Ahhh, I am one Satisfied Reader

Books!  I read a lot this month, including a 4-book saga by Lois Bujold, an author I ‘discovered’ just this year (see #5 in the list). 

A recap at this half-way point in the year.  My target was to average two books per month, because last year not even one book per month was read and that's just pathetic.  So far, so good.  A total of 21, even with no books read in May.

The math  --->  21 divided by 6 = 3.5 books per month.  WooHoo!

JANUARY

(1) Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay.  Satirical fantasy/mystery set in Discworld’s largest city, Ankh-Morpork.
(2) John Scalzi, Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded.  A collection of selected blog entries covering a decade by an award-winning science fiction writer.

FEBRUARY

(3) Neil Gaiman, fragile things, short fictions and wonders.
(4) Elizabeth Bear, The White City.  Book 3 in the New Amsterdam series, about a woman forensic sorcerer and man amateur detective who happens to be a vampire, set in a turn of the century contrafactual history.
(5) Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honor. Science fiction (SF) adventure romance.
(6) Lois McMaster Bujold, Barrayar. SF adventure romance, continuation of Shards of Honor.  This one won a Hugo Award.  Note:  (5) + (6) = Cordelia’s Honor

MARCH

(7) Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times.  Satirical fantasy set in the Discworld’s Aurient.

APRIL

(8) Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors.  Short pieces by a master.  Finished on April First.  So many potential overtones and undertones to that!
(9) Louise Erdrich, shadow tag.  Well done literary story of the breakup of a marriage.
(10) Damon Knight, Creating Short Fiction.  An old stand-by of writing advice;  my copy was published in 1981.  It was good to be reminded of some of the basic mechanics.
(11) Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois, Eds, Wizards.  A collection of short stories about this fantasy archetype by some of the best fantasists (Peter S. Beagle, Kage Baker, Elizabeth Hand, Orson Scott Card, and others).
(12) Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth.  Truly short; a two and a half hour read including note taking!
(13) Vonda N. McIntyre, Dreamsnake.  SF classic.  It’s been years since I read this, and it feels good to know I still love it.  Came away with good structural examples to help with my novels, too.  Lagniappe.
(14) Lois McMaster Bujold, Young Miles.  SF space opera; won Hugo and Nebula awards.  Miles is Cordelia’s son (Aral’s son, too, but he didn’t get his name in any of the titles) (see books 5 & 6 above).


 JUNE

(15) Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight.   Latest book in the YA Tiffany series.
(16) Ursula K. Le Guin, The Word for World is Forest.  SF classic, one of her earlier published works.
(17) Emma Bull, War for the Oaks.  Urban fantasy classic.  Wonderful.  I’ve been running across references to this book for several years, and finally read it.
(18) Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife, Volume One: Beguilement.  Fantasy adventure romance
(19) Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife, Volume Two: Legacy. Fantasy adventure romance.
(20) Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife, Volume Three: Passage.  Fantasy adventure romance.
(21) Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife, Volume Four: Horizon. Fantasy adventure romance.

There's a summer NaNoWriMo this year.  Camp NaNoWriMo    It started today.  I'm not ready to do another novel draft, so I'm going to edit one I already have.  At least that's the plan at the moment.  I haven't explored the Camp website yet.  I may get infected with the drive to 50K.  Multiple exposures make me more susceptible.