Back in January, I posted a list of eleven books I wanted to read in 2012. In March, I added another 5 to the list. That’s sixteen books listed, and I’ve read eleven of those. In fairness, of the remaining five, one has not come out yet, and I’m not going to read another of them until its sequel comes out. Also, I have read a lot more than has been listed, 34 books so far in 2012 (though a couple of those are short stories or novellas). So I’m making good progress, but I think it’s time to load up again.
Holdovers
The remaining books from previous queues…
- Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter: Been on the list for a long time, and I’m probably not going to tackle this one for this year. It’s a very long (1000+ pages), dense text filled with philosophy and mathematics. I’ve been doing pretty well this year in terms of quantity of books, so I don’t want to bog myself down with a book like this. However, I do think I’m going to focus on “long” books next year, so this will definitely be on tap for that book queue. More details on that project to follow!
- The Children of the Sky by Vernor Vinge: My status on this book is unchanged: I still want to read this (a continuation of Vinge’s loosely linked Zones of Thought books), but initial reviews of this book seem to indicate that it ends on a cliffhanger and that another novel is forthcoming. I thus won’t be reading this until I know more about when the presumed conclusion to the story will be available…
- Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris – Another long non-fiction book that I’ll probably tackle next year. Again, just want to preserve the momentum I’ve built up this year.
- The Mongoliad: Book One (The Foreworld Saga) by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, and others – This is just something I haven’t gotten around to… but apparently a second volume is forthcoming, so I should probably hop to it. I’ve actually been waiting for my Amazon Prime book lending thingy to reset so I can get this one for free. Score.
- Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold (releases 11/6/12) – Hasn’t come out yet, but I am going to read this one as soon as I possibly can. It will actually be perfect timing for me, just after the Halloween rush. Apparently you can buy a pre-release galley of this book or something, but I figure I’ll just wait until the final version comes out.
New Stuff
In no particular order:
- Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday The 13th by Peter M. Bracke – I went a little nuts trying to find this a few years ago, and when I finally got my hands on a copy, I kinda forgot about it and haven’t picked it up since. I figure it will make a good read during the six weeks of Halloween this year.
- Mucho Mojo by Joe R. Lansdale – Lansdale’s second in a series of Texas crime novels featuring the unlikely duo of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine (the first, which I enjoyed even if it was a little on the predictable side, was on my previous book queue.)
- Morning Glories, Vol. 1: For a Better Future by Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma – Yeah, so this one is a comic book omnibus recommended to me by my buddies Mike and Don over at Radio Free Echo Rift (an excellent podcast for all you comics fans out there and heck, I like it, and I don’t even read much in the way of comics.) I have pretty much no idea what it’s about (apparently a school is involved), but I’m pretty much just taking Mike and Don’s word for it.
- The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester – One of those books that frequently pops up on best SF novel lists, something I’ve been trying to wittle down for a while now.
- Jack Glass by Adam Roberts – Only recently released, but for some reason, not available on the Kindle. I suppose it’s got to be available in ebook format somewhere though, and I do want to read this book, supposedly a mashup of locked-room mysteries and crime tropes with golden age SF.
- The Gift of Fire / On the Head of a Pin: Two Short Novels from Crosstown to Oblivion by Walter Mosley – Two interesting sounding stories in one book. I don’t remember where I heard of this, but I’m glad I stuck it in the queue, as it sounds pretty interesting.
- Red, White, and Blood by Christopher Farnsworth – The third in a series of trashy vampire spy novels that I’ve come to enjoy.
- The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold – Since I’ve mostly exhausted Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga, I figured I should probably start hitting up her fantasy novels too.
- Among Others by Jo Walton – Just won the 2012 Hugo Award for best novel. A little surprising, actually, as smart money was on the China Mieville or George R.R. Martin books, but not having read any of the nominees, I can’t say for sure. Still, the annual bitching about nominees seemed to indicate that Walton’s book was actually a worthy nominee but that it would probably not win because it was not as fancy as other noms, so it’s nice to see that it actually did win.
So there you have it, lots of books to read, and so little time. I’m hoping to knock most of this new stuff out before the end of the year. As mentioned above, some of the holdovers will probably have to wait for next year, but at least a couple will probably be checked off the list this year too…
Update: Just added Among Others to the list.