Top Ten reads this year (2016)

[Bick]

I've read quite a few books this year. So far I've read 52, which is slightly up on last year's 46.

My top 10 (slightly arbitrary), in order I read them, with a maximum of one book per author (self imposed rule):

Bob Shaw - Other Days, Other Eyes
Robert A. Heinlein - The Door into Summer
Alan Furst - Night Soldiers
Jack Vance - The Star King
C. J. Cherryh - Downbelow Station
W. Somerset Maugham - Collected Short Stories, Volume 1
P. G. Wodehouse - The Clicking of Cuthbert
Poul Anderson - Brainwave
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
John Mortimer - Rumpole for the Defence

In terms of who I've read the most:
P. G. Wodehouse (7) and C. J. Cherryh (7) top the chart, and then there are several on 3 each: Sjowall & Wahloo, Vance, Moorecock, Tolkein. But if I'm counting most short stories by any one author, it's Somerset Maugham, as I read about 60 of his short stories over the year.

Of the 52 books read so far this year, 32 have been SFF (mostly SF), i.e. 62%

 

[Heather Myst]

It was a bad year for me. I only read one book this year that I would recommend and that is:

Gathering by Brian Turner

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Jack Vance - The Star King

 

[Extollager]

There are still almost three reading weeks left in 2016, so I might report back again. Here ten favorites so far this year. Half are nonfiction (marked N).

Rereads:

Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (Pevear and Volokhonsky translation); this was the novel I cited at my mom’s memorial service; it’s a book for my whole life

Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (Pevear and Volokhonsky translation)

Eugene Vodolazkin, Laurus (I hope this can be a Mythopoeic Society winner this year)

Farsiotis, The Gurus, the Young Man, and Elder Paisios (N)

Gaines, Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment (N)

Tolkien, The Hobbit (12th reading)

New Reads:

Haffner, Defying Hitler (my new book of the year) (N)

Richard Church, Over the Bridge (autobiography) (N)

Mary Butts, The Crystal Cabinet: My Childhood at Salterns (N)

James, The Princess Casamassima

It’ll be noticed that this was not a year for numerous outstanding experiences in the genres of sf and fantasy. I didn’t set out to reduce my reading in these genres, but nor do I feel obliged to (re)read them if I’d rather read something else. Very honorable mentions: rereadings of Budrys’s Who? and Hodgson’s House on the Borderland, and first reading of Grevel Lindop’s biography of Charles Williams, The Third Inkling. I've listed only books I have finished reading. Paul Johnson's The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815-1830, which I'm reading now, is excellent.

 

[Bick]

Extollager - nice selection of Russian books. I seem to recall last year you listed only one book in your top 10, and it was also Laurus, wasn't it?

 

[martin321]

The best books I read this year were:

Anita Amirrezvani - Equal of the Sun
Desmond Bagley - High Citadel
Bernard Cornwell - The Last Kingdom
Gillian Flynn - Dark Places
Winston Graham - Ross Poldark
Roger Lancelyn Green - The Adventures of Robin Hood
Robert Harris - Dictator
P.J. Strebor - Uncommon Purpose
Alfred Uhry - Driving Miss Daisy [Play]
John Wyndham - The Midwich Cuckoos

 

[aThenian]

Fantasy books I read and enjoyed in no particular order:

Lev Grossman - The Magicians
Lois McMaster Bujold - The Warrior's Apprentice
Frances Hardinge - Cuckoo Child
John Buchan - The Gap in the Curtain (this one is probably speculative/historical rather than fantasy, a curiousity, and I enjoyed it a lot)

Nonfiction

Adam Nicolson - The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters

Fiction
Colm Toibin - Nora Webster
Patrick O'Brien - Master and Commander

 

[Droflet]

The best books I read this year were:

Anita Amirrezvani - Equal of the Sun
Desmond Bagley - High Citadel
Bernard Cornwell - The Last Kingdom
Gillian Flynn - Dark Places
Winston Graham - Ross Poldark
Roger Lancelyn Green - The Adventures of Robin Hood
Robert Harris - Dictator
P.J. Strebor - Uncommon Purpose
Alfred Uhry - Driving Miss Daisy [Play]
John Wyndham - The Midwich Cuckoos

To be place among these books is immensely flattering. Many thanks, Martin.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

To be place among these books is immensely flattering. Many thanks, Martin.

Which one please?

 

[Droflet]

Ah, of course, my writer's name is PJ Strebor. Thanks again.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

Thank you, I'll check it out