October, November, December

Closing out 2015 here:

Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
Guns of Avalon, Roger Zelazny
Shadows of Self, Brandon Sanderson
All the Light we Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
Blood Song, Anthony Ryan
Into Thin Air, John Krakauer
The Ghost Brigades, John Scalzi

I didn't particularly enjoy the Amber books, but I know a lot of people do enjoy them. They are more classical/high fantasy type.

Shadows of Self is the most recent Mistborn book.  It was alright but didn't live up to Sanderson's other stuff for me.

All the Light we Cannot see is NOT scifi or fantasy! And it was fantastic, highly recommended. 

Blood Song is the start of the most recent series I'm into.  Its pretty good, but not great.

Into Thin Air was interesting, but not great.  Kept my attention but I'll never read it again.

The Ghost Brigades was enjoyable.  Kept my attention, I'll probably read more from the series.

This finishes 2015 and I count 33 books this year.  

For those keeping track:
2011: 44
2012: 32
2013: 34
2014: 27
2015: 33

So I average 34 books a year or about half a book a week.

May, June, July, August, September

I've had some stressful stuff going on lately (grad school prelim, moving, etc).  I think I read more when I'm stressed.  Here's what I've been reading:

Mountain of Black Glass, Tad Williams
Sea of Silver Light, Tad Williams
The Rithmatist, Brandon Sanderson
The Martian, Andy Weir
A Fall of Moondust, Arthur C. Clarke
Inda, Sherwood Smith
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
Mars, Ben Bova
Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
Daemon, Daniel Suarez
The Emperor's Soul, Brandon Sanderson
Influx, Daniel Suarez
The Fox, Sherwood Smith
Freedom, Daniel Suarez

I enjoyed Tad William's Otherland series, but it sometimes felt drawn out, as if the author was delaying the action just to explore the cool world he'd created.

The Martian was fantastic and everyone should try it out.  This book is so good that the author was able to get a book deal after having self-published it.

Inda and the sequel The Fox were nice high fantasy.  I enjoyed the characters in these books

January, February, March, April (2015!)

The second half of the previous post:

The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
Otherland V1, City of Golden Shadow, Tad WilliamsThe Last Unicorn, Peter Beagle
The Warded Man, Peter Brett
Flash Forward, Robert Sawyer
Triggers, Robert Sawyer
The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
The Terminal Experiment, Robert Sawyer
The Skull Throne, Peter Brett
The Desert Spear, Peter Brett
River of Blue Fire, Tad Williams
The Daylight War, Peter Brett

I was anticipating The Westing Game, however I found it to be far less exciting than I'd hoped.   

I enjoyed City of Golden Shadow and am looking forward to the rest of the series.  Hardcore Scifi though.

Peter Brett's Demon Cycle is fantastic.  I'm working my way through the 3rd book right now and have the 4th at the library.  Highly recommended for fantasy folks.  

All of Robert Sawyers books are OK.  Just OK.  They're beach reads for scifi people.

And, lastly, yes, I've started The Wheel of Time.  Start the clock for how many years it takes me to finish.

September, October, November, December, (January, February, March, April posted seperately)... oops.

Turns out I've been delinquent about this for a while now...  Lets see how much I can reconstruct, separating 2014 and 2015:

The Broken Eye, Brent Weeks
Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
The Slow Regard of Silent Things, Patrick Rothfuss
Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson
Independent Study,Joelle Charbonneau
Beyond the Shadows, Brent Weeks
Shadows Edge, Brent Weeks
The Testing, Joelle Charbonneau
Graduation Day, Joelle Charbonneau
Never Let Me Go, Kazou Ishiguro 


I'm not going to comment on all of these,there's just too many.  I think I'm also missing a couple from when I was in Israel over December/January and using a tablet for reading.  

In brief:
-Brent Weeks' Night Angel trilogy is fantastic.  I enjoyed it and you will too, if you're at least a little into fantasy.
-Cryptonomicon was great and interesting.  Readers will enjoy it, especially those who like math.  Quicksilver was somewhat less entertaining.
-Don't bother with Joelle Charbonneau's books. They're trash.
-Never Let Me Go is great and haunting.  Readers will enjoy it.

And now for the annual counting-of-books-I've-read...

I only come up with 27!  I'm going to blame it on first year of grad school, although probably I'm just making excuses.  Here's hoping I get to do more reading this coming year!

June, July, August

Can you tell I've been on a huge scifi/fantasy kick by all the 4's in the labels for this post?

WWW:Watch - Robert Sawyer
WWW:Wonder - Robert Sawyer
Neuromancer - William Gibson
The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson
Earth Awakens - Orson Scott Card
Words of Radiance - Brandon Sanderson
Cast in Shadow - Michelle Sagara
The Black Prism - Brent Weeks

Once again I will bemoan the fact that I don't update nearly as often as would be ideal to give the best reviews of these books.  In fact I'm not confident that I didn't forget some books here.  I'm basing the list on the list in my library account but its pretty jumbled.

