21 September, 2003
(Belated) Two-year sum-up!
I didn't get around to doing this last month, when the book log's two-year anniversary actually came up, but better late than never. This covers book log entries from 21 August, 2002 through 21 August, 2003
Compared to last year, I appear to have read significantly fewer books (53 vs. 87). Oddly enough, this is almost entirely due to a great drop in my SF reading-- all my other categories are roughly the same. This year I've read just about as many detective books as I have SF books. Maybe I'm getting more of my SF fix from TV and video games, both of which I partake more often since I've moved out to L.A., where I know fewer people. Another factor is that I've been getting more books from the library, and have cut way back on purchasing. I may regret this one day, when I want to reread something I don't own and can't find any more, but I'm planning for the day one or two years hence when I'll be pulling up stakes and moving a long distance, again. This is relevant to the amount of SF I'm reading, because the local library branch has a terrible SF selection, so if I go in there to browse for a book, chances are against me coming out with SF.
Statistics:
| Science Fiction and Fantasy | 21 books |
| Detective and Mystery | 18 books |
| Other Fiction | 10 books |
| Comics and Graphic Novels | 21 books |
| Nonfiction | 4 books |
| Total | 53 text books + 21 graphic novels |
Superlatives ("best of" only includes books I haven't read before):
Best novel: The Fox Woman, Kij Johnson. (A truly beautiful, moving book. I'm really looking forward to her follow-up novel, which is coming out in November, IIRC.)
Best detective book: The Zebra-Striped Hearse, Ross Macdonald. (This one even edged out Chandler! It's that good!)
Best general fiction: Njal's Saga. (The review of which prompted the most informative comment I've gotten on this book log. Thanks, John W. Pierce! This "award" almost went to Possession, but Njal edged it out, 'cause I like Vikings better than I like Victorian poets, and the boring bits of Njal were shorter than the boring bits of Possession.)
Best comic/graphic novel: Fruits Basket, Vol 1-4, Natsuki Takaya. (Nice art, excellent characters who develop and change over the course of the series, humor, romance, and martial arts. What more could you want?)
Best nonfiction: Makers of Rome, Plutarch. (I use the term "nonfiction" fairly loosely, here. Plutarch never let historical accuracy get in the way of a good story.)
Most satisfying reread: Steven Brust's Paarfi novels, The Phoenix Guards and Five Hundred Years After. (In which I remind myself why I own every book the man has ever written, save one, which, in time, I will also own.)
Worst book: Jumper, Steven Gould. (I disliked it very much, but to its credit, it's nowhere near as bad as last year's number one stinker, Triplanetary.)