Books of 2013
I didn't get to read all the books I wanted in 2013 but I did fairly well. (Some of the books I mention didn't come out in 2013 but I still mention them because this is the year I read them 1st).
I read the final two parts of the Bitter Seeds trilogy (British warlocks fighting Nazis - I need a TV series of this so badly - also the Newbury/Hobbes books because steampunk detective duo with an occult twist is the stuff my very dreams are made of) and the 4th Newbury + hobbes book, The Excecutioner's Heart plus a book of short stories set in same fic-verse. Also read all 5 of the Mortal Instruments books - I thought they were OK but I think they would have worked better as a trilogy. Read The Shining Girls + liked it, have heard there's going to be a film of it. Read Tell the Wolves I'm Home which I loved + it's just so bittersweet + sad and I hope if they do a film they do justice to it because it's a beautiful book.
Read The Guide to Being Human Series 1to 3 which altho' it doesn't have any photos is a great read - very thorough and witty/incisive (hope they do one for Series 4/5). I also read a whole bunch of plays because Ben Whishaw has starred in them - do not judge me for this! I've only seen him in Mojo, the others were Peter and Alice/The Pride/Cock - oh + I also read the book that his unaired pilot All Signs of Death is based on, the crime novel The Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death (which made me wish they would air/release the pilot that they shot). Also read Behind the Candelabra (which is the book that the film is based on).
I read Morrissey's autobiography + he's a good writer but an awful person - seriously I don't think he's ever met anyone he's liked or certainly he doesn't give that impression. Also read The Lives of the Muses which was interesting and it covered a couple of my favourites like Alice Liddell (who Alice In Wonderland was written for) and Flappers (which looked at a group of famous women from the 1920s - personally I'd have liked them to have written about Louise Brooks or Clara Bow but I did enjoy the chapters about Tallulah Bankhead and Josephine Baker). Liked Richard Hell's autobiography esp as he wrote very fondly about Sabel Starr (who he dated in the 70s) among others.
I read Angie Bowie's book Lipstick Legends which was interesting but really needed a good editor to pull it all together. Read Laina Dawes book, What are you Doing Here? which looked at how black women experience the metal/alternative music scene - also Clampdown which looked at how working class femininity has been written about in the context of pop music in the last 20 years or so with reference to the Manics/Britpop/SMASH but best of all, Shampoo. Also enjoyed The City is Ablaze! which was a compilation in book form of all the back issues of Ablaze fanzine with some new interviews/commentary - particularly enjoyed all the stuff on riot grrrl.
I read a book about 1980s Newcastle which was enjoyable and brought back a lot of fond memories plus I got a couple of books on steampunk. I read Girlfag which was interesting but I would probably need a separate post to explain what I thought about it as I agreed with some of it but not all of it.
My favourite books of the year were - Queens of Noise (finally The Runaways got a book and I loved the way Evelyn McDonnell put them in the context of where they came from + got quotes from loads of people and tried to be fair to everyone in telling the story) - Fanny + Stella (the true story of a Victorian scandal - fascinating read!) - Ziggyology (this looked at the rise of Ziggy Stardust and I just loved the way it was written, I found it very evocative and enthusiastic) - Fic (a really good book looking at fanfiction from a literary perspective with plenty of different viewpoints covered) - and finally Mad World (which is a biography of Evelyn Waugh and the people he based the characters in Brideshead Revisited on) and Brideshead Revisited itself (which I fell completely and utterly in love with).
I read the final two parts of the Bitter Seeds trilogy (British warlocks fighting Nazis - I need a TV series of this so badly - also the Newbury/Hobbes books because steampunk detective duo with an occult twist is the stuff my very dreams are made of) and the 4th Newbury + hobbes book, The Excecutioner's Heart plus a book of short stories set in same fic-verse. Also read all 5 of the Mortal Instruments books - I thought they were OK but I think they would have worked better as a trilogy. Read The Shining Girls + liked it, have heard there's going to be a film of it. Read Tell the Wolves I'm Home which I loved + it's just so bittersweet + sad and I hope if they do a film they do justice to it because it's a beautiful book.
Read The Guide to Being Human Series 1to 3 which altho' it doesn't have any photos is a great read - very thorough and witty/incisive (hope they do one for Series 4/5). I also read a whole bunch of plays because Ben Whishaw has starred in them - do not judge me for this! I've only seen him in Mojo, the others were Peter and Alice/The Pride/Cock - oh + I also read the book that his unaired pilot All Signs of Death is based on, the crime novel The Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death (which made me wish they would air/release the pilot that they shot). Also read Behind the Candelabra (which is the book that the film is based on).
I read Morrissey's autobiography + he's a good writer but an awful person - seriously I don't think he's ever met anyone he's liked or certainly he doesn't give that impression. Also read The Lives of the Muses which was interesting and it covered a couple of my favourites like Alice Liddell (who Alice In Wonderland was written for) and Flappers (which looked at a group of famous women from the 1920s - personally I'd have liked them to have written about Louise Brooks or Clara Bow but I did enjoy the chapters about Tallulah Bankhead and Josephine Baker). Liked Richard Hell's autobiography esp as he wrote very fondly about Sabel Starr (who he dated in the 70s) among others.
I read Angie Bowie's book Lipstick Legends which was interesting but really needed a good editor to pull it all together. Read Laina Dawes book, What are you Doing Here? which looked at how black women experience the metal/alternative music scene - also Clampdown which looked at how working class femininity has been written about in the context of pop music in the last 20 years or so with reference to the Manics/Britpop/SMASH but best of all, Shampoo. Also enjoyed The City is Ablaze! which was a compilation in book form of all the back issues of Ablaze fanzine with some new interviews/commentary - particularly enjoyed all the stuff on riot grrrl.
I read a book about 1980s Newcastle which was enjoyable and brought back a lot of fond memories plus I got a couple of books on steampunk. I read Girlfag which was interesting but I would probably need a separate post to explain what I thought about it as I agreed with some of it but not all of it.
My favourite books of the year were - Queens of Noise (finally The Runaways got a book and I loved the way Evelyn McDonnell put them in the context of where they came from + got quotes from loads of people and tried to be fair to everyone in telling the story) - Fanny + Stella (the true story of a Victorian scandal - fascinating read!) - Ziggyology (this looked at the rise of Ziggy Stardust and I just loved the way it was written, I found it very evocative and enthusiastic) - Fic (a really good book looking at fanfiction from a literary perspective with plenty of different viewpoints covered) - and finally Mad World (which is a biography of Evelyn Waugh and the people he based the characters in Brideshead Revisited on) and Brideshead Revisited itself (which I fell completely and utterly in love with).