Books I Read In 2015

Via Advent, Shawn Small

Tales from Earthsea, Ursula Le Guin

The Worm Ouroboros, E. R. Eddison

A Plague of Demons, Kieth Laumer

The Elements of Elegance, Mark Forsyth

The Small House at Allington, Anthony Trollope

Doctor Who: Dreams of Empire, Justin Richards

Franny and Zooey, J. D. Salinger

Night Flight, Antoine De Saint-Exupery

The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett

Crome Yellow, Aldous Huxley

The Grand Babylon Hotel, Arnold Bennett

Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw

Zuleika Dobson, Max Beerbohm

A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness and Siobhan Dowd

The Letter for the King, Tonke Dragt

No Plot? No Problem!, Chris Baty

The Prisoner, Thomas M Disch

A Sentimental Journey, Laurence Stern

Magnus, George Mackay Browning

Octopussy and The Living Daylights, Ian Flemming

Orlando, Virgiania Woolf

Land of the Seal-People, Duncan Williamson

Gryll Grange, Thomas Love Peacock

The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness

The Ask and the Answer, Patrick Ness

The Shepherd’s Crown, Terry Pratchett

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Riddle of the Sands, Erskine Childers

Eirlandia 1, Stephen Lawhead

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning, Lemony Snicket

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Reptile Room, Lemony Snicket

Monsters of Men, Patrick Ness

Wildwood, Colin Meloy

Slaughter-House Five, Kurt Vonnegut Jr

Challenges

The thing that made this year different than the others is the reading challenge I set myself of reading a Penguin a Week. This exposed me to a lot of books that I ordinarily wouldn’t have read, except that they had orange coloured covers. A Plague of Demons by Kieth Laumer and Gryll Grange by Thomas Love Peacock were two of these, but the real surprise delight was The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett which was astoundingly fresh and interesting, especially considering the year it was written. I was also able to cross some classics off my list. Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley was better than expected, but Orlando by Virginia Woolf and Zuleika Dobson by Mac Beerbohm did not live up to the hype for me. The second challenge completed was the NaNoWriMo challenge (writing a 50,000 word novel in one month), which my wife and I attempted, and completed, in May. No Plot? No Problem! was written by the man who started that and was a huge help during the dark 30-40k period.

Surprises!

I discovered Patrick Ness this year and will hold up A Monster Calls as one of the top ten books of the decade. A Letter for the King by Tonke Dragt was another fun discovery — it’s a book that has been popular in Europe for forty years, but had never been translated into English until just now. Thomas Disch’s The Prisoner was also very gripping for being a TV spin-off.

Disappointment

Although A Monster Calls was unbelievably good, Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking trilogy, while clever, did not end well. I felt it got lost in the subversion of its own themes and I ended up not liking any of the characters, who often made unrealistic decisions. The Riddle of the Sands was one that I’ve seen on so many Best Books list but it was almost unbearably tedious for two reasons: 1) The writer is almost obsessed with the word ‘galliot’. 2) Every movement of the boat was detailed, with maps, and 80% of those movements were inconsequential to the plot. The Worm Ouroboros by E R Eddison was another incomprehensible mess. One of the first fantasy epics, there were actually fewer and fewer fantasy elements as the book went on. His imagination only went so far: there were demons, goblins, and vampires — but they were from Demonland, Goblinland, and Vampireland. (It was never said where the genies were from, but three guesses.) The story started with an interesting framing device, but that was never picked up again.

Remembrance

We lost Terry Pratchett this year. I started rereading the Discworld books again. Which was a shame, since last year’s Raising Steam catapulted his world into a new realm. I’m so glad that Shepherd’s Crown, which starred my favourite Discworld character of all time, Tiffany Aching, was such a solid finish. There were a couple falters, and the book doesn’t give any sense of completion to the saga, by any means, but it was a delightful read.

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