Reading List 2012

The book I enjoyed most of the 66 I read this year was China Mieville’s The City and the City, followed by Charles Stross’s The Apocalypse Codex and Hugh Howey’s Wool. The
worst thing I read this year was Charlaine Harris’s Deadlocked,
which demonstrated to me that it is a very good thing HBO’s True Blood is increasingly diverging from the books that inspired it.  Easily the most disappointing book, however, was the collective effort that is The Mongoliad.  I thought the idea and the subject matter sounded brilliant, but it turned out to be surprisingly tedious.

On the non-fiction side, while I quite enjoyed both Machiavelli’s Discourses and Keen’s Debunking Economics, (and got more than a few chuckles out of Krugman’s latest), Game Mechanics, Advanced Game Design was actually very useful to me this year.  Sam Harris’s Free Will, on the other hand, was a short and poorly-reasoned extended essay that fell well short of his previous effort in the subject matter.

Keep in mind these ratings are not necessarily statements about a book’s literary quality, they are merely casual observations of how much I happened to enjoy reading the book at the time.  When I review a book and rate it for quality as well as enjoyment, I rate it out of ten.

FIVE STARS
The City and the City, China Mieville
The Apocalypse Codex, Charles Stross
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius, Niccolo Machiavelli
Kraken, China Mieville
Pegasus Bridge, Stephen Ambrose
Debunking Economics, Steve Keen
Wool Omnibus, Hugh Howey
Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design, Adams and Dormans
A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Madeleine L’Engle

FOUR STARS
Cold Days, Jim Butcher
War Room, Michael Holley
Feast of Souls, Celia Friedman
Wings of Wrath, Celia Friedman
The Discoverers, Daniel Boorstin
The Devil’s Brood, Sharon K. Penman
A Shadow in Summer, Daniel Abraham
With the Old Breed, E.B. Sledge
Stalingrad, Anthony Beevor
Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis
The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party, Robert Silverberg
Vanished Kingdoms, Norman Davies
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, PG Wodehouse
End This Depression Now!, Paul Krugman

THREE STARS
Absolute Monarchs, John Julius Norwich
The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson
Lionheart, Sharon K. Penman
A Betrayal in Winter, Daniel Abraham
An Autumn War, Daniel Abraham
The Price of Spring, Daniel Abraham
Legacy of Kings, Celia Friedman
NFIB v. Sebelius: Five Takes, Reynolds and Denning
White Moon, Red Dragon, David Wingrove
I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett
Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett
A Wind in the Door, Madeleine L’Engle
Faded Steel Heat, Glen Cook
Whispering Nickel Idols, Glen Cook
Cruel Zinc Melodies, Glen Cook
Sharpe’s Tiger, Bernard Cornwell
Sharpe’s Triumph, Bernard Cornwell
Sharpe’s Fortress, Bernard Cornwell
Sharpe’s Prey, Bernard Cornwell
Sharpe’s Rifles, Bernard Cornwell
Sharpe’s Gold, Bernard Cornwell
Sharpe’s Escape, Bernard Cornwell
Sharpe’s Fury, Bernard Cornwell
Sharpe’s Trafalgar, Bernard Cornwell
Sharper than a Serpent’s Tooth, Simon Green
Hell to Pay, Simon Green
The Unnatural Inquirer, Simon Green
Just Another Judgment Day, Simon Green
The Good, The Bad, and The Uncanny, Simon Green
A Hard Day’s Knight, Simon Green
The Bride Wore Black Leather, Simon Green

TWO STARS
Tongues of Serpents, Naomi Novik
The 100-Yard War, Greg Emmanuel
The Mongoliad: Book One, Neal Stephenson
Songs of Love and Death, George RR Martin, ed.
Bobby Singer’s Guide to Hunting, David Reed
Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
Cryoburn, Lois McMaster Bujold
Deflation and Depression: Is There an Empirical Link, Atkeson and Kehoe
Beneath the Tree of Heaven, David Wingrove
An Acceptable Time, Madeleine L’Engle

ONE STAR
Deadlocked, Charlaine Harris
Free Will, Sam Harris