This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
I started the month with a trip to SMOFCon in Chicago (flying out via Stockholm and back via Copenhagen), in the wake of which I saw the stage show of Hamilton, and then before Christmas went to Belfast and Frankfurt, with a side order of Strasbourg for the final European Parliament plenary of the year. My boss bought us all festive T-shirts.
F and I finished the year by visiting the Tintin exhibition at Trainworld.
2016 was and I think remains my record year for travelling, overnighting in 29 places away from home, in 22 different countries.
Books read this month:
Non-fiction: 4 (2016 total 37/212, 17%)
Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past, by Paul Cartledge
Tolstoy, by Henri Troyat
Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships, by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethà
What Makes This Book So Great: Re-Reading the Classics of Fantasy and SF, by Jo Walton
Fiction (non-sf): 2 (2016 total 28/212, 13%)
The Listener, by Tove Jansson
The Case of the Missing Books, by Ian Sansom
sf (non-Who): 6 (2016 total 80/212, 38%)
Kings of the North, by Cecelia Holland
AfroSF: Science Fiction by African Writers, ed. Ivor Hartmann
Angels & Visitations: A Miscellany, by Neil Gaiman
The Star Rover, by Jack London
Last Exit to Babylon – Volume 4: The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny
Christmas Days, by Jeanette Winterson
Doctor Who, etc: 3 (2016 total 39/212, 18%)
Short Trips: The History of Christmas, ed. Simon Guerrier
Bullet Time, by David A. McIntee
Twilight of the Gods, by Mark Clapham and John de Burgh Miller
Comics: 4 (2016 total 27/212, 13%)
Apostata, Bundel I, by Ken Broeders
Apostata, Bundel II, by Ken Broeders
Apostata, Bundel III, by Ken Broeders
Brain Fetish, by Kinga Korska
Page count for December: 6200 (2016 total 62,300)
Books by women in December: 6/19 (Jethà, Walton, Jansson, Holland, Winterson, Korska), 2016 total 65/212
Books by PoC in December: 2/19 (Cacilda Jethà, the AfroSF anthology), total 14/212
Top book of the month: Christmas Days, by Jeanette Winterson; get it here
Worst book of the month: The Case of the Missing Books, by Ian Sansom; get it here
2016 books roundup
Total books: 212, the lowest since 2009, surpassed every year since.
Total page count: ~62,300, fifth lowest of the years I have been counting, lower than any year since except 2017.
Diversity:
65 (31%) by women, the highest % to date, though exceeded several times since.
14 (7%) by PoC, exceeded most years since.
Most books by a single author: Christopher Marlowe (previous winners: Justin Richards in 2015 and 2014, Agatha Christie in 2013, Jonathan Gash in 2012, Arthur Conan Doyle in 2011, Ian Rankin in 2010, William Shakespeare in 2009 and 2008, Terrance Dicks in 2007, Ian Marter in 2006, Charles Stross in 2005)
Non-Whovian sff (80)
Best non-Who sff read in 2016: Cuckoo Song, by Frances Hardinge – creepy doppleganger story set in England just after the first world war; get it here.
Runner-up: Wylding Hall, by Elizabeth Hand – I never wrote this up properly, but it’s an excellent fantasy/horror story, again set in England; get it here.
Welcome re-reads: Watership Down, by Richard Adams – get it here; the Alice books by Lewis Carroll – get them here.
The one you might not heard of: Time Bangers #1: One Does Not Simply Walk Into Tudor, by Luna Teague and Ivery Kirk – OK, this is not exactly great art, but the authors clearly had a lot of fun writing it; get it here.
The one to avoid: Nethereal, by Brian Niemeier; get it here.
Doctor Who (and spinoff) fiction (39)
Best Who book read in 2016: The Legends of Ashildr, by James Goss, David Llewellyn, Jenny T. Colgan & Justin Richards – all good stories, some really good; get it here.
