(symptom: being excessively engaged in tasks that require exquisite attention to detail, such as list-making)
Summary
85 books by 51 different authors (having read 13 by Ursula K. Le Guin, 10 by Stephen King, 4 by J. Gregory Keyes, 3 each by Robert Littell and Jonathan Lethem, and 2 each by David Malouf, Richard K. Morgan, Cormac McCarthy, Alistair MacLeod, David Liss, and Stephen Leather), a year in which the books I read were written by authors born in the United Kingdom and its current and former colonies, with the exception of one Italian and one Lebanese.
Genres
Essays, 1%
Action & adventure, 1%
Nonfiction, 2%
Young adult, 4%
Horror, 4%
Humor, 5%
Alternate history, 5%
Romance, 6%
Historical, 9%
Short stories, 9%
Thriller / suspense, 14%
General & literary fiction, 15%
Scifi, 20%
Mystery & detective, 21%
Fantasy, 26%
(total greater than 100 due to some books fitting multiple categories)
54 out of the 85 (64%) won a major award or were named to a Best Of list in the year of their publication
My Ratings (out of 10)
9 or 10, 8%
7 or 8, 41%
5 or 6, 44%
4 or less, 7%
Top 10 Reads of 2008
- The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (2006 - post-apocalyptic epic)
- Tales from Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin (2001 - fantasy short stories)
- The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin (1974 - utopian scifi)
- A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin (1968 - bildungsroman fantasy)
- Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes (1966 - scifi)
- The Girls, by Lori Lansens (2005 - literary bildungsroman)
- Wizard and Glass, by Stephen King (1997 - romantic fantasy)
- The Great World, by David Malouf (1990 - historical literary fiction)
- The Echo Maker, by Richard Powers (2006 - contemporary literary fiction)
- The Fortress of Solitude, by Jonathan Lethem (2003 - bildungsroman with superheroes)
Least Favorite Books of 2008
- Sarah's Psalm, by Florence Ladd (1996 - romance)
- The Compass Rose, by Ursula K. Le Guin (1982 - short stories)
- Market Forces, by Richard K. Morgan (2004 - scifi)
- The Traveling Vampire Show, by Richard Laymon (2000 - horrific bildungsroman)
- Paying the Piper, by Sharyn McCrumb (1988 - mystery & detective)
- Miniatures, by Norah Labiner (2003 - fictional biography)
- Big Time, by Fritz Leiber (1958 - scifi)
- Solomon's Knife, by Victor Koman (1990 - medical mystery)
- The Beast of Heaven, by Victor Kelleher (1995 - post-apocalyptic scifi)
- Allegro Postillions, by Jonathan Keates (1983 - short stories)
The Chronological List
January
Flowers for
Algernon, by Daniel Keyes
The Waste Lands, by Stephen King
The Traveling
Vampire Show, by Richard Laymon
The Bottoms, by Joe R. Lansdale
Interpreter of
Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri
February
The Delinquent
Virgin, by Laura Kalpakian
The Stillborn God, by Mark Lilla
Wizard and
Glass, by Stephen King
Hard Landing, by Stephen Leather
Grave Endings, by Rochelle Krich
March
The Dark Tower, by Stephen King
Solomon’s Knife, by Victor Koman
Allegro
Postillions, by Jonathan Keates
Empire of
Unreason, by J. Gregory Keyes
The Dead Circus, by John Kaye
A Calculus of
Angels, by J. Gregory Keyes
Song of
Susannah, by Stephen King
Firelings, by Carol Kendall
Simply Magic, by Kathleen Kane
Wolves of the
Calla, by Stephen King
The Reckoning, by Jeff Long
April
The Big Over
Easy, by Jasper Fforde
Seven Up, by Janet Evanovich
Ruby Dice, by Catherine Asaro
Black House, by Stephen King & Peter Straub
No Country for
Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy
The Shadows of
God, by J. Gregory Keyes
Cleopatra’s
Nose, by Judith Thurman
Lingala Code, by Warren Kiefer
May
Grendel, by John Gardner
The Farthest
Shore, by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Tombs of
Atuan, by Ursula K. Le Guin
A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Beast of
Heaven, by Victor Kelleher
Lisey’s Story, by Stephen King
Gate of the Sun, by Elias Khoury
From a Buick 8, by Stephen King
Desperation, by Stephen King
June
The
Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Lost Girl, by D. H. Lawrence
The Diagnosis, by Alan P. Lightman
The Mist, by Stephen King
The Other
Wind, by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Left
Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Tehanu: The
Last Book of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin
July
Blood Red
Roses, by Margaret Lawrence
Miniatures, by Norah Labiner
Legends, by Richard Littell
The Debt to
Pleasure, by John Lanchester
The Amateur, by Robert Littell
The Company, by Robert Littell
Almost Blue, by Carlo Lucarelli
Sarah’s Psalm, by Florence Ladd
August
The Telling, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Mr. Spaceman, by Robert Olen Butler
Tales from Bective Bridge, by Mary Lavin
The Man Who Loved Morlocks, by David Lake
The Beginning Place, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Always Coming
Home, by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Big Time, by Fritz Leiber
Tango One, by Stephen Leather
The Girls, by Lori Lansens
September
Gods Behaving
Badly, by Marie Phillips
Gun, With
Occasional Music, by Jonathan Lethem
The Fortress of
Solitude, by Jonathan Lethem
Home from the
Vinyl Cafe, by Stuart McLean
Motherless Brooklyn, by Jonathan Lethem
Hurricane Punch, by Tim Dorsey
The
Echo Maker, by Richard Powers
October
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J. K. Rowling
Changing
Planes, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Compass Rose, by Ursula K. Le Guin
A Spectacle of
Corruption, by David Liss
Tales from Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin
A Conspiracy of
Paper, by David Liss
November
Broken Angels, by Richard K. Morgan
The Great World, by David Malouf
Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan
No Great Mischief, by Alistair MacLeod
December
Paying the Piper, by Sharyn McCrumb
Remembering Babylon, by David Malouf
Market Forces, by Richard K. Morgan
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
