Books of 2015

[brigdh]

Finally, here is my list of books read in 2015! Most of these you can find a review of by following my bookblogging tag, or looking on GoodReads, but I'm also always open to questions.

I read a total of 107 books last year, which is almost exactly what I read last year (108). And I would have gotten up to match it, but people keeping talking to me on New Year's Eve, and so I didn't quite finish the last book until after midnight. 61 were written or edited by women (57%), 21 by people of color (19.6%), and 9 were rereads (8.4%). Ugh, those are low numbers for women and authors of color, which is partly because I spent a lot of time reading long series by white dudes (Craig Johnson's Longmire series and Terry Pratchett's Discworld in particular). But still. I need to work on that next year.

I also came nowhere near my goal of reducing the number of unread books on my shelves, and in fact my pile of books I've bought but not read is even bigger than it was last January. So I'm going to work on that too!


January
2. Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found – Frances Larson
3. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective – Kate Summerscale
7. Paladin of Souls – Lois McMaster Bujold
8. The Girl Who Loved Camellias: The Life and Legend of Marie Duplessis – Julie Kavanagh
11. Good Man Friday – Barbara Hambly
13. Mike and Psmith – P.G. Wodehouse
18. Medieval Tastes: Food, Cooking, and the Table – Massimo Montanari, trans. Beth Archer Brombert
22. Finding Emilie – Laurel Corona
24. Psmith in the City – P.G. Wodehouse
30. The Lost Tribe of Coney Island: Headhunters, Luna Park, and the Man Who Pulled Off the Spectacle of the Century – Claire Prentice

February
4. Kissing Outside the Lines: A True Story of Love and Race and Happily Ever After – Diane Farr
7. Trade Me - Courtney Milan
10 Plucked: A History of Hair Removal - Rebecca Herzig
17. Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition - Daniel Okrent
20. Queen Sugar - Natalie Baszile
23. An Arranged Marriage - Jo Beverley
25. Astray - Emma Donoghue

March
1. Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans – Gary Krist
3. Partner – Lia Silver
6. Moonshine - Alaya Dawn Johnson
11. The Harlot Countess - Joanna Shupe
13. Dawn – Octavia Butler
17. To Rescue a Rogue - Jo Beverley
17. Adulthood Rites - Octavia Butler
21. Christmas Angel - Jo Beverley
25. Imago - Octavia Butler
25. The Figaro Murders - Laura Lebow
28. Dangerous Joy - Jo Beverley
29. Open Waters - Valerie Mores

April
2. The Demon’s Mistress - Jo Beverley
5. Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow
7. Stranger - Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith
12. Tibet Wild - George Schaller
12. Psmith, Journalist - P.G. Wodehouse
19. Knights of Ghosts and Shadows - Mercedes Lackey and Ellen Guon
22. Crocodile on the Sandbank - Elizabeth Peters
26. The Trouble with Post-Blackness - Eds. Houston A. Baker Jr and K. Merinda Simmons
29. A Visitation of Spirits - Randall Kenan

May
2. Moon Over Soho - Ben Aaronovitch
4. Summoned to Tourney - Mercedes Lackey and Ellen Guon
5. The Quick - Lauren Owen
10. The Reason for Flowers: Their History, Culture, Biology, and How They Change Our Lives - Stephen Buchmann
16. Revenge of the Rose - Nicole Galland
20. Antony and Cleopatra - William Shakespeare
21. As the Crow Flies - Craig Johnson
27. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

June
5. Texts from Jane Eyre - Mallory Ortberg
5. Poison - Kathryn Harrison
10. This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education - Jose Vilson
12. In For a Penny - Rose Lerner
13. Christmas in Absaroka County - Craig Johnson
16. The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of the Blood Libel in Medieval Europe - E. M. Rose
19. The Curse of the Pharaohs - Elizabeth Peters
21. A Serpent’s Tooth - Craig Johnson
27. Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement - Fergus M. Bordewich
30. For My Lady’s Heart - Laura Kinsale