Lately I've been borrowing far more books than I've had time to read.  I need to pace myself better!

Here goes: 
The second two WWW books were fantastic. Only for scifi people, but I thought they explored some interesting ideas in a relatively novel (to me) way.  

Neuromancer is a scifi classic and I read it because it was mentioned in Snow Crash which I enjoyed.  I found Neuromancer more difficult to read, almost as if it was aimed at a different generation of people.  For scifi aficionados it would definitely be worth the read.

The Way of Kings and The Words of Radiance are the first two books in the latest trilogy by my most recent favorite author, Brandon Sanderson.  They are serious fantasy, but the writing and characters are fantastic.  I'd recommend Sanderson for someone who'd never read fantasy before but was interested in trying it out.  The Way of Kings is a bit slow - Warbreaker or Mistborn might be better to start with.

Earth Awakens is the last book in Card's pre-Ender's Game trilogy.  I enjoyed it because I enjoy everything else he writes, but I'd only suggest reading this if you are very invested in the Enderverse.

I think Cast in Shadow was suggested by a friend.  Its basically a mystery in fantasy format.  I enjoyed the book but found the fantasy to be a bit too intense for me.  This is part of a huge series but I'm not going to seek out the others.

Lastly, the Black Prism is the first in a trilogy by Brent Weeks.  It reminded me very strongly of Warbreaker and I enjoyed it immensely.  The sequel is the next book on my list.  This book is fantasy, but again the characters and plot are engaging and the fantasy is not too overbearing. 

February, March, April, May (?!)

I've been reading this semester, I swear.  Its just taken a long time and the semester was... challenging.  Its all over now though so I can work at my leisure and post here too!

Earth Afire - Orson Scott Card
Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson
The Well of Ascension - Brandon Sanderson
The Hero of Ages - Brandon Sanderson
The Alloy of Law - Brandon Sanderson
WWW: Wake - Robert Sawyer
Feed - M.T. Anderson

The shitty thing is that its really been too long since I read Earth Afire to comment on it well.  I think that I enjoyed it but wouldn't suggest it for anyone other than hardcore Card fans who want to know what happens.

The Mistborn series (all the Sanderson books) were amazing.  Unapologetically fantasy though, so if you love fantasy check these out and otherwise stay far away.  (I don't think these are the best intro-to-fantasy books, if you're looking to get into it but haven't enjoyed it in the past.)

WWW:Wake is some interesting and well written science fiction.  Again, not the best for non-scifi folks, but Card fans (and other scifi fans in general) would like this.

Feed is also scifi, although its really aimed at a YA audience.  If you get hung up on cliches and let-me-bang-you-over-the-head-with-how-I-can-reach-teens, don't go for this one.  But if you've liked YA in the past, this is a great book and I think it brings up some interesting questions about where people thought the world was going 10 years ago, and where we are now. 

November, December, January

Clearly I'm terrible about posting lately, but here goes:

The Magicians - Lev Grossman
The Magician King - Lev Grossman
Allegiant - Veronica Roth
Earth Unaware - Orson Scott Card
Earth is Room Enough - Isaac Asimov
Warbreaker - Brandon Sanderson
Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi

I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm missing a few books, but there's nothing to be done about that except update more often!

Both of the Grossman books are OK but not great.  I enjoyed parts of each of them, and muddled through parts of each of them.  If you are into fantasy, try them out.  Otherwise, stay away.

Allegiant is the third in a trilogy (starting with Divergant).  Seriously only read this if you've read the first two and just want to know what happens next.  And even then... you might want to just read the wikipedia page... 

Earth Unaware is the start of a prequel-to-Ender's Game-trilogy.  I enjoyed it, but I am extremely biased when it comes to Card, so don't trust me.  Read it if you enjoy scifi and/or Card's stuff, but not otherwise.  

Earth is Room Enough is a collection of fantastic short stories by Isaac Asimov.  I came to admire his skill after reading this book.  Which says a lot because I usually hate short stories.  Highly recommended, unless you hate scifi.   

Warbreaker is a huge book that I found at the library when I was desperate for something to read.  Sanderson has also authored Elantris which I was not hugely impressed by.  Well Warbreaker has completely changed my opinion on Sanderson.  I finished this behemoth in about 3 days and was very emotionally invested in the book.  Only for fantasy folks of course, but if you are one you'll love it!

I re-read Persepolis while waiting for 2.5 hours at the DMV for my new license.  Yes, after 7 years in this state I have finally made it official.  This book is extremely well written and illustrated and tells an important story that should not be forgotten.  Everyone should read it.

Aaannnnddd, now that the year is (long) over, the 2013 (approximate) count of books:  34!  Which, shockingly, is 2 more than last year, although quite far from the 44 I read in 2011.  Works out to ~1.5 weeks per book (~64% of a book per week)