Discovery of the year was Sarah Monette. I finally read her stories of Kyle Murchison Booth, which were exquisite and delightful and unsettling and sad and often very funny -- as, it turns out, are most of the rest of her stories. I can't wait to read her novels, both the old Doctrine of Labyrinths series and her new novel (written pseudonymously ( Read more... )

41. A Civil Campaign (1999) by Lois McMaster Bujold -- Courtship and romance, Vorkosigan style. Featuring pretty much every character in the series who isn't a mercenary. A delightful whirlwind of whoops, and post-whoops salvage. Plus some Barrayaran politics. The butter bug subplot was a bit on the goofy side, but everything else was great fun. [ ( Read more... )

The book I am currently reading: Only one? I'm reading Bujold's Cetaganda, Death's Acre by Bass & Jefferson, Evolution's Rainbow by Roughgarden, The Voyage of Night Shining White by Roberson, Terminus by Howse, and several others.

The book I am currently writing: Not happening right now.

The book I love most: When it comes to books I am a serial ( Read more... )

28. Air (2008-2010) by G. Willow Wilson (words) and M.K. Perker (pictures) -- This comic suffered a problem fairly common to graphic novels canceled after only a year or two: it reads like most of an opening act suddenly shunted into a conclusion. But this book has problems beyond that. For one, Wilson seems to find her ideas a lot more exciting ( Read more... )

( Cut to spare those bored by lists )

104. Horse, Flower, Bird (2010) by Kate Bernheimer -- A short collection -- one paragraph per page, with even more white space than the Comeau novella -- of dark, sad fairy tales about girls and women. [Amazon]

103. One Bloody Thing After Another (2010) by Joey Comeau -- A novella from the writer of the A Softer World webcomic. Lots of white ( Read more... )

90. The Silent Land (2010) by Graham Joyce -- A middling effort from Joyce, whom I usually love. I put it down in the middle and almost forgot to pick it back up. I'm glad I did, as the second half is much better than the first -- including a couple chapters that could stand alone as fine short stories -- and the ending, though basically ( Read more... )

I'll probably edit in some comments later, when I have time, but for now I'll just list them:

79. Birdbrain (2010) translated by David Hackston from Linnunaivot (2008) by Johanna Sinisalo [Amazon]

78. Rethinking the 21st Century: 'New' Problems, 'Old' Solutions (2009) edited by Amy Eckert and Laura Sjoberg [Amazon]

77. Africans: The History of a ( Read more... )

Offered with brief commentary because I've got places to be!

68. The Old Knowledge & Other Strange Tales (2010) by Rosalie Parker -- A slim collection of quiet tales that makes a good rainy afternoon read. (It was originally to be published by Ex Occidente; I don't know what happened, but I'm glad Brian J. Showers ended up with it instead, as I'm ( Read more... )

A slow reading month. Made a little progress in a number of books but finished few. Pretty sure I've given up on Boris Vian's 1947 L'Écume des jours/Froth on the Daydream (tr. Stanley Chapman), which I enjoyed whenever I was reading it but never felt particularly compelled to return to after setting it down.

57. Interfictions 2: An Anthology of ( Read more... )