timjones in 2015

2014 was the Year of the Memoir for me: https://www.librarything.com/topic/163124

It was also a year when I read 53 books, the same total as for 2013 - if I recall correctly, ever since I joined Club Read, my year's total has been between 50 and 60. I'm guessing my 2015 total will be similar, though I always hope it will be a little more.

I haven't yet finished by "What I Read in 2015" blog post which I'll link to in due course, but from a week ago, here is my list of the highlights:

Best book, best non-fiction, best memoir

Clothes. Clothes. Clothes. Music. Music. Music. Boys. Boys. Boys. by Viv Albertine

Memoir runners-up (4 of 'em!)

Bedsit Disco Queen by Tracey Thorn
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
Li Na: My Life by Li Na

Other non-fiction runner-up

Dirty Politics by Nicky Hager

Best fiction, best novel

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Runners-up, best novel

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

Best short story collections

ShameJoy by Julie Hill
A Quiet Day and other stories by P. S. Cottier

Best poetry collection

Cinema by Helen Rickerby

(I've read far less poetry this year than usual because of all the poetry - not listed here - that I read during the selection process for The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, but Cinema would have been a highlight in any year. I have a whole bunch of unread collections I want to get to grips with over the summer holidays.)

I'm Tim, I'm a writer and editor (among other pursuits), I live in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, with my wife and son, and I have been in Club Read since 2009, even though I devote much less time to it than I would like. You'll probably find that I'm reasonably active here each December-February, but my appearances get fewer and fewer as the year gets busier.

I read 52 books in 2015 - highlights here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/185565#5388527

When I'm not writing, working in my part-time day job, or working on environmental issues, I like to read (obviously!), listen to an alarmingly eclectic range of music, walk the hilly streets and urban forests of Wellington, and watch cricket. (I used to play cricket, but my love for the game is in inverse proportion to my ability.)

I can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/timjonesbooks and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/timjonesbooks

Looking forward to following your reading once again.

>3 rebeccanyc: Thanks, Rebecca!

Hi Tim, hope you get your way with the flyover, always heartening to see people band together against the interests of bureaucracy.

That Viv Albertine book sounds interesting, I'll look out for it.

Also the Nicky Hager book. My brother does some occasional blogging on NZ politics so I've come across the whole Hager thing in 2014.

Hold you have a good reading year. I see you have got some hot weather over there at the moment so maybe start with some beach reading?

>5 zenomax:: Thanks! The political effect (or non-effect) of the Hager book has tended to overshadow its content, but even post-election it is still worth reading - though, longer-term, his book The Hollow Men is probably more significant.

The weather has been hot, but for tomorrow I'll need cricket rather than beach reading - I'm off to the first day of the New Zealand-Sri Lanka Test at the Basin Reserve (which is where the transport agency wants to build that flyover).

I hope you have a good 2015, in reading and in life!

1. Two Pedants by Sean Molloy - comic/graphic novel (4.5/5)

Two pedants, plus one curly-haired narrator who is married to one of the pedants. Their interactions, and their encounters with a variety of other characters, including the pedants' nemesis TXT SPK GRL and time-travelling playwright William Shakespeare, make for an entertaining graphic novel (or is "linked collection of comic strips" a better description?) which I enjoyed very much despite one of the pedants' virulent dislike of the Oxford comma, which is my view is the best thing to come out of Oxford since Mr. Toad.

I've now posted my "Highlights of 2014 Reading" blog post - fleshing out the first post in this thread with a number of reviews:

http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.co.nz/2015/01/what-i-read-in-2014-highlights-from....

2. Shift by Rhian Gallagher - poetry/collection (4.5/5)

I've previously heard Rhian Gallagher read her poetry and read individual poems in literary magazines, both of which I enjoyed, and I found them even more effective in this collection. It's divided into three sections, the first covering her life in London, the second a love affair in New York, the third her return to New Zealand's South Island. Her work is both technically effective and engaging, and I enjoyed most of these poems very much. My one slight caveat (and it's only a half-star-off sized caveat) is that a couple of devices of rhyme and vocabulary seemed over-used in the collection - but that barely dampened my enjoyment of this fine collection.

3. Wellingtonians by David Colquhoun - nonfiction/history (4/5)

This is a charming collection of historical Wellington images from the collection of the Alexander Turnbull Library, accompanied by David Colquhoun's insightful and amusing text. If you're a professional historian, this is unlikely to be for you, but for anyone visiting Wellington and wanting to know something of its history, or Wellingtonians wanting a gift to give a flavour of the city, this should do very nicely. (Also, it has a photo of a much younger Peter Jackson menacing a Wellington suburb, King Kong-style, which is definitely worth seeing.)