July
2. Stranger at the Wedding - Barbara Hambly
5. Headhunters On My Doorstep: A True Treasure Island Ghost Story - J. Maarten Troost
5. Any Other Name - Craig Johnson
7. Spirit of Steamboat - Craig Johnson
12. A Lily Among Thorns - Rose Lerner
12. Eric Walrond: A Life in the Harlem Renaissance and the Transatlantic Caribbean - James Davis
16. Frog Music - Emma Donoghue
21. Darkness on His Bones - Barbara Hambly
28. Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen - Philip Dray
29. Mated to the Meerkat - Lia Silver
30. Dry Bones - Craig Johnson

August
5. The Masqueraders - Georgette Heyer
7. Hear My Sad Story: The True Tales That Inspired Stagolee, John Henry, and Other Traditional American Folk Songs - Richard Polenberg
10. The Orphan Master - Jean Zimmerman
12. Sweet Disorder - Rose Lerner
16. Darjeeling: The Colorful History and Precarious Fate of the World's Greatest Tea - Jeff Koehler
21. Ahab’s Wife - Sena Jeter Naslund
23. True Pretenses - Rose Lerner
30. The Terror - Dan Simmons

September
4. The Color of Magic - Terry Pratchett
4. No God But Gain: The Untold Story of Cuban Slavery, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Making of the United States - Stephen Chambers
8. The Belton Estate - Anthony Trollope
14. The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra - Vaseem Khan
16. The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett
19. Drown - Junot Diaz
24. First Bite: How We Learn to Eat - Bee Wilson
25. Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett
29. Sorcerer to the Crown - Zen Cho

October
5. The Broken Kingdoms - N.K. Jemisin
7. Eat Him If You Like - Jean Teule
9. Mort - Terry Pratchett
15. The Plot Against America - Philip Roth
19. Sourcery - Terry Pratchett

November
1. Fevre Dream - George R.R. Martin
4. Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett
8. She Will Build Him a City - Raj Kamal Jha
10. Manners & Mutiny - Gail Carriger
14. Pyramids - Terry Pratchett
18. Sex in the Sea: Our Intimate Connection with Sex-Changing Fish, Romantic Lobsters, Kinky Squid, and Other Salty Erotica of the Deep - Marah J. Hardt
20. Penric’s Demon - Lois McMaster Bujold
22. Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett
23. Shards of Sunlight - Anand Nair
24. Sorcery & Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot - Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
26. The Grand Tour, or The Purloined Coronation Regalia - Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

December
5. Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise - Oscar Hijuelos
6. Gemstone - Anastasia Vitsky
11. Into the Beautiful North - Luis Alberto Urrea
15. Why Not Me? - Mindy Kaling
25. The Land Shall Be Deluged In Blood: A New History of the Nat Turner Rebellion - Patrick H. Breen
26. Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso - Kali Nicole Gross
29. Cut to the Quick - Kate Ross


Five Worst Books of the Year
5. Revenge of the Rose - Nicole Galland. So much promise! So little delivered! This story of a woman disguised as a man in the court of the Holy Roman Empire should have been awesome, but instead was cliched and boring.
4. Ahab’s Wife - Sena Jeter Naslund. You know, "so much promise, so little delivered" describes nearly all of these five worst books. In this one, the main character gets repeatedly told how special she is by real historical figures and classical literary characters, but fails to actually show any such cool trait. For nearly 700 pages.
3. The Orphan Master - Jean Zimmerman. A murder mystery in 1600s NYC - again, cool idea, terrible execution. I know a lot of people hate the term "Mary Sue" nowadays, and I'm sympathetic to their arguments, but seriously, the main character here had no flaws and magically managed to embody every modern virtue. Also there was a bunch of pedophilia and cannibalism, because why not.
2. The Girl Who Loved Camellias: The Life and Legend of Marie Duplessis – Julie Kavanagh. Let's guess - did this book have tons of potential that it completely failed to live up to? Yep! Instead of writing any sort of biography, social history, or examination of the way the Dame Aux Camellias story has passed on, Kavanagh summarizes Dumas's play. Badly.
1. Eat Him If You Like - Jean Teule. And finally we have a book that was just totally cursed from conception onwards. The plot: nonexistent! The characters: unbelievable! The writing: awful right down to individual word choices! In summary, do not buy.


