Top Ten Tuesday (2)

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, and this week's topic is:

Top Ten Books I Read in 2013

So, in no particular order: 

The Missing Ink, by Philip Hensher

For making me want to get out a fountain pen and write letters to people for the pure pleasure of writing by hand. (I actually did write a couple to my sister.)

 

The Wheel of Ice, by Stephen Baxter

For being an excellent science fiction novel that also happened to feature the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie.

 

Eighty Days, by Matthew Goodman

For filling in details I never knew about Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland.

River of Stars, by Guy Gavriel Kay

For being so beautiful I just want to read it out loud.

 

Red Planet Blues, by Robert J. Sawyer

For combining science fiction, Westerns, and detective noir in such thought-provoking ways.

The Human Division, by John Scalzi

For the great characters and the diplomatic maneuvering.

The Riddle of the Labyrinth, by Margalit Fox

For the fascination of decipherment, and for making me want to invent a syllabary. (I did not actually do this.)

Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies, by Chris Kluwe

For teaching me some new cursewords, and for being monumentally entertaining. I now support Chris Kluwe for Overlord of Humanity.

 

One Summer: America, 1927, by Bill Bryson

For being so funny I kept having to read whole pages out loud to my husband. He read the book as soon as I was done, just to get the context of some of the anecdotes.

 

Royal Airs, by Sharon Shinn

For the immersive experience; it dragged me in and kept me absorbed in a way few books do any more.

And there are some others I could have mentioned, which I take to mean it was a good year.  I read 100 books exactly, as I had challenged myself to do, and won a t-shirt from the library where I work in the process. 

We had over 1300 people sign up for the challenge, and we ended up with 180-odd winners: a little over 10 %, which is not too shabby for a do-it-yourself kind of program. We'll be doing it again next year, but I don't guess I'll sign up again.