You have made that Viv Albertine memoir very appealing.

Good luck with your writing and reading this year. Seems you are off to an eclectic start.

>11 dchaikin: Thanks! I have to be fairly highly organised in a number of other areas of my life, so I enjoy being a disorganised - or, more charitably, spontaneous - reader.

4. Virgin Soil by Ivan Turgenev - fiction/novel/translated (4/5)

This is, in footballing parlance, a novel of two halves. I found the first 200 or so pages rather laborious, as the characters are assembled in Turgenev's default country-house setting - a setting masterfully sketched in Fathers and Sons and A Month in the Country, but often tedious here, and accompanied by detours to visit characters (such as Fomushka and Fimushka) who appear to belong in a different novel.

But it's worth persevering with Part 1 to get to Part 2, and especially to the last 100 pages, as the "going to the people" movement of young 1860s upper-class intellectuals comes harshly up against reality. The narrative fully comes into focus as it hurries to its conclusion, with neither the radicals nor the established order coming off very well. I wouldn't recommend this as your first Turgenev novel, but Turgenev fans should stick with this one.

I have that novel by Turgenev, but I see you don't recommend it as a first Turgenev. What do you recommend? I also have Sketches from a Hunter's Album.

>14 rebeccanyc: First Love had always been my favorite Turgenev. And it is one of the more accessible ones... Fathers and Sons is also very good but not quite sure if it is a good idea for a first book (unless if you are used reading the Russians) (I know you asked Tim, just could not resist) :)

>13 timjones: Interesting review. That first part feels like it had been paid by the word in places - similar to some of the padding that Dickens has in some of his novels simply because he had to produce the next batch of pages in time.. It's part of the reason it is the only Turgenev work that I never revisited.

>14 rebeccanyc: and >15 AnnieMod: - thanks! Fathers and Sons and A Month in the Country were the first two I read, so perhaps that I why I tend to recommend them as starters. I was surprised by my own inability to get into Sketches from a Hunter's Album - perhaps it's all thate hunting! - but I have also read and enjoyed A Nest of Gentlefolk.

5. A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin - re-read: novel/fantasy (4.5/5)

This is the third book in George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series - now sitting at five volumes with at least another two coming, seemingly on the never-never plan.

This is a huge book, clocking at 1500 pages or so in the print edition, and probably represents the final occasion on which Martin had full control of his characters and their many and sprawling storylines. It's a great read, with the highlight being Martin's descriptive prose - his descriptions of humans in nature are superb - and the continued development of many memorable characters.

Unfortunately, at least on my first reading, the standard of the next two volumes, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, was sharply reduced from the first three - Martin introduces a bunch of new characters and storylines I struggled to care about, and lets his main characters stagnate in place or wander about aimlessly for long periods. Rather than reading the books, which cover overlapping time periods, consecutively, I'm going to use to use the interleaved "Boiled Leather" reading order at

http://boiledleather.com/post/25902554148/a-new-reader-friendly-combined-reading...

to try to make better of sense of it all.

I very much hope Martin can bring the narrative back under control in the two volumes still expected and give his story a satisfying conclusion. He will have to make some brutal cuts to his multiplicity of storylines to do it, but then, brutal cuts are pretty much his stock in trade!

6. What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe - nonfiction/science (4.5/5)

I borrowed this book from my son - he loved it, and I thought it was very good too. The author, from the xkcd website, tries to work out accurate scientific answers to absurd, largely physics-based questions such as "What would happen if you made a periodic table out of cube-shaped bricks, where each brick was made of the corresponding element?" It's entertaining, illustrated with cute cartoons, and surprisingly enlightening at times.

>17 timjones: Very interesting thoughts on the GoT series. I heard the plot of these ad nauseum when they first came out from my oldest daughter. But, I have to say, I do enjoy hearing about them from someone who cares about how fiction is written.

>18 timjones: Sounds fun (and interesting), Tim.

>19 avaland: Thanks, Lois!

I haven't made much progress with the "Boiled Leather" reading order for Books 4 and 5 - though eminently logical, it's also a deal too much trouble! So I have set them aside for now and will return to them when I have the library books I'm currently reading safely completed & returned.

