I’m seeing a lot of top-ten lists for the first half of 2015. For example, here’s Random Musings. Yes, yes, I do mean to get to I’ll Meet You There and Bone Gap eventually. Brandy’s reviews were persuasive.
Then here’s Maureen’s list from BySingingLight. By an amazing coincidence, there’s Bone Gap and Uprooted again. Really, I do mean to try Bone Gap one of these days.
Here’s Chachic’s list, and lo! Uprooted and Once Upon a Rose. Also, I’m happy to see Pure Magic made Chachic’s list.
There’s lots more. Talk about a popular topic. Here’s Bibliotropic’s list, and here are the Book Smugglers. I like the way Ana and Thea separate their lists into published-this-year vs published-whenever, because I do hate to see earlier books fade to black on lists of this kind. Ana and Thea both have Uprooted, again — I’m guessing Ria might not have read Uprooted yet, because man, it is EVERYWHERE.
Including my list, yes.
You can sure see which months I’m working seriously on something and which months I’m not. I read 13 books in January, 11 in February, and 1 in March. That’s when I was finishing the House of Shadows sequel, Door Into Light.
Then I read 12 books in April, but was busy in May, preparing to bring out the Black Dog Short Stories and Pure Magic. Oh, and also working on the photo album for my parents’ Golden Wedding Anniversary, so only 2 books in May. Then 9 so far in June because even though I’m working on The White Road of the Moon, I had quite a lot of time where I was too distracted to do anything useful, but not so very distracted that I couldn’t read. Hours a day to pour into reading! July will be a dead month for reading fiction, I’m pretty sure.
So that’s a mere 38 books so far this year, which is dreadful. DREADFUL. But some of them have been excellent, so there’s that.
January favorites: Eight Days of Luke by DWJ and The Shadow Throne by Django Wexler.
February favorites: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie, Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge, Once Upon a Rose by Laura Florand. Wow, that’s eclectic.
March favorite: I only read one book in March, but on the other hand, I did enjoy it very much. It was Vision in Silver by Anne Bishop.
April favorite: is there any question? Tracker by CJC.
In May, I only read two books and neither was good enough to count as a favorite.
June favorites: The Golden Age trilogy was a favorite by the time I got to the third book, mostly because wow, the setting is so fabulous. Also, YES, FINE, Uprooted was definitely a favorite and I’m sure it will be one of my top reads for 2015. And . . . to my surprise . . . An Aria of Omens makes the list, squeaking in just under the wire for June.
I even wonder if my mother might like this series, and usually she sticks to old-fashioned mysteries — Rex Stout, Ngaio Marsh, you know. She doesn’t care for modern mysteries, but I think this might appeal to her more than most because of the protagonist’s somewhat old-fashioned sensibilities and language. My mother would appreciate the Miss Manners references, too. In fact, now that I think of it, it would be great if Patrice Greenwood would start actually having Ellen *quote* Miss Manners. You all have read some of Miss Manners’ columns, right? Because they’re hilarious. Accurate, too.
Anyway! Those are my picks for 2015 so far. That’s nearly a quarter of all the books I’ve read this year! Ah, every year I seem to read fewer books. I still have a lot to do this year after finishing White Road, too. Maybe next year I can take something of a break and kind of catch up.
How about you all? Any titles that have particularly stood out for you so far?
And, if you haven’t read Uprooted yet, have you got it on your TBR list?
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Hahaha I love how we all have Uprooted in our lists. SUCH A GOOD BOOK! Thank you for linking to my post. Happy to have included Pure Magic in my list, I can’t wait to read the next book in that series. I’m also planning to read Bone Gap this year. Also Cuckoo Song and The Lie Tree.
The Lie Tree! Yes, I *really* want to read that, and shoot, I might as well AIM for reading it in the very same year it comes out. Just to be different.
I’m looking forward to Uprooted and The Lie Tree, but what really caught my attention is your mention of a sequel to House of Shadows!
I was hoping to find out what happened next, but I wasn’t sure if the fate of the kingdoms was left deliberately ambiguous.
I went into Uprooted convinced there was no way it was going to live up to all they hype. But yes, there’s a reason it is on every list.
(The Book Smuggler’s review of Bone Gap is more convincing than mine, but yes, this is a book I think you will like.)
Hah, thanks! I’m waiting for comments back from my agent before I revise, in the sense of I don’t *actually want* comments back because I’m too busy right now to think about it. But I’m hoping to have that revised and ready to go by, say, November. Though if Orbit turns out to want it, it’ll probably be a couple years before it comes out. Still . . . I wanted to write it, I wrote it, it’s basically done, and I’m fairly happy with the draft so far. Hopefully everyone who enjoyed House of Shadows will like it, too.
I’m pretty sure I added Bone Gap to my wishlist after your review, but I’ve seen other reviews here and there and I’m pretty sure you’re right! It came out this year, right? (Having checked, I see it is indeed so.) I’ll try to read it in time to nominate it for stuff next year. Actually, I’m kind of stacking up with excellent books that came out this year. So far on my list: In the Country of Ice Cream Star — I didn’t like it exactly, but I definitely admired it; Uprooted; and given all I’ve been hearing, maybe Bone Gap, too. And who knows what else. I’m trying to keep a specific list of titles published this year so I can keep track better.