... regardless of when it was published.
Just curious who enjoyed what over the last 12 months, which books hit hardest and/or entertained the most. There will be other threads, I'm sure, focusing on books published in 2011, so lets open this up to any books you read, regardless of when it was published.
Randy M.
Hmmm, very interesting, Randy. I'm glad you've opened it up to reads rather than just a read.
1. Black Blade Blues - J.A. Pitts.
I won't deny that I'm now a fangirl for this series. Great characters, great approach to the themes involved, and really I was pretty gripped.
2. Ash & Huntress - Malinda Lo
The language is really not all that far above children's stuff, but that only serves to improve them. They're fairy tales/fairy tale inspired, with Ash being a retelling of Cinderella and Huntress being just a rather magical tale, but the introduction of lesbian themes really makes them something different. Huntress also has non-white characters pretty much all the way through, and I believe it's sparked a couple of discussions in YA circles about "assuming" the race of characters if it's not mentioned.
3. Abarat - Clive Barker
Weird, but in a genius way. Not sure how to explain it... Roald Dahl meets Stephen King? Something like that.
4. Snow Queen's Shadow - Jim C. Hines
End of a brilliant, brilliant series. I don't want to go into more detail as really it needs to be experienced.
5. The Green Mile - Stephen King
Uh... yeah. I don't think I need to explain this one.
Jasper Kent's Twelve is certainly on my short list, due to its historical backdrop, creepy atmosphere, multiple plot twists, and the overall entertainment value of the read (with further instalments to come).
Here are my favorites from this year:
Dance With Dragons Martin
Wise Man's Fear Rothfuss
Among Thieves Hulick
Black Prism Weeks
Wintertide Sullivan
Way of Kings Sanderson
Kings Wrath McIntosh
King Rolon's Kin: The Usurper Daniells
River of Shadows Redick
Farlander Buchanon
Best of the rest:
The Heroes Abercrombie
Palace of Impossible Dreams Fallon
Dark-Eyes War Coe
Looking through my list of books read, here were my favorites of the year:
The Affirmation by Priest - This is one of my top books for the last several years...well, ever, really. Wonderful exploration of madness and reality in a nice, concise package.
Both The Soul Mirror and Transformation by Carol Berg - As I've mentioned elsewhere, she's quickly moved to the top of my favorites list and I'm working through her back catalogue much more quickly than I usually read books by one author. These two are her latest book and her earliest book, respectively.
I also quite liked Bernard Cornwell's The Winter King as a non-romanticized Arthurian tale set in a pretty well-researched post-Roman Britain. Engaging throughout.
Those are my top few reads so far this year...if I look through the list of books read when in a different mood, there might be some different ones there.
Hate to do it this early, but I'll play along.
No particular order:
The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
The Narrator by Michael Cisco
Songs for the Missing by Stewart O'Nan
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The House of Discarded Dreams by Ekaterina Sedia
Mr. Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
A Betrayal in Winter by Daniel Abraham
Leviathan Wakes - James S.A. Corey
For 2011 releases my top 10 books are in order:
co-1: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
co-1: Parallel Stories by Peter Nadas
co-2 The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan
co-2 ADWD by GRR Martin
#5-10 Dancing with Eternity by John P Lowrie
Heirs of the Blade by Adrian Tchaikovsky
A Place Called Armageddon by CC Humphreys
Leviathan Wakes by James Corey
The Hammer by KJ Parker
Cold Fire by Kate Elliott
Non-2011 (older as I read some 2012 ones) releases that I read and blew me away:
The Repetition by Alain Robbe Grillet
Recollection of the Golden Triangle by Alain Robbe Grillet
A Transylvanian Tale (or Trilogy) aka The Writing on the Wall by Miklos Banffy
(They Were Counted, They Were Found Wanting, They Were Divided)
Overall I would rank these last in between my top four and the 5-10 positions
This is an easy one for me this year...
Prince of Nothing
It's the best I've read this year and some of the best fantasy I've read ever.
How did you feel about the rest of Rai Kirah trilogy? I read Transformation and thought it showed great potential but had some clear first book problems. I thought the beginning was a little too episodic and the plot started to meander a bit after the prince got sick before coming together near the end. I'm interested to see if her writing came to match her ambition in later works.Originally Posted by Erfael
This happened to me the first time I read her, too.Though she's now moved beyond that to my "hoarding" phase - I like her so much that I tend to let her newer books sit on the to-be-read shelf a long while so I don't get to a point where I don't have one waiting for me.
==========
Mine:
The Dragon's Path - Abraham: My first read from this author, and I'm much smitten. I'm not sure how I missed the Long Price Quartet, but this one shot him into my "must-buy" tier immediately.
StarCrossed - Elizabeth C. Bunce: 2011 was my year of getting past some prejudices regarding YA Fantasy, and this book in particular really stood out. It may be shorter and somewhat narrower in scope than "adult" fantasies nowadays, maybe, but I really loved the intimate manor-murder-mystery feel to the plot, and both the characters and world-building were detailed and engaging - far, far, FAR from the dumbed-down unicorns-and-rainbows-and-magic-oh-my sort of preconceptions I usually have towards books with covers like this one has.
The Cloud Roads - Martha Wells: Speaking of preconceptions - I have kind of a "thing" against stories about people with wings. It's just a button thing for me that I don't find winged-beings anywhere near as magical and fascinating as other fantasy fans. Anyway, I went into this with some trepidation, but I do adore Martha Wells, and she pulled it out here, too.
Paladin of Souls - Bujold: Loved it even more than Curse....
The Whitefire Crossing - Courtney Schafer: Great debut. I'm not sure whether it will be uber-memorable as a standalone, but if she has more stories for these characters, I'll be on board 100%.
You show me yours and I'll show you mine.
Well, as I mentioned in another thread today I just finished Tigana yesterday, which will always be one of my most beloved reads. It's exceptional.
I also reread all 11 of the Fitz/Liveships books by Hobb, and they also are among my absolute favourites.
I'm trying to think if I read anything new that I loved - mainly in literary fiction, so it doesn't count for the purposes of this thread.
Oh, I also reread Carey's series, which again I just adore.
Also read Abercrombie's trilogy for the first time - brilliant.
I did a lot of rereading thinking back on it...
N.K. Jemisin's trilogy
Anne Aguirre - Enclave
Douglas Hulick - Among Thieves
Courtney Schafer -Whitefire Crossing
My favorites were both re-reads -- Eifelheim by Michael Flynn and Replay by Ken Grimwood.
A few other standouts:
Crooked Letter Crooked Letter – Tom Franklin
The Devil All the Time – Donald Ray Pollock
Room – Emma Donoghue
Emily, Alone – Stewart O’Nan
Bangkok 8 – John Burdett
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Warded Man & Desert Spear - Peter Brett
Sword of Shadows series - JV Jones
Inda series - Sherwood Smith
Abhorsen trilogy - Garth Nix
Codex Alera - Jim Butcher
Twelve Houses series - Sharon Shinn
Vlad Taltos books - Steven Brust
Pretty proud of myself this year. According to goodreads, I have read close to 100 books in 2011.
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