Books in 2012

[kaberett]

Approximately 67 books in total. (In 2011 I managed ~88.) The "approximately" is in there because - really, how do you count 30-page graphic novels? How do you count 200,000 words fanfic novels? Etc. So I count both, but sometimes I count a pile of comic books as a single item, and sometimes I count them as multiple items.

Date completed	Author	Title	Comments
04/01/12	Diana Wynne Jones	Conrad's Fate	OH DWJ. Why is sexism sizeism etc. And yet still so easy to read and and and descriptions of stately gardens :-(
05/01/12	LOTS OF PEOPLE	Logicomix	It is a Bechdel pass for frankly depressing reasons, being ALL ABOUT THE DUDES. However, it is at least honest about Turing's death.
12/01/12	Naomi Novik	Throne of Jade	Still faily :-(
?	Naomi Novik	Empire of Ivory	FAILY FAILY FAIL
?		A:tLA The Promise: Part 1	oh cri cri cri :-( so faily
08/02/12	Diana Wynne Jones	Stopping for a Spell	was really enjoying up until lol domestic violence in the last story
07/03/12	Charmian Hussey	The Valley of Secrets	SO BAD. SO MANY  COMMAS. SO MUCH MORALISING. SO MUCH CHRISTIANITY. SO MUCH RACISM. do not recommend.
		a bunch of buffy
		a Serenity comic book
?	[redacted]	[redacted]	really gripping; really sad about the fact that there's one queer character who exists for the lolz, no Bechdel passes, and a slightly squicky romance tacked on the end
?	Takako Shimura	Wandering Son 1	plausible representation of trans* experience!
?	Jenn Manley Lee	Dicebox: Wander	QUEEEEEEEEEER
30/04/12	Ursula LeGuin	The Left Hand of Darkness	it made me feel, a little; it is from the Harry Harris library, which is right and it is good; it introduced too many new words, but oh the description of the snow.
?	Sheri S Tepper	The Revenants	this is the kind of fantasy that The Colour of Magic is sporking, okay, and it's the irritating EVERYONE IS ALREADY CARRYING THE OTHER PEOPLE'S QUEST ITEMS, and three quarters of the queer people die. Was an easy read though?
19/05/12	John Hockenberry	Moving Violations	gosh he's a bit ALL THE PRIVILEGE innee but is interest nonetheless
25/05/12	Catherynne M Valente	Palimpsest	wow she is AWFUL did she really – and the what – and it was totally non-obvious why we were supposed to care about anyone and what was going on until *at least* 200 pages in
21/05/12	Ted Naifeh & Tristan Crane	how loathsome	really uneasy about trans* portrayal; very confused by it as a whole
31/05/12	Diana Wynne Jones	The Time of the Ghost	didn't quite manage to give me nightmares, but very well written :-) and rather less failsome than DWJ normally is
15/05/12		A:tLA The Promise: Part 2	taken together the two are sufficiently faily that I spent several hours COLLECTING STATISTICS
19/06/12	Paula Boock	Dare Truth or Promise	STILL LOVE IT TO BITS FOREVER
29/06/12	Alan Moore & David Lloyd	V for Vendetta	SO MANY FEELS. IT IS SO FAILSOME. BUT FEELS. Also lots of details I didn't notice in the first reading – which, uh, WEEPING.
03/07/12	Jamison Green	Becoming a Visible Man	incredibly readable.
07/07/12	Lisa Shearin	Armed & Magical	hurrah for really pulpy fantasy featuring a female lead with ROCKS and SINGING and uh honestly kinda dreadful writing oh dear I'm going to have to track down the rest
08/07/12	Maggie Stiefvater	Lament	discussion of enthusiastic informed consent! really hot making out! fantasy! :D
11/07/12	Zen Cho	The Perilous Life Of Jade Yeo	PERFECT IN EVERY RESPECT and a wonderful inauguration for the e-reader.
12/07/12	China Mieville	Un Lun Dun	ALSO PERFECT
15/07/12	Oscar Wilde	A House of Pomegranates	rather heavy-handed
16/07/12		A Deeper Season
19/07/12		What Passing Bells
21/07/12	Takako Shimura	Wandering Son 2
21/07/12	Takako Shimura	Wandering Son 3
26/07/12	Tab Kimpton	Khaos Komix 1
26/07/12	Tab Kimpton	Khaos Komix 2
30/07/12	China Mieville	Railsea	PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT: social commentary on Somalian pirates & British privateers during the Age of Sail; poly family; typography as religion (well, kinda); The Things We Do To Find Ourselves. Unlike Un Lun Dun this one is very much central dude-character, and significantly less fleshed out female characters (not sure it passes the Bechdel?) but I thiiiiiiink I can forgive him that.
22/08/12	China Mieville	Perdido Street Station	Absolutely heart-breaking, but I'm glad I read it. Having Thorts. Considering fanfic...
04/08/12	Emma Donaghue	Kissing The Witch	yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
03/09/12	China Mieville	The Scar	Seeing the echos & reechoes of themes; found this one a little less wrenching.
11/09/12	China Mieville	Iron Council	Fffffffffffff ;_; y u make me sad. LOVED IT AGAIN but also this is SO BLEAK my word.
