What to read next year?

[nwhyte]

In the last couple of years I've been tremendously helped by the start-of-year poll asking which books from my unread shelf you all have read. I guess my logic for this is that I basically trust the literary judgement of my friends and other readers, and am interested to know what in particular from my sagging shelves I might look at next. (I also

Comments

[girfan]

I ticked Castle of Otranto but don't recommend it. It was a book club selection that I really disliked.

[bellinghman]

You have presumably read Jo Walton's Farthing, so Ha'Penny and Half a Crown should be pushing themselves to the front.

(And I did like Queen's Bastard. mizkit getting an almost GGK voice.)

[communicator]

China Mountain Zhang and Goodnight Mr Tom are my recommendations from that list - humane books

[mscongeniality]

There's a lot more of those books on my 'To be Read' pile than I've actually read. There are few enough of them, so here's my thoughts on the ones I checked:

Guy Gavriel Kay: A Song for Arbonne Not his best, but a decent historical fantasy.

Fumi Yoshinaga: Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Volume 2 I love this series and cannot recommend the available volumes enough. I think Volumes 2-3 were awesome. Vol 4 was also excellent, but had a slightly different focus.

Editors of Playboy: Transit of Earth As with any short story collection, a mixed bag. I really did enjoy this over all, possibly more than I was expecting for such a slim collection, and it was a great reminder that Playboy used to publish the best science fiction.

Peter Emshwiller: The Host Not a great book, but there were some interesting ideas in there.

Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin Excels as abolitionist propaganda but for me, a bit less successful as a novel. I think it was mainly because I tire of getting preached to very easily. It is, on the other hand, entirely

[strange_complex]

I read and reviewed The House of the Seven Gables a couple of years ago, and really enjoyed it. Otherwise, I've read so few of these that I can't really help very much I'm afraid!