2013: A Year in Reading

A strange reading year for me – after reaching new heights of reading the previous year, getting the closest to my pre-motherhood numbers of books read than ever before, I put my feet up and took it all VERY casually this year. Not as much actual reading as I would like – as has been the case a lot lately, my reading desires have been rather stomped on by my love of listening to audio books and plays – but the books I have read have been decadently unstructured. Once I made my way through Parade’s End by Ford Maddox Ford and the entire Song of Ice and Fire thus far, I kind of felt like I didn’t owe the household library gods ANYTHING ELSE for the year.

It’s been mostly classic literature, re-reading and Doctor Who tie-ins. Which also, actually, means a much more gender-balanced year instead of my usual 80% female authors. I’ve read whatever the hell I felt like this year, and mostly it has not been science fiction and fantasy at all – or published this year.

I even stopped keeping track of titles read in my log. Sooooo slack.

Here’s an equally slack and slapdash rundown of it all:

FAVOURITE COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS:

Hawkeye, Captain Marvel, Saga, Supurbia, All-New X-Men

FAVOURITE WEBCOMICS:

Dumbing of Age, Shortpacked, Questionable Content, Teahouse, Kate or Die, Nimona

AWARDWORTHY SF in 2013

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie; Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan

DOCTOR WHO GEMS:

The Wife in Space by Neil Perryman, Filthy Lucre (Bernice Summerfield), Elizabeth Sladen the Audiobiography, Shada by Gareth Roberts, Queers Dig Time Lords, The Life and Scandalous Times of JN-T

REREADS I ENJOYED:

Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones; Half Magic by Edward Eager; Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

WONDERFUL WILD CARDS:

Flying Higher (superhero poetry), Ovid’s Heroines translated by Clare Pollard, The Other Side of the Sky,

GLORIOUS AUDIOBOOKS:

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner, Is It Just Me by Miranda Hart, The Darling Buds of May read by Bruce Montague, Shada read by Lalla Ward & John Leeson

AUDIO DRAMA IS NOT READING BUT JUST AS AWESOME SOMETIMES:

Neverwhere (BBC Radio), Cabin Pressure (BBC Radio), Miranda Hart’s Joke Shop (BBC Radio), Trial of the Valeyard (Big Finish); Doctor Who: Afterlife (Big Finish); Doctor Who: The Light at the End (Big Finish); Gallifrey Series 5 & 6 (Big Finish); Jago and Litefoot Series 6 (Big Finish); Doctor Who: 1963: Fanfare for the Common Men (Big Finish); The Picture of Dorian Gray (Big Finish); Mervyn Stone – the Axeman Cometh (Big Finish); Doctor Who: The Lady of Mercia (Big Finish); Bernice Summerfield: New Frontiers (Big Finish); Doctor Who: Eldrad Must Die (Big Finish); Blake’s 7: Warship (Big Finish); Doctor Who: The Auntie Matter (Big Finish); Doctor Who: The Wrong Doctor (Big Finish); Doctor Who: Son of the Dragon (Big Finish); Doctor Who: The Kingmaker (Big Finish)

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER:

A Song of Ice and Fire, Cranford, Parade’s End, The Evil Eye & Other Stories by Mary Shelley