It’s time for my wrap up of the books I read in 2013, and once again I’m going to start with covers.

And the first covers are ones I hated, to get that out of the way.

There are two types of terrible covers: ones that are just plain awful, and ones that are good, but I personally disliked.

We’ll start with the former. Neither of these covers are terrible, but…

Twice Tempted: A Night Prince Novel (2013) Jeaniene Frost

Jeaniene Frost has had some absolutely horrific covers, and this in no way stoops to that level. But that doesn’t mean I like it. Which is too bad, because despite the boinking, it’s a good book and one I enjoyed.

First, it’s the male equivalent of the butt-n-boobs shot, although this is at least anatomically possible.

But that’s not really what bothered me. What I dislike is that the model doesn’t match Vlad. (Yes, Vlad the Impaler, but it’s a good book. Trust me.)

Winged eyebrows framed eyes that were a blend of copper and emerald, and sleek material draped over a body hardened from decades of battle when he was human. As usual, only his hands and face were bare.
…
Unlike most well-built men, Vlad didn’t flash a lot of skin, but those custom-tailored clothes flaunted his taut body as effectively as running shorts and a sleeveless muscle shirt.

Vlad is described as always being impeccably dressed, so we get… man titty.

Next up, a cover that isn’t horrible, but I just did not like.

Fair Game (2012) Patricia Briggs

That just doesn’t look like a wolf to me. And it certainly doesn’t look like the bad-ass enforcer wolf. The position of the two characters is just … weird. And I keep thinking that’s a Pringle floating in front of them.

Now, two covers that are just terrible.

I liked and enjoyed these stories, but thank goodness I read them in eBook format, so I didn’t have to actually LOOK at either of these covers.

Got tagged in a book meme today on Facebook, and since I had nothing else to post today, I’m replying here.

Rules: In your status line, list 10 books that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take more than a few minutes and don’t think too hard – they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you. Tag 10 friends, including me, so I’ll see your list.

First off, ten? Are you kidding me? I read more than 120 books a year! I’m 42 and a half years old, and I’ve been reading since I was four! Just ten?

So, screw your ten. These are the books that have been important to me, and had an affect on me, since, say, I was a teenager.

The Hobbit – JRR Tolkein

This is the first non-kids book I remember reading, and until college, I read it at least once a year. I read my first copy, literally, to pieces.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

This is the second non-kids book I remember reading, and this book to I read almost every year. This book set the bar by which most other mysteries fall short, because no other detective is Sherlock Holmes. It’s also the book behind my love of the historical English setting for books.

The Mirror Crack’d – Agatha Christie

My other favorite mystery author is also English, but although I read many (perhaps even most) of her other books, it is only Miss Marple that I love. Her mind like a sink. Her gentle inquisitiveness. Her patience and willingness to listen that were the key to solving so many mysteries. I want to be a woman who wears purple when I am old, but I’d settle for being Miss Marple.

This particular story has parts that have always stuck with me–the woman, staring, struck as if by some terrible fate. The secretary and her nose drops that she realized, and instant too late, smelled of bitter almonds. This is what I want cozy mysteries to be, but they never are.

The Belgariad – David Eddings

I ended up with this series as part of a Christmas gift exchange at a restaurant where I worked in college. I hadn’t read any fantasy since my usual re-read of The Hobbit, and I devoured this series, falling in love with fantasy all over again, and I haven’t stopped reading it since. I particularly loved Polgara, how she fought the restrictions placed upon her, solely because she was female.

On a Pale Horse – Piers Anthony

I’ve always been slightly obsessed with death–the rituals, the pageantry, the ceremonies, but even more, the many ways that people deal with loss. This story of a man who becomes death resonated deeply with me, as did the many deaths he (as Death) witnessed. It’s perhaps what started my obsession with Good Death–for individuals at the end of their lives to spend their last days in comfort and love.

These Mists of Avalon – Marion Zimmer Bradley

I haven’t read this book in years, partially because it’s a tome, and I don’t want to hold it, but also because I fear it won’t have held up to what it is in my memory. This book kindled my love of strong, female leads in fantasy. It also caused me to have little patience for shallow, one-sided villains. Every is the hero of their own story, and I don’t believe in the existence of evil for the sake of evil.