Hi,

I was interested by the Boiled leather post, but quickly came to the conclusion that it would be a lot of work to follow it. I'm not sure I will ever finish the series. I had pretty much the same experience you had, except that I lost steam after A Feast for Crows, which was a bit disappointing, and then there was such a long wait that I never got around to reading A Dance with Dragons. When it came out I tried re-reading the previous books, but I lost courage after the first one and left it at that.

>21 FlorenceArt:: Of the two, I think A Dance with Dragons is the better book - but I was so disappointed with A Feast for Crows, which I read immediately beforehand, that I had trouble fully appreciating its successor. Apparently GRRM was originally going to insert a five-year time jump before the fourth book, but then decided that wouldn't fly and set to work giving his characters something to do during that time period instead - which, I think, explains why many of the characters most readers care about are offstage for much of these books, and when they are onstage, are mainly spinning their wheels, with Brienne's storyline particularly bad in this regard. From memory, only Arya's storyline from those books was satisfying to me - but that could just be because she's my favourite character in the series.

For a modest fee, I am willing to wrap the series up for George in a couple of rapidly-paced 200-page volumes - please let him know if you happen to bump into him somewhere :-) (Spoiler: Ser Pounce the cat will turn out to have been Benjen Stark all along.)

Ah, you make me want to give it another try and re-read A Clash of Kings. By the way, I like Arya but my favorite character is Tyrion (not sure how it's spelled). And I like the bastard son who was sent to the North too, what was his name again? And the dragon lady. OK, I think I'm slowly talking myself into that re-read.

The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, edited by myself and P. S. Cottier, received a great review today in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper in Australia:

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/book-review-the-stars-like-sand-edited...

7. Furniture is Disappearing by Gemma White - poetry/collection (4/5)

I found this debut collection uneven but very enjoyable. The best of these poems, mostly about love and relationships, are full of unexpected but well-chosen word choices and angles of view. Some of the poems are more conventional, but all show the mark of a fine poet.

8. White Ghosts, Yellow Peril by Stevan Eldred-Grigg with Zeng Dazheng - nonfiction/histry (4.5/5)

While it's hard for me to judge the quality of the historical research, this is a very readable study of the interactions between New Zealand and China - and in particular the experience of the Cantonese and Hakka people who came to New Zealanders as gold miners in the 19th century, and of their descendants. The book stops in 1950, and I would love to read an extended edition or a second volume that covers the next sixty years of the story.

9. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier - nonfiction/mystery (4.5/5)

A splendidly written, tautly plotted book which, because the title character looms large over the narrative but is never able to speak for herself, is open to multiple interpretations. A page-turner, an cunning examination of class, and a formal achievement of great skill.

10. Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty - nonfiction/economics (4.5/5)

I'll be reviewing this book, together with This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein on my blog when I finish reading the Klein & will post the review then. But in brief: This is long, dry at times, tells me a great deal more about 19th century public debt than I feel I really need to know, and yet is also a cogently-argued and important book for anyone interested in why the rich get richer, why the poor get poorer, and what to do about it.

I've been putting off reading (and getting) Capital in the Twenty-First Century because it seems like such a dry tome. Your review hasn't convinced me otherwise, but it does suggest that I might find at least parts of it interesting and worth reading. Do you think it's possible to skim the "boring" parts?

>29 rebeccanyc:: I may have been a bit harsher than I intended in the above, which was partially motivated by relief at finally finishing it! My suggestion is to read Part 1 and Part 4 thoroughly and skim fairly rapidly through the stuff in the middle - unless you're a professional economist, in which case I guess you should read the lot! Actually, the seven-page Conclusion does a pretty fair job of summing up the whole thing :-)

11. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein - nonfiction/politics/economics (4.5/5)

I'll review this together with the Piketty above (#10) - but, again in brief, this book is well worth reading, provides a very cogent analysis of how capitalism acts against any real progress being made on the steep greenhouse gas emissions reductions needed, but - perhaps inevitably, since this is the really hard part - doesn't go as deeply as I'd have liked it to into what should be done about that.

12. Bad Debts by Peter Temple - novel/thriller (3.5/5)

A thriller that starts promisingly, wanders around too much in the middle as the private eye protagonist fails to notice some fairly obvious signs of just how much of a hornet's nest he has disturbed, and then picks up to a tense conclusion. Worth reading, especially for anyone who knows Melbourne - but could have been much stronger with a more tightly-written middle and a protagonist who kept his wits about him more consistently.

