Since I’m doing something complicated but not very interesting tonight, I’ll make it easy on myself and just list some of the good books I’ve read last year. I read some 78 books in 2005, slightly more non-fiction than fiction. As regular readers know, I try and keep track of what I’m reading on my booklog but unfortunately I still have to review most of the books I read last year. However, I still managed to scrape up ten books I think you all should read:
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Forging a New Medium — Charles Dierick & Pascal Lefévre (editors)
Proof positive that it is possible to write about comics without mentioning biff pow zap or even superheroes. Proof positive also that there were comics long before The Yellow Kid, even outside the US. -
Stalingrad — Antony Beevor
Perhaps the most important battle of World War II, the turning point of the entire war, treated by one of the best British warfare writers. -
A Room of One’s Own — Virginia Woolf
“But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction — what has that got to do with a room of one’s own?” Virginia Woolf spents the rest of this slim volume answering this question. Despite its age it’s still relevant today. -
Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen — H. Beam Piper
This might not be the best science fiction novel I’ve read this year, but it was certainly the most enjoyable. All modern military science fiction is just a pale imitation of this. -
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell — Susanna Clarke
The adult literary equivalent of the Harry Potter craze perhaps, but also one of the best fantasy novels I’ve read in a long time. Also look up Crooked Timber to see why it is such a good book. -
War Stars — H. Bruce Franklin
How science fiction helped shape the nuclear arms race, long before Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein came to blows about SDI. -
Call for the Dead — John Le Carré
The novel that introduced George Smiley to the worl is a detective novel rather than a spy novel. Very sombre, very much of its time. -
A Problem from Hell — Samantha Power
The history of genocide in the 20th century, as well as the history of the concept itself and America’s responses to genocide. Not a cheerful book. -
Ordeal — Nevil Shute
What happens when a future war novel is published just as the war it predicted started… -
The Mediterranean in the Age of Philip II — Fernand Braudel
Best history I read in years, but very very dense and not exactly the right sort of light Underground reading.