Good Omens – Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

This book introduced me to both Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. And it’s hilarious. And marvelous. I’ve spent many many hours lost in stories written by these authors, but somehow, together, they managed to be greater than the sum of their individual parts, and I love this story better than any single book either had written alone.

Best-Loved Folktales of the World – Joanna Cole

This is another book that is worn, the dust cover lost decades ago. It’s also the reason I have two shelves of folk and fairy tales and mythology. I remain fascinated by the themes that crop up time and again in stories from different cultures. And it delights me to see these ideas and themes pop up in books.

Rising Stars – J. Michael Straczynski

This was the second comic series I read as an adult and I was completely blown away. I ended up reading it through twice, and have to be careful when I’m going through my comics, because if I flip through any one of the books, I’ll end up reading them all again, in one sitting, usually on a cold floor, because I can’t be bothered to move somewhere comfortable.

Small Vices – Robert B Parker

I picked this up as an audio book, narrated by Burt Reynolds, to listen to while I was doing cell culture. It was an enlightenment. Spenser is almost killed in this book, and instead of shrugging off the injuries, he spends months recovering. Spenser’s first attempt at the hill was as gripping and thrilling as any shoot out or chase. That might sound stupid, but it’s true. For me, the mystery has always played second fiddle to the time they spend in California, but never fear, the mystery is also top notch, and between the two, I can read this book time and again, and fall in love with Spenser just like I did the first listen.

Swordspoint – Ellen Kushner

What I find fascinating about this story is that it as classified as a fantasy, even though there is not one drop of magic in the pages, besides the magic of the story itself. It’s what I read when I want to lose myself, and completely disappear into a world that never existed, but very easily could have. This story is not action and adventure, but instead a long slow soak in a gorgeous setting with fascinating characters.

The Fencing Master – Arturo Perez Reverte

I picked this book up and discovered that, “Hey! Books that are translated into English from another language aren’t all boring crap read by pretentious assholes!” Yeah, that was a revelation to me, and led me to discover many authors who don’t write in English, whose stories I love. (See Andrea Camilleri and Sergei Lukyanenko)

Dreams Underfoot – Charles de Lint

This was the first Charles de Lint book I read, and it was adoration from the start. He writes novels, and I like those novels, but I love his short stories more, and eagerly snatch up any anthology he puts out. These are stories filled with bad things happening to people, but they are not in any way dark, and with very few exceptions, I always feel better after reading his stories, no matter how equivocal the story itself may be.

Comics

Fables: Fairest In All the Land  (2013) Bill Willingham et al (8/10)

Mystery

Jar City (2000/2004) Arnaldur Indridason translated by Bernard Scudder (7/10)
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie  (2009) Alan Bradley (8/10)
Treasure Hunt (2010/2013) Andrea Camilleri translated by Stephen Sartarelli (8/10)
Bad Blood (2013) Dana Stabenow (1/10)

Fantasy

Written In Red  (2013) Anne Bishop (8.5/10)
Chimes at Midnight  (2013) Seanan McGuire (6/10)
Fated  (2012) Benedict Jacka (6.5/10)
Deadly Descendant  (2012) Jenna Black (6/10)
Dark Descendant (2011) Jenna Black (7/10)
Libriomancer (2012) Jim C. Hines (6/10)
Blood and Bullets (2012) James R. Tuck (6/10)

Short Story

Scarlet Sails  (2013) TS Rhodes (7/10)

Anthology

Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives  (2001) edited by Justin Gustainis (7/10)
The Collected Short Stories  (2013) Dana Stabenow (8/10)

Fifteen books this month, most of which were read at the end of the month.

As far as good books, mysteries beat out fantasies by a long shot, with the exception of the first book I read in November, Anne Bishop’s Written in Red (Thanks Neurondoc!)

Genre-wise, fantasy and mystery were pretty easily matched. That might not hold for December, because I’ve started reading some mysteries series I picked up cheap for the kindle and REALLY like them. They follow the trend of mysteries set in other countries and initially written in a language other than English. So I’ll get to redo that list soon.