13. Singing with Both Throats by Maris O'Rourke - poetry/collection (3.5/5)

Enjoyable and well-written collection of poetry - I have heard a number of these poems read by the poet and they come across very well indeed, but although there is rarely a misfire in this collection it lacks enough really memorable poems to warrant a higher rating. Still worth reading though!

14. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - fiction/novel (4.5/5)

I very much enjoyed this novel - but I have been struggling to express why I liked it so much. Fortunately, this review in the Guardian says what I wanted to say, but more eloquently:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/apr/15/americanah-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie...

I agree with the reviewer's criticism that the book does drag slightly in a couple of places - hence my 4.5 rather than 5; but this is a fine and vital novel that I highly recommend.

15. North by Northanger by Carrie Bebris - fiction/pastiche/procedural (4/5)

16. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald - nonfiction/memoir (4/5)

Review to follow...

17. Cooked Up: Food Fiction From Around the World edited by Elaine Chiew - short fiction/anthology (4/5)

18. Dreaming Spies by Laurie R. King - fiction/thriller/historical (4/5)

19. Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman - nonfiction/literature/translation (4.5/5)

20. Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh - re-read (4.5/5)

17. Cooked Up: Food Fiction From Around the World edited by Elaine Chiew - short fiction/anthology (4/5)

See http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.co.nz/2015/06/book-review-cooked-up-food-fiction-f... for my review. I liked it!

21. Jabberwocky by Bill Sutton - poetry/collection (4/5)

22. The Conductor by Sarah Quigley - novel/historical fiction (4/5)

If my rating was based only on the last 100 pages of this novel, it would have been 5/5. "The Conduction" tells the story of the creation of Dmitri Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony and its Leningrad premiere during the Siege of Leningrad in World War 2. That part of the novel is gripping, but it takes a long time for the story to build momentum, and I found Part 1 (the first 90 or so pages) hard to get through. It's worth persevering with to get to the powerful final chapters, but I was left with the feeling that this good novel could have been a great novel with more stringent editing and a better appreciation of where the real story started.

>37 timjones: A bit sad, isn't it, to miss out on "great."

Watched a NZ crime show called "Harry" recently, and thought it excellent.

23. University Days by Laura Solomon - I'm reviewing this one for Landfall Review Online so will post a link when that's done.

24. Pride and Prescience by Carrie Bebris - fiction/pastiche/mystery (3.5/5)

25. Suspense and Sensibility by Carrie Bebris - fiction/pastiche/mystery (3.5/5)

I was recently involved in a High Court hearing for an environmental issue here in Wellington, and these two books featuring Lizzie Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy as de facto private detectives provided a very welcome antidote to all the dry legal arguments of the case.

>38 avaland:: Most of the other people at the book group rated The Conductor higher than I did, so maybe it's just me.

I'd heard of "Harry" but never seen it - glad you enjoyed it!

26. Landfall by Tim Jones - this is my new novella from Paper Road Press: http://paperroadpress.co.nz/shortcuts/shortcuts-track-1/#5 - an if-this-goes-on near-future story of refugees, immigration and oppression, set in and around New Zealand's largest city, Auckland.

>41 timjones:

That looks interesting - both the novella and the publisher. :)

>42 AnnieMod: Thanks! I definitely do think the novella is interesting, but you probably were expecting that! As for the publisher, it's one of a group of smaller publishers that has sprung up in the wake of the thinning out of the big publishers (big by New Zealand standards, that is!). As both an author and a reader, I really like the innovation and flexibility of publishers such as Paper Road Press, Makaro Press, Rosa Mira Books and a number of others - I keep meaning to doing a blog post about them, and will post the link to Club Read when I do!

27. A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin - novel/epic fantasy (4/5)

AFFC is generally (and I think rightly) regarded as the least good of the five volumes released to date in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, and when I first read it I found the sudden influx of new characters and settings very irritating when all I cared about were the storylines and characters established in the first three volumes.

I enjoyed AFFC more on this re-read. While I don't think I will ever love Dorne or the Iron Islands, I found some of the other, established characters much more interesting, involving this time round - even Brienne's, particularly when it comes to Septon Meribald and the Quiet Isle. Now to decide whether A Dance With Dragons is similarly improved by re-reading!

I've been getting involved in a stoush over book banning in New Zealand - the baaned book in question being the award-winning Into The River by Ted Dawe: http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.co.nz/2015/09/opposed-to-ban-on-ted-dawes-into-riv...

