

Looking back on my reading I seem to be very much stuck in the past and that is unlikely to change very much next year. The most disappointing reads were a couple of overlong and overblown contemporary novels:
Shantaram Gregory David Roberts
The Hare with the Amber Eyes Edmund de Waal
Strangely enough these two books both had authors whose high opinion of themselves was off the Richter scale


In total I have read 87 books this year and I am already looking forward to next years reading

Well, I think I'll finish one more book by the end of the year, so it's time to post my year's best, etc. I'm happy to say I had a great reading year again and, as usual, have failed at narrowing down my favorite reads. They are listed more or less in reverse order of when I read them.

Best of the Best

Fiction
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (hope to finish tomorrow)
The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by Álvaro Mutis
A House in the Country by José Donoso
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
Onitsha by J.M.G. Le Clezio
the Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwarz-Bart
Morality Play by Barry Unsworth
Memoirs of a Porcupine by Alain Mabanckou
Kristin Lavransdatterby Sigrid Unset
The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley
The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh
Transit by Anna Seghers
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
The Issa Valley by Czeslaw Milosz
War & War by László Krasznahorkai
The Opportune Moment, 1855 by Patrik Ourednik
Lost Illusions by Honoré de Balzac
Explosion in a Cathedral by Alejo Carpentier
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
The Toiler of the Sea by Victor Hugo

Nonfiction
1941: The Year That Keeps Returning by Slavko Goldstein
The African by J.M.G. Le Clezio
Dersu the Trapper by V. K. Arseniev
The Riddle of the Labyrinth by Margalit Fox
Surrender on Demand by Varian Fry
An Armenian Sketchbook by Vassily Grossman
Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore
My Century by Aleksander Wat
The Black Count by Tom Reiss

The Best of the Rest

Fiction
Where There's Love, There's Hate by Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo
Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou
Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson
The Laughing Man by Victor Hugo
The Belly of Paris by Émile Zola
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Astragal by Albertine Sarrazin
The Necklace and Other Tales by Guy de Maupassant
To Each His Own by Leonardo Sciascia
A Harlot High and Low by Honoré de Balzac
Kornél Esti by Dezsõ Kosztolányi
Pot Luck by Émile Zola

Nonfiction
Breaking the Maya Code by Michael D. Coe
The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos by Patrick Leigh Fermor
Rue de Retour by Abdellatif Laabi
The Orientalist by Tom Reiss

Runners-Up
Maira by Darcy Ribeiro
A Dead Man's Memoir (A Theatrical Novel) by Mikhail Bulgakov
La Reine Margot by Alexandre Dumas
Case Closed by Patrik Ourednik
Blue White Red by Alain Mabanckou
The Bottom of the Jar by Abdellatif Laabi
Murther & Walking Spirits by Robertson Davies
Freud by Jonathan Lear

Fun, Fun, Fun
Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog by Kitty Burns Florey
Dance of the Seagull and Treasure Hunt by Andrea Camilleri
Lots of books by Denise Mina

Duds and Disappointments
Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple
Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera
Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French
The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves by Stephen Grosz
Pieces of Light: How the New Science of Memory Illuminates the Stories We Tell about Our Pasts by Charles Fernyhough
It Was a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past by David Satter

Now for the statistics (may not add up correctly because I'm not obsessive enough to check)

Fiction: 90 (82%) Nonfiction: 20 (18%)
Male authors: 87 (78%) Female authors: 25 (22%) (number is higher because I read two books co-authored by a man and a woman)

Authors who were new to me: 54
Books recommended by other LTers: 15
Books read for or inspired by theme reads: 40

Books on my shelves longer than 1 year: 20
Books on my shelves longer than 20 years: 5

Geographic origin of authors

Africa: 7 (Congo 4, Nigeria 1, Senegal 2)
Central America & the Caribbean: 2 (Cuba 1, Guadeloupe 1)
Asia: 4 (Burma/Myanmar 1, Indonesia 2, Vietnam 1)
Europe: 65 (Belgium 1, Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic 3, England & the UK 21, France 19, Germany 1, Hungary 3, Italy 5, Norway 1, Poland 3, Russia/Soviet Union 5, Yugoslavia and the Countries It Broke Up Into 1)
Middle East and North Africa: 2 (Morocco 2)
South America: 11 (Argentina 5, Brazil 2, Chile 1, Colombia 1, Peru 2)
US and Canada: 20 (US fiction 7, US nonfiction 11, Canada 2)

Books by non-US/UK/Canadian authors: 68 (62%)

So what do I make of this?