Anthology 2
Comic 1
Fantasy 9
Mystery 7
Romance 1

Format? Once again eBooks blew away all other formats. All paper books were new releases of series I have been reading for years and plan to keep getting in paper format.

Paperback 1
Trade Paperback 2
eBook 12

Gender split for the month was pretty even.

Male 6
Female 6
Initials 1
Anthology 2

8 female authors, 6 male authors, and an anthology heavily weighted towards female authors. Pretty good.

There you go. That’s last month’s round-up. Remember, if you click through to Amazon from the links on the reviews, I get some pennies towards MORE BOOKS!

Part I

So here are the books I’ve gathered. My initial criteria was that it was fiction and that it was written in another language and translated into English. I didn’t want to add books that have a non-English language setting, because I wasn’t sure if they counted or not. (ie John Burdett lives in France and Bangkok, and writes about Bangkok, but is British. So does that count? I decided no. Same for Pearl Buck.) But I added a couple, because the authors are not British / North American.

I also didn’t count any of Michael’s manga. Because it’s not my thing.

If I own a book, but have not yet read it, I stuck it at the end and marked it (NR). But I felt I should get partial points for possessing it.

So here’s the list:

So that’s 46 total on my shelves, of which I’ve read 40.

(And I KNOW I own a copy of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. But I have no idea where I put most of my fiction. So there are might be some other books I’m missing.)

I’ve been remiss. Translators of the above books:
Margaret Sayers Peden, Margaret Jull Costa, Sonia Soto, Andrew Hurley, Stephen Sartarelli, Andrew Bromfield, Reg Keeland, Andrew Brown

And then there’s folklore and mythology… Do they count? I think they should, but since you might have a different opinion, I separated them out.

That’s 38 more, if you think they count.

Do I have all the countries in the world? Of course I don’t. Could I read 174 books in a year? Probably. I’ve got 150 books this year, thought I’ve been slacking the past two months. But that seems… not fun.

So, readers: what non-British or non-North American authors I should read?

The radio just finished playing this story: One reader, 197 books, one year to finish them all.

How often do you read a book from an author who comes from a part of the world unknown to you?

So, my first thought was, that’s cool. My second was, my bookshelves are definitely not empty of foreign authors. Yes, American and British authors predominate, but I’m pretty sure I’ve read a lot of books by foreign authors.

So, I’ll look and report back.

And here’s a link to her website and list: A Year of Reading

Fantasy
The Thief (1996) Megan Whalen Turner
River of Stars (2013) Guy Gavriel Kay
Engraved on the Eye (2012) Saladin Ahmed
Jack The Giant-Killer (Jack of Kinrowan) (1987) Charles de Lint

Short Stories (fantasy)
Charmed I’m Sure (2013) Elliot James
Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls (2013) Elliot James
Dog-Gone (2013) Elliot James

Mystery
Through a Glass Darkly (2006) Donna Leon

Audio
Night Watch (1998/2006/2010) Sergei Lukyanenko translated by Andrew Bromfield Narrated by Paul Michael

History
The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West (2006) Chris Enss
She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth (2011) Helen Castor

The books I really loved were:
The Thief – 10/10
River of Stars – 9/10
Jack The Giant-Killer – 8/10

And, for my usual geeking out…

I read 11 books, three of which were re-reads, and two of which are books I own in multiple formats.

eBook : 8
Paperback : 1
Trade Paperback : 1
Audio : 1

It was mostly fantasy this month.

Fantasy : 8
History : 2
Anthology : 1
Mystery : 1
YA : 1

As for the gender of authors I read…

Male : 5
Female : 2

But I’ll be honest, I really thought Elliot James was a woman working under a male pseudonym.

This last post (for now) has some of my favorite middle grade and older reader books. Books I generally discovered and read on my own, and then gave to kids as they come of age for them.

Part III – Older Kids
Part II – Pre-Schoolers and Middle Grade readers
Part I – Toddlers and Pre-Schoolers

Books for Kids: Part II these are books for pre-schoolers and middle grade readers.