Runner-up: The Mike Tucker (and Robert Perry) Seventh Doctor/Ace novels, Illegal Alien, Prime Time and Loving the Alien – great examples of respect for continuity and also bringing more; get them here, here and here.
Worth flagging up for Whovians: Drama and Delight: The Life of Verity Lambert, by Richard Marson – excellent biography of the show’s first producer; get it here.
The one to avoid: Heritage, by Dale Smith; get it here.
Non-fiction (37)
Best non-fiction read in 2016: Between the world and me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates -tremendous (and short) polemic about racism and violence in the United States; get it here.
Runner-up: SPQR, by Mary Beard – great account of the history of Rome; get it here.
The one you might not heard of: Baptism of Fire: The Birth of the Modern British Fantastic in World War I, ed. Janet Brennan Croft – fascinating essays on at the influence of the global conflict on the origins of the fantasy genre; get it here.
The one to really avoid: SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police, by Vox Day.
Non-sfnal fiction (28)
Best non-sff fiction read in 2016: Alice Munro’s short story collections, The Love of a Good Woman, Selected Stories, and The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose – all fantastic vignettes of Canada; get them here, here and here.
Runner-up: Nemesis, by Philip Roth – the effects of polio on middle-class America in the 1950s; get it here.
Welcome rereads: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce – get it here; Walking on Glass, by Iain Banks – get it here; The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas – get it here.
The one you might not heard of: Dark Horse, by Fletcher Knebel – the Republican candidate dies just before the Presidential election; his swiftly conscripted replacement is an obscure New Jersey politician who starts shaking the political system; get it here.
The one to avoid: The Case of the Missing Books, by Ian Sansom; get it here
Comics (27)
Best graphic story read in 2016: Alice in Sunderland, by Bryan Talbot – brilliant exploration of the town and its links to literature in general and Alice in particular; get it here.
Runner-up: The Sandman: Overture, by Neil Gaiman, J.H. Williams III, Dave Stewart, Todd Klein – very satisfying prequel/sequel to the classic story, which won the Hugo; get it here.
The one you might not have heard of: Toch Een Geluk, by Barbara Stok – fun Dutch comics writer, sadly not translated into English yet; get it here.
The one to avoid: Chooz, by Santi-Bucquoy.
Plays
One is slightly comparing chalk and cheese here. I was lucky enough to see Hamilton in Chicago this month, but had also read the Hamiltome which has loads of information and is a must-have for any fan; get it here.
However I also read the complete Christopher Marlowe, and particularly enjoyed Edward II and The Jew of Malta; get it here.
Worst books of the year
To be found on the Best Related Work ballot for the Hugo Awards.
Book of the year
Alice in Sunderland, by Bryan Talbot
Other Books of the Year:
2003 (2 months): The Separation, by Christopher Priest.
2004: The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien (reread).
– Best new read: Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, by Claire Tomalin
2005: The Island at the Centre of the World, by Russell Shorto
2006: Lost Lives: The stories of the men, women and children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland troubles, by David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton and David McVea
2007: Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
2008: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition, by Anne Frank (reread)
– Best new read: Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero, by William Makepeace Thackeray
2009: Hamlet, by William Shakespeare (had seen it on stage previously)
– Best new read: Persepolis 2: the Story of a Return, by Marjane Satrapi (first volume just pipped by Samuel Pepys in 2004)
2010: The Bloody Sunday Report, by Lord Savile et al.
2011: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon (started in 2009!)
2012: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë
2013: A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf
2014: Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell
2015: collectively, the Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist, in particular the winner, Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mandel. However I did not actually blog about these, being one of the judges at the time.
– Best book I actually blogged about: The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, by Claire Tomalin
2016: See above
2017: Common People: The History of an English Family, by Alison Light
2018: Factfulness, by Hans Rosling
2019: Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo
2020: From A Clear Blue Sky: Surviving the Mountbatten Bomb, by Timothy Knatchbull
2021: Carrying the Fire, by Michael Collins.