I should continue to try to read more books by women; my total by female authors would have been much lower if I hadn't discovered Denise Mina!

I think I did pretty well at reading globally, but I would like to continue to broaden my reading.

Beyond that, I just like to read what strikes my fancy at the moment!

Looking back, it's been a light reading year, but the standouts have been:

Fiction
1. Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov - satire about Ukraine. With a penguin.
2. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters - not much actually happens, and that is what gets under your skin.
3. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis - the future of history academic research involves time travel, in this case to the time of the plague.

Non-fiction
The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can't be Jammed by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter - they make some odd leaps and links, but I still find myself making reference to it in conversations.

Biggest disappointment
An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin. Overall reaction was I-couldn't-care-less what happened to the vapid, self-involved characters. And I've found his other books to have both sympathy and heart.

I tried several times to come up with an overall "best" list for my 2013 reading, but couldn't come up with a satisfactory way of comparing apples and oranges. So here it is by category:

Best Literary Fiction Pre-1900
The Kill by Émile Zola
The Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo
A Harlot High and Low by Honoré de Balzac
The Nun by Denis Diderot
Shirley by Charlotte Brontë

Best Literary Fiction Post-1900
The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier
The Passion According to G. H. by Clarice Lispector
Pilgrimage, a series of 13 novels by Dorothy Richardson
The Witness by Juan José Saer
Tarr by Wyndham Lewis

Most Entertaining Fiction Pre-1900
Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the dog) by Jerome K. Jerome
The Indiscreet Jewels by Denis Diderot
The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honoré de Balzac
The Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo
Tirant lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell

Most Entertaining Fiction Post-1900
Skios by Michael Frayn
Hi, This Is Conchita and Other Stories by Santiago Roncagliolo
419 by Will Ferguson
Firefly by Severo Sarduy
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, Gothic Pre-1900
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe

Most Intriguing Utopian Society
The City of the Sun by Tommaso Campanella
Utopia by Thomas More
Voyage to the Moon by Cyrano de Bergerac
The Southern Land, Known by Gabriel de Foigny
New Atlantis by Francis Bacon

Best Decadent, Surreal, Transgressive
The Road to Darkness by Paul Leppin
Opium and Other Stories by Géza Csáth
The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
The Devil in Love by Jacques Cazotte
The Dark Domain by Stefan Grabinski

Best Non-Fiction
Memory of Fire by Eduardo Galeano
The Wars of the Roses: England’s First Civil War by Trevor Royle
The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and the Sophists by Robin Waterfield
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert Camus
The Isles: A History by Norman Davies

Favorite Book Cover



Statistics

137 books read, of which
108 were novels
16 other fiction
15 non-fiction

In 2012 I read 135 books, so I seem to be holding a steady pace. 79% novels is higher than it should be for a well-rounded reading life, but it isn’t likely to change much in the coming year. My non-fiction reading definitely improved over 2012 when I read only one.

101 different authors, of which
69 were new to me
95 books by male authors
34 books by female authors

26% female authors isn’t bad when you consider how much of my reading is pre-1900 when female writers were less common

Books read by author’s nationality:
52 – English
28 – French
12 – American
5 – Scottish
4 – Canadian
37 – from 26 other nationalities

Only 9% of the books I read were by American authors, compared to 38% English and 20% French. This reflects, in part, the reading I did in preparation for my vacation to Britain. The high percentage of French authors was caused by a combination of the Author Theme Reads group’s focus on French authors and the centennials of Albert Camus and Denis Diderot.

Books read by original language:
75 – English
29 – French
8 – Spanish
27 – from 16 other languages

With 46% of my reading being works in translation I fell a bit short of last year’s figure of 54%, but this was probably because of my vacation reading.

Books read by date of first publication
16 – 21st century
63 – 20th century
30 – 19th century
16 – 18th century
6 – 17th century
8 – earlier

Probably the most attractive feature of my 2013 reading is how evenly spread over time periods it has been. I read at least one book from every decade from 1810 to the present.