Part I – Toddlers and Pre-Schoolers

I realized that what I really needed on my book blog were some posts about books for kids.

Here’s Part I.

Being a woman, I have always been aware of sexism and misogyny, and how they shape the roles women take in the world. I’ve thought less, however, of the roles women played historical, assuming (from everything I’ve read and what little I remember of history from school) that female leaders and warriors are rare exceptions.

Although I haven’t recently written as much about it here (with the exceptions here and https://klishis.com/notreally/archives/10970), I’ve been reading a lot about it on Twitter and various blogs. (A good roundup of the science bits can be found here.)

What I can’t decide if whether things are still bad, or whether things are actually getting better, but as things improve more women are willing to step up and relate their stories and name the names of their harassers. My hope is that the incident rate of sexism and harassment is decreasing, but the rate of doing something about it is going up.

With that background, this post was was sparked by a couple things. I read two fantastic online articles: Historically Authentic Sexism in Fantasy and We Have Always Fought’: Challenging the ‘Women, Cattle and Slaves’ Narrative.

Additionally, I recently read two books about women in history. The first, She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth was very good, and the second, The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West, while interesting, was less well-written.

Both books raise interesting points about the various roles women played in society and how those roles were portrayed by historians, but I think She-Wolves does a much better job pointing this out.

She-Wolves emphasizes time and again how scarce the materials we have about these women—these female leaders and rulers of England—are, and how the views of these women are colored by the agendas of the (male) historians and chronicles who wrote about them.

For instance,

Matilda inherited her father’s commanding temperament, his ability to inspire loyalty, and his political intelligence—but the role she played and the qualities she possessed have been much obscured, then and now, by the preconceptions of the lords she sought to lead and the clerics who wrote her story. “Haughty” and “intolerably proud” are the adjectives indelibly associated with her name, phrases coined in those few months of her life when she tried to exercise power as a monarch in her own right, and repeated by historians ever since. Strikingly, they were never used to describe any male member of her fearsomely domineering family; and they do not fit well with what we know of Matilda in the decades before and after.
…

(T)he writer is troubled by the very idea of a woman holding power in her own right. Matilda was facing the challenge of becoming Queen of England … not in the conventional sense of a king’s partner, but in the unprecedented form of a female king. And kings did not deport themselves with a “modest gait and bearing.” Instead, they were—and were required to be—supremely commanding and authoritative.

So our opinions of these women are often formed from historical revisionism—histories written by men (of course) with a point to make (or an axe to grind). After all, most of these women lost their bids for power, so they weren’t the ones writing the history.

But the two articles, especially We Have Always Fought, point out that a lot of what women did simply wasn’t written down, and what was written was deemed unimportant solely because it was done by women.

In the US, primary school education is dominated by women. It’s also seriously devalued by almost everyone except teachers and their families—people who know how much hard work goes into being a teacher.

The other field that comes to mind when I think of a job that is seen as primarily female is nursing. Nurses are overwhelmingly female, and from what I can tell (I help in our school of nursing orientations, and so actually see each incoming class) the students getting degrees in nursing remain predominantly female. Spent any time in a hospital recently? If so, you know that the vast majority of your care will be performed by nurses.

Yet nurses are valued far less than doctors.

In the very early 90s, I was reading a lot of epic fantasy, and most of it had female protagonists. And time and again, when we were introduced to these women fighters or mages or wizards, we were always given a justification why they had taken that path. Not just a backstory, but the reason why they would follow a masculine path.

So, we were expected to be okay with gods and magic and mythical creatures, but a female fighter had to be justified or we might find her beyond belief.

I don’t read science fiction, but I do know what it wasn’t until 1995 that we had a female captain in Star Trek, and that was two years after we had our first black captain. (Says the rabid Deep Space Nine fan who could never stand Voyager.)

How is it that we were able to accept aliens and elves but couldn’t accept female fighters or women in command?

And then I come across things like this article, Invasion of the Viking women unearthed.

(T)he study looked at 14 Viking burials from the era, definable by the Norse grave goods found with them and isotopes found in their bones that reveal their birthplace. The bones were sorted for telltale osteological signs of which gender they belonged to, rather than assuming that burial with a sword or knife denoted a male burial.