>41 timjones: Thanks for that head's up. Michael says he has a Kobo account (so I can, too). Might be a great thing to read on a long train ride coming up.

>46 avaland: Thanks!

28. A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin - novel/epic fantasy
(re-read) (4.5/5)

29. King of the Badgers by Philip Hensher - novel/literary fiction (3.5/5)

30. You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): A Memoir by Felicia Day - nonfiction/memoir (4/5)

31. The Glass Rooster by Janis Freegard - poetry/collection (4/5)

32. The Year of Falling by Janis Freegard - novel/debut novel/literary fiction (4.5/5)

33. Clothes. Music. Boys. by Viv Albertine - nonfiction/memoir (re-read) (5/5)

34. Peace Warriors by Raymond Huber - nonfiction/pacifism/history (3.5/5)

35. Second XI: Cricket in its Outposts by Tim Wigmore - nonfiction/sports (4/5)

36. I've Always Kept a Unicorn: The Biography of Sandy Denny by Mick Houghton - nonfiction/biography/music (4/5)

37. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt - novel/bildungsroman/thriller (4/5)

38. My Name Was Judas by C. K. Stead - novel/historical/religion (4.5/5)

39. Collected Poems by Basil Bunting - poetry/collected (4/5)

I read this mainly for Bunting's long poem "Briggflats", which I enjoyed but didn't think lived up to some the other classic long poems of modernism, such as "The Waste Land", with which I'd heard it compared.

40. Autobiography of a Corpse by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky - fiction/short stories and novellas (3/5)

I was somewhat disappointed by these stories - they are in the same general line as Gogol and Zamyatin, but I'd recommend both of those authors above Krzhizhanovsky unless you are extremely interested in formal literary experiments.

41. The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall - novel/literary fiction (5/5)

This excellent novels parallels the natural and the human world without being too obvious about it, as wolf reintroduction expert Rachael Caine supervises a project to reintroduce wolves to Britain while dealing with big changes in her own life. Wonderfully vivid writing and an exciting conclusion make this a five-star book for me.

>49 timjones: I read Autobiography of a Corpse and another collection by Krshinzhanovsky, The Letter Killers Club, and I felt I ought to like the stories better than I did. So I'm glad (in a way) that you were disappointed too.

>50 rebeccanyc: Thanks, Rebecca! Yes, I recall you mentioning something along those lines earlier in the year - sounds like we had a similar experience of his work

42. Driving Home: An American Journey by Jonathan Raban - nonfiction/travel writing/miscellany (3.5/5)

Although I enjoyed this book, I was glad I got it from the library rather than buying it, because more of the book than I thought reasonable consisted of a mishmash of unrelated book reviews and essays. But when on topic, I enjoyed Jonathan Raban's ruminations on his adopted home of Seattle, and on the wider Pacific Northwest.

43. The Matters at Mansfield by Carrie Bebris - fiction/novel/pastiche (4/5)

Just received my author copy of Shortcuts: Track 1 edited by Marie Hodgkinson, an anthology of 6 novellas including my novella Landfall. It was very satisfying with the novella originally appeared as an ebook, but even more satisfying to have it appear in print!

44. Possibility of Flight by Heidi North-Bailey - poetry/debut collection (4/5)

I really enjoyed this debut collection from Heidi North-Bailey, whose mainly personal poems are economical, witty, and make really good use of their short lines and stanzas. The subject matter is not new - relationships, "the big OE" - but it's expressed very well.

45. Four Quarters of Light: An Alaskan Journey by Brian Keenan - nonfiction/travel/spirituality (3.5/5)

46. Felt Intensity by Keith Westwater - poetry/collection (4/5)

The core of this collection is Keith Westwater's experience of the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, and the effect the quake had on that city and its residents - a series of excellent poems that go well beyond the personal. But there are also other social, political and personal poems in a collection that well represents Keith as a person and as a poet.

47. The Great Land: Reflections on Alaska by Robert Hedin and Gary Holthaus - nonfiction/travel/geography (4.5/5)

48. Cards on the Table by Jeremy N. Roberts - poetry/collection (3/5)

49. Doctor Who: The Legends of Ashildr by Justin Roberts and others - fiction/anthology/novellas/spin-off (3.5/5)

Four novellas that follow Season 9 Dr Who character Ashildr's adventures in between the first and second episodes in which she appears, "The Girl Who Dies" and "The Woman Who Lived". Three aren't very good. The fourth, "The Triple Knife" by Jenny T, Colgan, is excellent - but also very sad, because it narrates a traumatic time in Ashildr's life that viewers of "The Woman Who Lived" will know about. The collection is well worth reading for that novella, but it's a pity the other three fall well short of that standard.

50. Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl: A Memoir by Carrie Brownstein - nonfiction/music/memoir (4.5/5)

While Carrie Brownstein may now be most widely known for the TV show Portlandia, this memoir focuses on her life as a music fan and musician, specifically in the band Sleater-Kinney - the main part of the narrative finishes when the band goes on hiatus in 2006, and its reformation is covered only briefly.

The book is excellent of the intersections of character, place and circumstance that made, shaped, and derailed the 1994-2006 incarnation of Sleater-Kinney, and the strains the touring life place on all musicians, but especially on a highly intelligent, self-identified introvert and homebody. And I grew to like the author more for her analysis of her strengths and weaknesses, or at least areas of difficulty, as they have played out in her life within and beyond music. Her bandmates, Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss, are delineated strongly too.

I would have liked to see the book carry on into the next phases of Carrie Brownstein's life and career - or, to put it another way, I'd love a sequel!

>49 timjones: Hmm, I was wondering if The Legends of Ashildr was worth picking up. There's certainly room for enough interesting stories about that character! It's disappointing to hear most of 'em aren't very good. And I'm pretty sure I can guess what the fourth one is about, and I feel satisfied enough with the little glimpse we got of that in the episode. So maybe I'll give it a miss.

>57 bragan: That novella is very good - much better written than the others. Would make a good stand-alone. Other novellas could pretty much have been written about anyone with Ashildr's particular advantage.

51. Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson - novel/science fiction (4/5)

"Aurora" is another entry in Kim Stanley Robinson's series of novels about the habitation of the solar system - but this one goes well beyond the Solar System, as it tells the story of a generation starship sent to colonise the Tau Ceti system - an old science fiction trope, but handled with Kim Stanley Robinson's usual close attention to both the practicalities and the politics of such endeavours.

In my experience, people who read Robinson's work are sharply divided into those who love his writing and those whom it leaves completely cold, mainly because there is so much exposition, or to put it less kindly his books are full of info-dumps. I'm in the former camp, but this book certainly shares that weakness, and I found the characterisation of the main human character somewhat inconsistent. However, the book is thought-provoking and increasingly tense as the narrative proceeds, with only a rather protracted ending letting it down a little. Not the very best of Robinson's work, then, but still very good.

Looking back at my reading this year, I gave only one book a 5-star ranking, but I was surprised how many I'd given 4.5/5 (excluding re-reads). (I rarely rank a book lower than 3 stars, because if I feel a book is going to rank lower than that I probably won't finish it.)

So here are my best books first read in 2015:

5 stars

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall (novel)

4.5 stars

Fiction - novels

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Year of Falling by Janis Freegard
My Name Was Judas by C. K. Stead

Poetry - collection

Shift by Rhian Gallagher

Graphic novel

Two Pedants by Sean Molloy

Nonfiction

What If: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
White Ghosts, Yellow Peril : China and New Zealand, 1790-1950 by Stevan Eldred-Grigg with Zeng Dazheng
Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, translated by Arthur Goldhammer
This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein
Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman
The Great Land: Reflections on Alaska, edited by Robert Hedin and Gary Holthaus
Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl: A Memoir by Carrie Brownstein

Fictionalised memoir

7 Miles Out by Carol Morley

Honourable Mentions (4 stars)

Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson - science fiction novel
Felt Intensity by Keith Westwater - poetry collection
Possibility of Flight by Heidi North-Bailey - debut poetry collection

52. 7 Miles Out by Carol Morley - nonfiction/memoir (4.5/5)

I watched Carol Morley's first feature film "The Falling" earlier this year (she's also an acclimated documentarian), and enjoyed both the film and her writing about it enough to seek out "7 Miles Out", her memoir of her childhood and teenage years growing up in Salford, Lancashire in the wake of her father's suicide. Although this might make the book sound like a "misery memoir", it's often very funny, and quite apart from its own merits it shed a great deal of light on the principal characters in "The Falling". Enjoyed and recommended.

>52 timjones: Interesting about Morley. I noticed you have one of only two copies on LT.

>62 dchaikin: That surprised me greatly - I just went to check that there weren't a whole bunch of copies filed under "Seven Miles Out", but there don't appear to be. I don't think her work is widely known outside the UK, but even so, I would have expected more people to have listed this book