I had another great reading year. Of the 90 books I finished,

I had 3 five star reads:

Wuthering Heights - a reread, this time with the Norton Critical Edition
Pride and Prejudice - another reread, this time with two heavily annotated editions--it was just like reading the book and chatting about it with an intelligent friend at the same time.
The Children's Book, AS Byatt

other outstanding books:

Eating Dirt: Deep Forest, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe, Charlotte Gill
The Beginning of Spring, Penelope Fitzgerald
The Literary Detective, John Sutherland
First Fruits, Penelope Evans
The Shooting Party, Isabel Colegate
the House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
Witch of Exmoor, Margaret Drabble
MacBeth, Shakespeare
What a Carve Up!, Jonathan Coe
Case Histories, Kate Atkinson
Lives of Girls and Women, Alice Munro
The Stranger's Child, Alan Hollinghurst
Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free from Warren Jeffs, Elissa Wall
The Dinner, Herman Koch
Fear and Trembling, Amelie Nothomb

Disappointments:
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle

Discoveries
John Sutherland
Kate Atkinson
Jonathan Coe
and the Penelopes: Penelope Fitzgerald, Penelope Evans, Penelope Lively

non-fiction: 21 + 8 memoir= 29
fiction: 61

female author: 54
male author: 36

also:

- 67 new-to-me authors
- 85 different authors
- 14 audiobooks

Nationality of authors:

UK - 40
US - 22
Canada - 14 (inc 2 books originally written in French)
Australia - 3
France - 2
and one each for China, Ireland, New Zealand, India, Belgium/Japan, Netherlands, Vietnam, Unknown (prob US).

#15 - Steven - Oooh, favourite cover, what a great idea. Unfortunately, I could only narrow mine down to 7, so I won't clutter up this thread.

Well, 2013 is rapidly disappearing. (At least in my time zone. I know many of you are already in 2014!) It's definitely past time for my roundup of the year, in any case, so let's see...

My best books read in 2013 (i.e. books I rated 4.5 stars or higher):

Fiction
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente
The October Country by Ray Bradbury
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Un Lun Dun by China Mieville
The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

Non-fiction
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Allison Bechdel
The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution by Sean B. Carroll
Economix: How Our Economy Works (and Doesn't Work) in Words and Pictures by Michael Godwin
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen by Sylvie Simmons
Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost & Gail Steketee
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

Humor
Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh
Science: Ruining Everything Since 1543 by Zach Weinersmith

Wow, looking over that list, that seems like a pretty great year of reading! Let's offset it with a list of the year's most disappointing reads. That is, books I expected to or really wanted to like, and didn't, or which fell far short of expectations.

Most Disappointing Reads of 2013
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
Reached by Allie Condie
The Man Who Lied to His Laptop: What Machines Teach Us About Human Relationships by Clifford Nass
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

There we go. No in-depth statistical analysis of the years' reading from me, I'm afraid. Suffice it to say that it was the usual eclectic mishmash.

Except in fiction, I didn't read enough books this year (67) to have a top five in any category, as some might sneak in that might not otherwise deserve the title, but here goes with some thoughts:

Most Fun Reads of 2013 (also excellent books)
The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

Most Surprising Reads that I hadn't expected to like but did and still think about
Fiction: 419 by Will Ferguson
Nonfiction: Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O Frost and Gail Steketee (thanks to bragan for directing me there)

Highlights, Fiction
Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac
The Armies by Evelio Rosero
Age of Iron by J M Coetzee
Barren Lives by Graciliano Ramos
The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa

Highlights, Non Fiction
Just Send Me Word by Orlando Figes
The Wandering Jews by Joseph Roth
The Gate by Francois Bizot

Worst Books
Martin's Dream by Clayborne Carson (far too much about the author and far too little about King)
Paradises by Iosi Havilio (well written but completely failed to engage the reader)

One of the good things was that just over 47% of my fiction reading was in translation, and 33% of my nonfiction reading was in translation, which is important to me. I read from a reasonable array of countries in fiction:
9 USA
6 Canada (5 Anglo, 1 Franco)
5 Scotland
4 each, England and France
3 each South Africa, Sweden and China
2 each Argentina, Peru and Germany
1 each, Colombia, Brazil, Australia, Ukraine, Russia, Estonia, Finland, Ireland

Authors read more than once were
William Boyd
Gabriel García Marquez
Mo Yan
Mario Vargas Llosa

The most surprising thing was how few nineteenth century writers I read: only two, Balzac and Dumas. This is usually a big area for me.

All in all, not a bad year for quality, but I really have to read more, the way I once did.

Oh, I loved The Long Ships, so much so that I might reread it someday.

.