Think about that for a second.

Because the women were buried with swords and knives and shield, it was automatically assumed they were male. Even though half the bones were later determined to be that of women.

[Warriors and women: the sex ratio of Norse migrants to eastern England up to 900 ad
Shane McLeod “Early Medieval Europe” 2011 19(3) 332–353]

It’s amazing just where casual sexism appears, and just how much it reinforces itself.

ADDENDUM the First:

There is a segment of the geek community that is actively hostile towards women. Lonely men who – because of their own socialization issues – have an emotionally regressed idea of who women are as people. While they believe in dragons and superheroes, a woman who is also into comics or games with her own point of view and interests is unimaginable to them — so they believe such women must be frauds.

Proud Dad Of Two Geek Girls Talks Superheroes, Disney Princesses, And Barbie

On the continued theme of the treatment of women in SFF, I also recently read a discussion (also, in part, mia culpa) about gender bias in SFF.

That started me wondering, what about my favorite books this year?

So I pulled out all the books I rated 9/10 or 10/10 (I removed audio books, which are rated on their own grounds, rather than just the story) and looked at what I had:

Twilight Watch (2003/2007) Sergei Lukyanenko translated by Andrew Bromfield
Night Watch (1998/2006) Sergei Lukyanenko translated by Andrew Bromfield
A History of the World in 6 Glasses (2005) Tom Standage
Walking Your Octopus (2013) Brian Kesinger
Madame Mirage (2008) Paul Dini and Kenneth Rocafort
Companions to the Moon (2007) Charles de Lint
Sabriel (1995) Garth Nix
Across the Nightingale Floor (2002) Lian Hearn
Heaven’s Net is Wide (2007) Lian Hearn
Slashback (2013) Rob Thurman
What Darkness Brings (2013) C.S. Harris
The Privilege of the Sword (2006) Ellen Kushner
Thomas the Rhymer (1990) Ellen Kushner
4:50 from Paddington (1957) Agatha Christie

Author M:F = 7:7

Main Character M:F = 7:6

Not too bad!

BUT

Do you see something there? Only three of those women write under female names. The rest are male pseudonyms or initials. So if someone who knew nothing about the authors were to look at the list, what they’d see would be only three books written by women, the rest presumed to be written by men.

That’s less good.

So, I decided to take a look over the past several years, and see how things stack up.

 
It fluctuates from year to year, but in general, I read more female authors than male, and that ratio is more strongly female, when you add in the number of male pseudonyms and recognize that the majority of authors writing under their initials are women.

Multiple author includes two groups: anthologies, where the stories were written by both male and female authors, and books written by a male and female team (like Charles Todd & Ilona Andrews)

And although initials can be either gender, with the exception of T.A. Pratt, what I read were books written by women. And I don’t seem to have any books written by men under a female pseudonym.

I will note that my tendency to read all books in a series will skew my results for any given year. For example, this year I’m reading all the Charles Todd (a mother + son partnership) and Donna Leon books (18) I own. When I broke my ankle in 2010 I read every Robert Crais book (10) I could get my hands on and restarted Ian Rankin’s series (18 books). And the year I read all the Robert B. Parker books in the house (28) in one month? That was epic.

It’s quite interesting that of the past several years, the number of books I’ve read by male authors has been steadily decreasing. I wish that I’d been keeping track of what I’d been reading in the 90s, because that was when I got back into reading fantasy, and discovered Mercedes Lackey and Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Then I became curious as to whether there was a correlation between author gender and genre.

This one isn’t quite as clear and easy to see and trends or correlations.

I believe that the uptick in both YA and Romance are strongly correlated with the number of female authors I read in 2012.

NOTE: As far as genre goes, a single book can be classified as multiple genres. So I read lots of books that are both YA and Fantasy (Megan Whalen Turner FREX), as well as books that are Fantasy and Mystery. (Jim Butcher or Simon Green.) So if you’re adding numbers and they’re not coming out right, that’s why.

