The Sunday Salon: 2012 in Review

It’s the last Sunday of the year, so you know what that means. Either I’m getting stingier or this year hasn’t been the best reading year for me—while last year’s year in review post was agonizing to curate, I did this year’s in a few hours. Hopefully, 2013 will ring in a higher batting average for my reading. But it’s not that I haven’t enjoyed my reading this year; I definitely have, especially my nonfiction reading—I mean, I discovered Tom Wolfe this year, so that is a definite plus. As ever, this list is culled from what I read in 2012, not what was released in 2012 (although I read more recent titles this year than in past years).

Review: Ha’penny

Ha’penny by Jo Walton

Sometimes, life just comes at you, you know? I tend to do everything in my power to make my life uncomplicated—I’m using my words more, courtesy of Captain Awkward, I make time for sleep and exercise, and I try and do my work in a timely fashion. For the most part, it works, but sometimes life, the ornery thing it is, catches up with you, and I ended up spending a few days feeling utterly crushed by work. In such a fix, I needed a book and an author I could rely on for a quick but mindblowing read—who else could I turn to but Jo Walton?

Booking Through Thursday: Branching Out

Name a book you love in a genre you normally don’t care for. What made you decide to read it? Did it make you want to try more in that genre?

What genre do you avoid reading and why?

Hey, that’s four questions!

As the name of my blog and self-appointed title suggests, I’m a literary omnivore. I will and do read anything, if I think it’s worth a shot.  That qualification is usually based on whether or not the story sounds interesting, not genre, which I define more as setting than anything else, although I am currently coming to grips with the fact that there’s more to it than that, but those don’t apply to my taxonomy. I don’t avoid any books.

That said, I’m not overly fond of “urban fantasy”, which is actually an awful misnomer for supernatural fiction (assuming fantasy means secondary world with or without magic, which is how I define it, urban fantasy would be something like The Lies of Locke Lamora—fantasy with a focus in urban environments) or mysteries that aren’t Sherlock Holmes. I’ve been burned before, but I still maintain my faith that any story is possible of being amazing. In the supernatural fiction camp, I’m awfully fond of Michael Thomas Ford’s Jane Bites Back. In the mystery camp, I really liked Farthing and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, both alternate history mysteries.

Review: Farthing

Farthing by Jo Walton

I’ve really enjoyed the Jo Walton novels that I’ve read—Tooth and Claw and Among Others—but neither blew my world up. I’d heard really good things about her Small Change trilogy (so named because the novels in it are Farthing, Ha’Penny, and Half a Crown), but my past experience with her didn’t send me out to the library immediately to pick up Farthing. It sort of meandered across my currently hypothetical desk at the end of June, languishing until I needed something to break the good-but-average rut my reading was in. Said rut was absolutely shattered.

The Sunday Salon: 2011 in Review

Merry Christmas, to those who celebrate it—but it’s also the last Sunday of the year, which means it’s time for my top ten list. As usual, these are my top reads of 2011, not the top published books of 2011. But I’ve also added my favorite film adaptation and my favorite audiobook of the year, since I’ve started really keeping those posts up. I was lucky enough to have a good handful of five star books, but that meant leaving off a lot of four and a half star books that I honestly loved off the list. I invite you to rifle through those categories to your right. And here’s 2010 in review and 2009 in review, if you’re so inclined. I think that’s all the housekeeping, so let’s get started.

Booking Through Thursday: Odd

What’s the oddest book you’ve ever read? Did you like it? Hate it? Did it make you think?

Ultimately, I’ll have to go with Jo Walton’s Tooth and Claw, which is Anthony Trollope with dragons. Walton’s not going for just weirdness there; she makes biologically literal a lot of Victorian ideas about sexuality and class and runs with it. If you’ve never read Walton, I recommend it—it’s good, it makes you think about gender and class, and it’s a lot of fun. My runner-up would have to be Galatea 2.2, which is essentially a construction for Michael Powers to just let rip about human consciousness. I enjoyed it, but, for the life of me, I can’t think of anyone to recommend it to!

The Sunday Salon: Fun with Search Terms

I’ve never mentioned it, but I absolutely love poking at my site stats. How people get to my blog (I’m apparently linked on my college’s website! This is completely new information to me!), which posts people read the most (my review of the film adaptation of Atonement and my review of A Clash of Kings), and, of course, the search terms that lead people to my blog. There are many paths to my establishment, it seems, and several of them are paths trod by very confused people. Today, then, I will help these poor souls by answering their search terms, as culled from search terms that led actual people to my blog this September.

The Literary Horizon: Swastika Night, Farthing

Alternate history is a particular favorite of mine—I love the idea of how just one event can change the course of the world, and seeing that changed world. On top of that, contrasting it against our world usually brings up some very interesting issues. Today, we’re looking at two alternate history novels that take Nazi domination as their divergence point from our own history.

Review: Among Others

Among Others by Jo Walton

I picked up Among Others on a whim at the library. I’d heard of it vaguely—the Tor blog, naturally, talked about it in the lead-up to its publication, I’d seen it reviewed here and there, and Walton posted a bibliography of every book mentioned in Among Others on her LiveJournal. But despite all that, the synopsis turned me off; I wasn’t quite sure how to reconcile the focus on books and community with the epic battles it promised. But I picked it up at the library nonetheless, and I’m quite glad—the front flap is very misleading.

Review: Tooth and Claw

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

There’s nothing new under the sun, a fact I feel the universe has confirmed ever since I watched a girl pester a handful of authors at a Q & A about a book she was pondering writing until she finally asked, “What if you’re scared someone else will write it first?” If you accept that fact, I think, any creative input is going to be better; thinking about the end product, especially in terms of capital gain and rewards, will only trip you up, in my opinion. Originality in fiction comes from the new combinations we can create from the unchanging fundamentals. Speaking thus, Jo Walton’s Tooth and Claw is wildly original, populating a nicely slim Victorian novel a la Anthony Trollope with fire-breathing, flying, ritualistic cannibal dragons.