2015 Year in Books

[sophia_sol]

As I do every year, here's a list of all the books I read this year, with links to my reviews of them, and with stars (1-5) indicating my level of appreciation for the books. Italics mean a book is a reread. "nf" means a book is nonfiction.

January

**** Mr Midshipman Hornblower, by C.S. Forester
**** Persuasion, by Jane Austen
**** Chalice, by Robin McKinley
**** Just Plain Maggie, by Lorraine Beim
**** Lieutenant Hornblower, by C.S. Forester
??? Dangerous, by Shannon Hale
**** A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
**** Trapped, by James Alan Gardner
**** Frederica, by Georgette Heyer
**** Palace of Stone, by Shannon Hale
**** Midnight in Austenland, by Shannon Hale
**** Castle Behind Thorns, by Merrie Haskell


February

**** Wives and Daughters, by Elizabeth Gaskell
***** The Lives of Christopher Chant, by Diana Wynne Jones
**** Eight Cousins or the Aunt Hill, by Louisa May Alcott
***** Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen
***** The Princess Curse, by Merrie Haskell


March

**** The Silvered, by Tanya Huff
**** The Cloud Roads, by Martha Wells
**** Deathless, by Catherynne M Valente
**** Sense & Sensibility, by Jane Austen
*** Getting Rid of Bradley, by Jennifer Crusie


April

*** The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy
**** Little Fuzzy, by H Beam Piper
**** A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba, by Mrs Cecil Hall - nf
***** The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by NK Jemisin
*** Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott- nf
**** Brown Girl in the Ring, by Nalo Hopkinson
***** The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison


May

**** Uprooted, by Naomi Novik
***** Castle Hangnail, by Ursula Vernon
**** The Heretic's Apprentice, by Ellis Peters
*** Kat, Incorrigible, by Stephanie Burgis
***** Fly By Night, by Frances Hardinge
**** A Confederate Girl's Diary, by Sarah Morgan Dawson - nf


June

**** Black Blossom, by MCA Hogarth
*** A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia, by Ellen Clacy - nf
**** Midnight Robber, by Nalo Hopkinson


July

**** First Test, by Tamora Pierce
***** The Blue Castle, by LM Montgomery
**** Page, by Tamora Pierce
**** The Pilgrim of Hate, by Ellis Peters
**** The Summer of the Danes, by Ellis Peters
*** The Holy Thief, by Ellis Peters
*** A Woman Who Went To Alaska, by May Kellogg Sullivan


August

**** A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent, by Marie Brennan
** How to Ditch Your Fairy, by Justine Larbalestier
** Lady Fortescue Steps Out, by Marion Chesney
*** Jhereg, by Steven Brust
***** Brother Cadfael's Penance, by Ellis Peters


September

***** Fly Trap, by Frances Hardinge
*** The Story Teller, by Charles Eliot Norton
*** Islamic Perspective on Sex, by Abdul Rahman Al-Sheha - nf
**** Aunt Jane of Kentucky, by Eliza Calvert Hall
*** The Time Machine, by HG Wells
**** Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life, by Queen Noor
***** Sorcerer to the Crown, by Zen Cho
** Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic, by Adyashanti - nf
*** How to Shit Around The World: The Art of Staying Clean and Healthy While Traveling, by Dr. Jane Wilson-Howarth - nf


October

**** The Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner
** The Book of the Uzbek Humour: Parables and Jokes about Nasreddin Afandi
****The Queen of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner
**** The Martian, by Andy Weir
***** Gender Failure, by Rae Spoon and Ivan E. Coyote - nf


November

***** The King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner
***** Verdigris Deep, aka Well Witched, by Frances Hardinge
**** Butch is a Noun, by S Bear Bergman - nf
***** Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, by Steve Silberman - nf


December

***** The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Power, by Ryan North, art by Erica Henderson
***** The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel You Know It's True, by Ryan North, art by Erica Henderson
**** Alchemy and Meggy Swann, by Karen Cushman
***** Child of a Hidden Sea, by A.M. Dellamonica
**** Matilda Bone, by Karen Cushman

And here's my list of abandoned books for the year.

This year I read 73 books. DANGIT I am falling down on the job! That is an unreasonably small number of books for me to be reading. My problem is that of late during lunch hour at work I have been mindlessly reading random crap on the internet on my phone instead of reading whatever book I've brought with me, and I don't know why. I just can't seem to motivate myself to read actual books during lunch right now. idk.

21 of this year's books are rereads, which puts me at less than 30% rereads.

34 SFF
24 historical fiction
11 romance
5 mystery
10 nf
21 ya/children's
5 litfic
2 graphic novels
5 memoirs
2 folk tale collections
1 short story collection
(as always, take genre numbers with a grain of salt. Genres do not have clear-cut divisions by any means!)

14 books with a male author
57 books with a female author
1 book with a nonbinary author
1 book with an anonymous author of unknown gender
(note: I waffled a bit where to count S Bear Bergman, because he currently identifies as a man but at the time he authored the book in question he didn't, and his gender identity at the time was in fact the topic of the book. In the end I decided to count him according to his current gender identity.)

6 books with an author I know is a person of colour

My favourite book read this year that is not a reread....This is always a hard question to answer! I don't know why I pose it to myself every year. I mean, probably the answer is one of the three Frances Hardinge books? FRANCES HARDINGE IS SO BRILLIANT Y'ALL. But also possibly The Princess Curse, and also possibly Sorcerer to the Crown, and also possibly Gender Failure. SIGH. I love books too much to have favourites.

My least favourite book read this year is (also as always) a much easier question. Resurrecting Jesus was SO ANNOYING. I'm really pleased with how articulate I was in my post about my frustrations with it though!

You may be interested to hear, if you haven't noticed already, that a few months ago I finally gave up and acknowledged that really my DW/LJ tags ought to have author tags for all the book posts I make, so it's easier for me (and others?) to find past posts because I've made SO MANY at this point. So I went through my entire archive and added author tags! My book posts should be much more navigable by tag now. Really I should have done this ages ago.

(And then I went and altered the tag module on the right-hand side of my DW to only include my more popular tags instead of ALL my tags, so my million author tags wouldn't take over. As far as I can tell, that's not an option on LJ so LJ has a wall-of-text of tags on my journal home. Oh well.)

Comments

[calvinahobbes]

I love your book posts and I always make a note of how you liked a book. I'm impressed with your tag restructuring. I should probably do something similar...

[sophia_sol]

Thanks, it's always great to hear that other people appreciate my book posts. :)

And tag restructuring.... in my opinion the organization structure of anything is ALWAYS a work in progress. There's other restructurings that I still desire to make! And if I made those changes I'm sure I would think of other things that would further improve the organization of the journal. (not even mentioning my pinboard tags which are even more of a project.) But it is satisfying to inch things ever closer to the ideal.

[skygiants]

I also appreciate them, for the record! Book pooooooosts \o/

[sophia_sol]

Thank you! :D it is totally reciprocal, your book posts are amazing