I don’t go to cons—I have anxiety and issues with crowds—but as a fan of genre books, I keep aware of cons, and the groups that recognize genre books, etc.

As such, there has been a shit-storm for the past several months that just won’t stop, over the way women are viewed within and treated by the SFF community.

It isn’t good.

In fact, it’s so bad that some of my favorite fantasy authors refuse to join the SFWA. (Jeaniene Frost, Faith Hunter, Ilona Andrews to name three authors I adore.)

The SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America) has been full of controversy this year, most of those controversies involving the way women are treated and/or depicted. You can peruse that link for what’s happened, I have no stomach for it here.

So what’s happened now? World Fantasy Con (WFC) had planned a panel called "The Next Generation: Broads with Swords"

The Next Generation: Broads with Swords. Once upon a time the heroic fantasy genre was—with a few notable exceptions such as C.L. Moore and Leigh Brackett—the sole domain of male writers like Robert E. Howard, John Jakes and Michael Moorcock. Those days are long gone, and it seems that more & more women writers are having their heroines suit up in chain-mail and wield a broadsword. Who are these new writers embracing a once male-dominated field & how are their books any different from their literary predecessors?

This came to my attention via the always excellent Jim Hines who has been politely and hilariously mocking gender stereotypes for a while now.

My first reaction was that it would have been amusing if they’d called the panel Broad-Swords, because I’m immature and find puns hilarious.

My second reaction was, "wait, what? ‘the sole domain of male writers’? What the hell have I been reading for the past twenty some years then?"

That led to a perusal of my book database for books published between 1980 and 1990, with female fighters / women who are willing to fight if needed.

Emma Bull War for the Oaks  published in 1987
Robin McKinley The Hero and the Crown  published in 1984
Charles De Lint Jack, the Giant Killer published in 1987
Mercedes Lackey  Diana Tregarde  series, first book published in 1989
Mercedes Lackey  Vows and Honor series, first book published in 1988
Jennifer Roberson Tiger and Del series, first book published in 1986
Steven Brust  Vlad Taltos  series, first book published in 1983

Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey Thieves’ World series, published  1979-1989 
Marion Zimmer Bradley Sword & Sorceress series, first book published in 1984
Terri Windling  Borderland series, first book published in 1986

And although they aren’t fighters per se, I wanted to also point out these strong female characters:

Marion Zimmer Bradley The Mists of Avalon published in 1982
Raymond E. Feist & Janny Wurts Empire series, first book published in 1987
Terry Pratchett Discworld series, first book published in 1985
David Eddings The Belgariad  series, first book published in 1982

And these are just books I have read. There were plenty of other books published during that time, with female fighters or strong female characters, that I never read or even knew about.

So, if you’re looking for something to read, I recommend any of the above books, even though they may possibly have existed only in my imagination.

Here’s what I read in September (yes, I’m still going through Donna Leon’s Brunetti series):

Fantasy

Club Monstrosity (2013) Jesse Petersen

Mystery

Quietly in Their Sleep (1997) Donna Leon
A Noble Radiance (1998) Donna Leon
Fatal Remedies (1999) Donna Leon
Friends in High Places (2000) DonnaLeon
A Sea of Troubles (2001) Donna Leon
Willful Behavior (2002) Donna Leon
Uniform Justice (2003) Donna Leon
Doctored Evidence (2004) Donna Leon
Blood from a Stone (2005) Donna Leon

Romance

Midsummer Moon (1987) Laura Kinsale

Audio

Swordspoint (1987/2011) by Ellen Kushner (Author, Narrator) with Dion Graham, Katherine Kellgren, Robert Fass, Nick Sullivan, Simon Jones

Comics

Evil Diva Anthology Volume 1 (2013) Peter Menotti, Joe Cashman, Stephen Hood, Team Diva

I read a total of 13 books, bringing me up to 136 books so far this year. That’s already more than I read in 2010 and 2011, so, pretty good year for reading.

Since I’m still re-reading Donna Leon’s Brunetti series, this month was mostly paperbacks.

Paperback: 9
eBook: 2
Trade Paperback: 1
Audio: 1
Re-read: 10

And the genre is unsurprising–almost all mysteries. I’m coming up on three times as many mysteries as I read last year, which is pretty good. But I’ve read a lot less fantasy, so there is that.

