Nicholas (nwhyte) wrote,
Nicholas
nwhyte

Books of 2012 and 2013

Looking back, I discovered that I never did a proper books roundup of 2012, unlike in previous years (2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005). Well, there's plenty of time to put that right. So here are my picks of both last year and this, in various categories. (Curses - LJ ate a long version of this post, so I'm going to be much briefer than I wanted. Probably just as well)


Total books: 237 this year, 259 last year - more than 2006 or 2007, less than any year since. More active weekends, plus devoting some commuting time to watching Doctor Who and Game of Thrones episodes.
Total page count: ~68,000 pages this year, ~77,800 last year, ~88,200 in 2011

Diversity: 71 (30%) by women this year, 65 (25%) by women last year - compares with 22% in 2011, 23% in 2010, 20% in 2009, 12% in 2008 and I don't seem to have counted previously. This year's total augmented by 10 Agatha Christie novels.
11 (5%) by PoC this year, 12 (5%) by PoC last year - compares with 5% in 2011, 9% in 2010, 5% in 2009, 2% in 2008. Could do better.

Most books by a single author:
2012: Jonathan Gash (11), Ursula Vernon (6), Ian Rankin (5), Alison Plowden and Justin Richards (4 each); though the Ursula Vernon and Alison Plowden books could be considered as component parts of a single work in each case.
2013: Agatha Christie (10), followed by Terrance Dicks (7), Jonathan Gash (6), Philip Sandifer (5), Cressida Cowell, Gary Russell, Ian Rankin and Neil Gaiman (4 each).


Non-fiction

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

  46

19% 

  53

20% 

  69

23% 

  66

24% 

  88

26% 


Best of 2012: The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, by Edmund de Waal - brilliant story of heirlooms, Proust, the Holocaust and Japan.
Best of 2013: A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf - wish I'd read it when I was an undergraduate, a fundamentally important essay about literature and gender.


Non-sfnal fiction

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

  44

19% 

  48

19% 

  48

16% 

  50

18% 

  57

18% 


Best of 2012: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë - I came to it late, but much my favourite Brontë novel - seems somehow a bit more in balance than her sisters' books.
Best of 2013: The Complete Stories of Zora Neale Hurston - brilliant collection of this unjustly obscured writer, not done any favours by its publisher.


Non-Whovian sff

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

  65

27% 

  62

24% 

  78

26% 

  73

26% 

  78

23% 


Best of 2012: Among Others, by Jo Walton - like most of the Hugo and Nebula voters, I found that papersky had somehow got inside my head and shared my memories.
Best of 2013: The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss - I don't usually go for big fantasy epics, but this somehow got to me.


Doctor Who fiction

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

  72

30% 

  75

29% 

  80

27% 

  71

26% 

  70

19% 


Best of 2012: Shada, the long awaited novelisation by Gareth Roberts from Douglas Adams' script.
Best of 2013: I'm going to cheat here. Although I enjoyed a lot of the Who,Torchwood and Sarah Jane fiction I read this year, pride of place goes to Philip Sandifer's TARDIS Eruditorum series of books (vol 1, vol 2, vol 3, vol 4) which were tallied above with non-fiction, but are setting a new standard for Who criticism. (Honorable mention along the same lines to Graham Sleight's The Doctor's Monsters.)


Comics

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

  30

13% 

  21

8% 

  27

9% 

  18

6% 

  28

8% 


Best of 2012: Digger, by Ursula Vernon - a deserving winner of the Hugo.
Best of 2013: The Blue Lotus, by Hergé - the master of the genre finds his stride.


Making up the numbers were two poetry collections, Paul Muldoon in 2013 and Walt Whitman in 2012.

What do I need to round this off? Oh yes, a poll...
Tags: bookblog 2012, bookblog 2013
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