19/09/12	Alexander Dumas	The Three Musketeers	Eventually found myself caught up in it, but um was generally not overly impressed o well at least I know now
29/09/12	China Mieville	Kraken	I was 100% with him until he IGNORED THE MUSEUM OF ZOOLOGY IN CAMBRIDGE at like the 94% mark.
30/09/12	Amal El-Mohtar	The Honey Month	Really, really liked this. Very quiet and whimsical and beautiful yay. Thistle honey was my favourite. (And now I want to try them all!)
03/10/12	Paula Rentz	Red Tape Stories from Indian Country	WAY exceeded my creepy tolerance in places; otherwise charming.
05/10/12	CL Holland	A World in Clockwork and Other Stories	Charming little snippets. Very very pleased. :-)
09/10/12	Diana Wynne Jones	The Game	yay DWJ, boo slightly fetishistic description of Greek people, hurrah wanting to read it enough that I did so in hard copy...?
09/10/12	Emma Donaghue	Room: A Novel	OUCH but um I seemed to find it gripping anyway?
11/10/12	LM Montgomery	The Blue Castle	Oh dear she is so racist. Oh dear I still loved this book so much.
12/10/12	Maggie Stiefvater	The Scorpio Races	horses with only slight grump-inducing inaccuracies I WEPT AT THE END yep I still love her
17/10/12	Karen Russell	St Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves	creepier than I'd like honestly
19/10/12	Tamora Pierce	Song of the Lioness 1	… oh dear so SO racist and um not impressed by writing quality? i.e. hints were all kinda heavy-handed, it was all a bit obvious, and so on.
20/10/12	Tamora Pierce	Song of the Lioness 2	…
21/10/12	Tamora Pierce	Song of the Lioness 3	….....
22/10/12		The Promise 3	morals of the story: cultural appropriation is okay if you really MEAN it, and manual wheelchairs are a perfectly sensible thing to use for someone in a straitjacket. Oh DEAR. Like, plot is happening a bit? But oh DEAR.
23/10/12	Tamora Pierce	Song of the Lioness 4	…............................ SO SKEEVY
28/10/12	China Mieville	The City & The City
05/11/12	China Mieville	Embassytown	AUGH WHY DOES THE WORD “SHEMALE” FEATURE. Otherwise greatly enjoyed.
07/11/12	SM Reine	The 19 Dragons	kind of really dubiously racist (draconic mythology in a VERY Western setting)
10/11/12	Roger Zelazny	The Nine Princes of Amber	SO RACIST
16/11/12	Helen Oyeyemi	The Icarus Girl	AMAZING.
?	Kelly Link	Magic for Beginners	meh. Did not enjoy – too creepy/disjointed for my taste. (Humble eBook Bundle).
08/12/12	China Mieville	King Rat	not as awesome as his later work (lots of bloody & horrible deaths but I found them distinctly less traumatic!) but actually a very, very pleasant side-amble of distraction
?/12/12	Helen Oyeyemi	Mr Fox	Made much less sense to me than Icarus Girl but still enjoyable where I understood it
16/12/12	John Scalzi	Old Man's War	eurgh, the thanking Heinlein at the end makes sense – but generally pleasantly pulpy & fast-reading, and involves ACTUAL QUEERS just getting on with it, which is awesome
18/12/12	Gavin de Becker	The Gift of Fear	http://kaberett.dreamwidth.org/75400.html
19/12/12	John Scalzi	The Ghost Brigades	Mmm. Less impressed with this one in terms of e.g. Bechdel passes, minority characters, etc – though there was some social critique (all coming from a ~villain~ and therefore undermined!). But still a nice easy read for me, so.
22/12/12	John Scalzi	The Last Colony	Yay for lesbians and asexuals and third-gender species! Also WEEPING at the acknowledgments. WEEPING.
25/12/12	John Scalzi	Zoe's Tale	WEEPING. WEEPING FOREVER. EGREGIOUS FANMAIL SENT. BECAUSE WEEPING AND ADORATION AND QUEER PEOPLE AND MORE THIRD-GENDER RACES AND DEVOTION AND LOYALTY AND FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE AND. AND. POETRY. AND FEELS. FEELS FROM ALL MY ORIFICES.
26/12/12	John Scalzi	The Sagan Diary	mrrt ;_;

stats
34 authors (approximately, see above), of which:

• 22 (64%) are female
  
• 1 (3% trololol) is trans* (and sufficiently out about it for me to know)
  
• 6 (17%) are PoC

Of the books,

• 25 (41%) were by dudes and 35 (58%) were by ladies
  
• 98% were by cis people
  
• 82% were by white people

Top five authors by number of books read:

1. China Mieville (9)
   
2. John Scalzi (5)
   
3. Tamora Pierce (4) (and we know what I think of her)
   
4. Diana Wynne Jones (4)
   
5. Takako Shimura (3)

-- i.e. three women, all cis people (AFAIK), one PoC, three people who write regularly or entirely about LGBT+ people, and one, er, well, I've linked to my post about her.

Questions, comments, etc?

Comments

[naath]

Ah, you read ALL THE MIEVILLE :-p

(I <3 Mieville; although I have yet to attempt "Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law")

I actually really liked Palimpsest; but I like slightly random things.

[kaberett]

yes, it was the year of EVERY MIEVILLE :-)