Five Best Books of the Year
5. True Pretenses - Rose Lerner. Lerner is my new favorite historical romance author, and this is my favorite of her books (so far!). A Jewish conman enters into an arranged marriage with an heiress who can only get ahold of her money after a wedding; surprise, surprise, they fall in love.
4. Darkness on His Bones - Barbara Hambly. The newest – and my favorite – of the James Asher series, about vampires and spies in the 1910s. In this one WWI finally starts, and the horror of war outweighs the horror of the supernatural in a chilling depiction.
3. The Quick - Lauren Owen. More vampires! This one is more fun; part satire of Victorian gothic novel tropes, and part genuine horror novel, a sister comes to London to rescue her (secretly gay) brother after he falls into their clutches. Mad scientists, vampire slayers, and secret clubs abound.
2. Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement - Fergus M. Bordewich. Far and away the best nonfiction book I read this year. I can't recommend it highly enough. It manages to combine a new perspective on stuff you probably already know about (Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass) with stuff that was 100% new to me (Henry "Box" Brown, the Jerry rescue).
1. Sorcerer to the Crown - Zen Cho. Everything I never knew I wanted! Heyer's Regency + Wodehouse's humor + feminism + characters of color + a postcolonial attitude! And, you know, magic. I loved this so much.


I've got a fun book meme I'm planning to do too, but this post is already long enough, so I think I'll save it for tomorrow.

Comments

[lousy-science.livejournal.com]

Bound for Canaan sounds fantastic; it'll go on my longlist.

Bloody Eat Him if You Like.... I still remember when it arrived at the bookstore I worked in and I had to explain to a colleague what it was about.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! I thought it was just wonderful, both insightful and a page-turner.

Hahaha, right? I even was in the mood for a horror novel at the time, but it was just awful!

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

HI PSMITH. Oh, and I'm curious about what you thought of The Plot Against America! Either I missed that post or just forgot about it -- off to track it down when I have time.

My gender-of-author proportions were severely skewed this year by Anthony Burgess' 99 Novels list, which is very heavily male, and then skewed back in the other direction by those ten million detective novels by the same three or four women.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Psmith! Putting up this list reminded me that I never did get around to getting thr fourth book, which I should do immediately.

My gender-of-author proportions were severely skewed this year by Anthony Burgess' 99 Novels list, which is very heavily male, and then skewed back in the other direction by those ten million detective novels by the same three or four women.
Ha. It is funny how these little decisions – to read one series, or follow one challenge – end up having such a long-term effect.

[lynndyre.livejournal.com]

The Goblin Emperor and Sorcerer to the Crown are the two I kept seeing rec'd everywhere last year - I'll have to give them a try!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I read The Goblin Emperor back in 2014 (I don't mean to be ~I was there first~, just explaining why it's not on the list in this post), and really enjoyed both it and Sorceror to the Crown! I think GE is quieter and warmer, and SttC has more streaks of darkness in its glorious over-the-topness, but they do share a lot of similar qualities.

[verdande-mi.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I should choose some random numbers and read the book that goes with it for my reading-project this year!

January has been quite a good start to the reading year and I have so many books waiting :D

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Haha, that sounds like a good a way to find new books as any! Though if you accidentally end up with one of the five worst, you might want to skip that one. ;)

I have so many books waiting :D
Me too! I'm never going to read everything I want to. Which I suppose is better than running out of things.

[lexlingua.livejournal.com]

Hi! My favourites from your list would probably be The Paladin of Souls, The Broken Kingdoms and The Masqueraders. I really want to read Sorcerer to the Crown, though. And Octavia Butler. And may be return to a Wodehouse marathon. Phew. Why are there so many great books, makes me really confused on which one to read next. ;D

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Those were all great books! It's always hard to choose a top five when I've read so many wonderful things.

Why are there so many great books, makes me really confused on which one to read next. ;D
Haha, yes! I have this exact same problem.