Mystery: 9
Fantasy: 2
Comic: 1
Romance: 1

Summer is over, and so is the Summer 2013 Reading Program.

I fully admit that I fell down on the job for the past two months–I forgot to enter any books. But since I wasn’t eligible to win my own contest, it hardly mattered, since the total without my added books was 187.

That means I’m going to donate $100 to the shack. I’ll let y’all know when I do so.

The WINNER was Sherri Lewis who read 76 book. That’s more than I read this summer, and I read more than anyone else I know. Congratulations Sherry! (If you’re reading this, let me know if you prefer something that arrives in the mail or something that arrives via email.)

The runner ups was Janiece who read 35 books.

Prizes will go out soon!

And now, a bit about what we read, because I LOVE information!

The most commonly read genre was mystery, with general fiction as a runner up. I was honestly surprised that SF came in 4th, because although I don’t read it, I know many of you do.

Mystery: 44
General Fiction: 39
Fantasy: 36
Science Fiction: 15
Historical Romance: 12
General Non-Fiction: 11
Romance: 6
Biography: 5
History: 3
Young Adult / Kids: 2
Religion / Philosophy: 1
Graphic Novel: 1
Nonfiction: 1

The mostly commonly read authors were:
Philippa Gregory: 8
Terry Pratchett: 5
Neil Gaiman: 5
Diana Gabaldon: 5
Candice Hern: 4

Weirdly, I’ve read all those but Philippa Gregory, even though I HAVE at least two of her books. Those Diana Gabaldon? All me, as were the Candice Herns. But looking at my ratings, I wonder why I kept reading Candice Hern, since I didn’t apparently like her books very much. All the other authors were primarily 4 and 5 star authors.

Out of all the books in the world, three were read by one or more of you.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane: 3
The Last Word: 2
The Invisible Man: 2

The Ocean at the End of the Lane doesn’t surprise me, since it was a Neil Gaiman new release. In fact, I’m kinda surprised more people hadn’t read it. (Yeah, I haven’t read it yet. It’s on The List.)

And it looks like people most read books they enjoyed, which is a good thing!

5 Stars: 51
4 Stars: 89
3 Stars: 30
2 Stars: 9
1 Star: 1

Only a single one star rating is pretty good I think. I’m leaving the results up, so you’re free to peruse the list at your leisure.

But if you’re looking for some recommendations, here are the five star books that had comments (there were lots more 5 star books, they just didn’t have comments.)

Walking Your Octopus: A Guidebook to the Domesticated Cephalopod by Brian Kesinger; [genre: Graphic Novel] “I loved this.”

The View From Penthouse B by Elinor Lipman [genre: General Fiction] “I love a book that leaves you with a smile”

The Privilege of the Sword and The Privilege of the Sword (audio) by Ellen Kushner (Swords of Riverside) genre: Fantasy “I love this book” and “Just wonderful”

Justice for Sara by Erica Spindler [genre: Mystery] “If you enjoy thrillers then this is definitely a must read!”

This I Believe (II): The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman, eds. [genre: General Non-Fiction] “Restores your faith in humanity”

Wicked Prey by John Sanford (Prey series) [genre: Mystery] “Minnesota author writing about Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension detective Lucas Sanford. These books are fun, fast reads.”

Grimoire of the Lamb by Kevin Hearne (The Iron Druid Chronicles) [genre: Fantasy] “I love The Iron Druid series. Truth be told, it’s the characters I love most. This is a novella, or possibly even a short story, but a fun read.”

Coraline by Neil Gaiman [genre: Young Adult genre: Kids] “A beautifully written, beautifully paced, beautifully balanced book.”

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman [genre: Science Fiction] “A crystalline novella of moments, memory and friendship.”

The World of the End by Ofir Touche Gafla [genre: Science Fiction] “A heart-breaking, bitterly funny, many-layered look at life, death, love and the afterlife.”

Courting Greta by Ramsey Hootman [genre: General Fiction] “I loved this book so very much.”