2007 Book List

[zepgoddess]

I'm embarrassed. I didn't even reach 50 this year. And there are an awful lot of comfort reads on this list.  Well, it's been a stressful year.  They're alphabetized since I didn't keep up with what I read when, this year.

1     Austen, Jane         Mansfield Park
2     Balogh, Mary         More Than a Mistress
3     Briggs, Patricia     Blood Bound
4     Briggs, Patricia     Moon Called
5     Bujold, Lois         A Civil Campaign
6     Bujold, Lois         Shards of Honor
7     Bujold, Lois         Komarr
8     Bujold, Lois         Beguilement
9     Cast, P. C.         Brigid's Quest
10     Cast, P.C.         Divine By Mistake
11     Cernan, Eugene and Don Davis         The Last Man on the Moon
12     Connolly, John         The Book of Lost Things
13     Dickson, Paul         Sputnik
14     Eherenreich, Barbara         Nickel and Dimed
15     Farley, Walter         Son of the Black Stallion
16     Fitzgerald, F. Scott         The Great Gatsby
17     Gribbin, John         The Scientists
18     Hunter, Erin         Warriors: The Darkest Hour
19     Kamp, David         The United States of Arugula
20     Lackey, Mecedes         Winds of Change
21     Lackey, Mercedes         The Serpent's Shadow
22     Lackey, Mercedes         Winds of Fate
23     Lackey, Mercedes         Magic's Promise
24     Lewis, C. S.         The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
25     Lyles, Whitney         Always the Bridesmaid
26     MacDonald, George         The Princess and the Goblin
27     Marillier, Juliet         Daughter of the Forest
28     Mayer, Robert         Superfolks
29     McCaffrey, Anne         Dragonflight
30     McCrumb, Sharyn         Bimbos of the Death Sun
31     McKinley, Robin         Dragonhaven
32     McKinley, Robin         Sunshine
33     Moon, Elizabeth         Oath of Gold
34     Moon, Elizabeth         Divided Loyalties
35     Moon, Elizabeth         Sheepfarmer's Daughter
36     Norman, Donald         Emotional Design
37     Novik, Naomi         His Majesty's Dragon
38     O'Keefe, Kevin         The Average American
39     Quick, Amanda         The Paid Companion
40     Rowling, J. K.         Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
41     Shinn, Sharon         Jenna Starborn
42     Shinn, Sharon         Dark Moon Defender
43     Shinn, Sharon         Reader and Raelynx
44     Shinn, Sharon         Mystic and Rider
45     Smith, Alexander McCall         The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
46     Smith, Dodie         I Capture the Castle

And now for the awards:

• Favorite novel of the year, excluding rereads:  His Majesty's Dragon, by Naomi Novik.  It was a clever idea - what if the Napoleonic wars were fought with dragons?  But she followed through with solid characters, and integrated the historical background without any glaring anachronisms.


• Best nonfiction: The Last Man on the Moon, a memoir about astronaut Gene Cernan.  Cernan seems like he would be a fun guy to have a beer with.


• Worst novel:  Dawn by Octavia Butler.  It's not on the list because I didn't finish it, but I read about three quarters of it before putting it down in disgust.  I found this book disturbing.  A book where one race enslaves another and forces the slaves to bear the master races' children, and portrays the collaborators sympathetically, ought to be reviled.  But put some aliens into it, and it's regarded as a feminist masterpiece.  Ugh.


• Most pretentious:  Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Eherenreich.   Reviewed here.
  


• Most fun: A Civil Campaign, by Lois Bujold, with Patricia Briggs' Blood Bound as a close second.


• Surprisingly good: Superfolks, by Robert Mayer.  I expected very little from this one.  It's prose about comic book superheroes, and what could be fluffier than that?  But I found a surprising amount of depth, plenty of 1970's political satire, and a lot of great humor, particularly regarding the conventions of the comic book superhero genre.  This book  was said to have inspired the dark, gritty portrayals of superheroes that  became popular in the 1980's, and I can still see echoes of it  around today.  (Disney's Incredibles comes to mind.)