Title links to my diary, author links to Amazon.
Non-fiction
- How to Talk to Anyone by Leil Lowndes
- The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman, Nan Silver
- When London Was Capital of America by Julie Flavell
- Adventures in the Orgasmatron by Christopher Turner
- Republic by Plato
- The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson
- Plato, Socrates and the Dialogues by Michael Sugrue
- The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker
- Fall of the Pagans and the Origins of Medieval Christianity by Kenneth W. Harl
- The Frock-Coated Communist by Tristram Hunt
- From Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp
- Wild Grass by Ian Johnson
- Logistics and Supply Chain Management by Martin Christopher
- The Case for Books by Robert Darnton
- Tabloid Girl by Sharon Marshall
- The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism by Hamid Dabashi
- State Building by Francis Fukuyama
- Philosophic Pride: Stoicism and Political Thought from Lipsius to Rousseau by Christopher Brooke
- Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
- Confessions of a Mullah Warrior by Masood Farivar
- Dispirited by Davis Webster
- Scroogenomics by Joel Waldfogel
- Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Discordia by Molly Crabapple, Laurie Penny
- Superheroes by William Irwin
- Meat Market by Laurie Penny
- Snuff by Terry Pratchett
- Side Jobs by Jim Butcher
- The Glamour by Christopher Priest
- Children of the Sky by Vernor Vinge
- Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds
- The Quantum Thief by Hanny Rajaniemi
- By Light Alone by Adam Roberts
- Banner of Souls by Liz Williams
- Embedded by Dan Abnett
- The Minority Council by Kate Griffin
- Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
- Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch
- Chez Max by Jakob Arjouni
- Salvage by Robert Edric
- City of Bohane by Kevin Barry
- Incompetence by Rob Grant
- On the Beach by Nevil Shute
- Wake by Robert Sawyer
- Embassytown by China Mieville
- The Rapture of the Nerds by Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow
- Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway
- Cinnamon Kiss by Walter Mosley
- The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King
- Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
- After Dark by Haruki Murakami
- Chez Max by Jakob Arjouni
- Seek My Face by John Updike
- A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle
- Madame Mephisto by A. M. Bakalar
- Pure by Andrew Miller
- The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman
- Oh, Play That Thing by Roddy Doyle
- The Fear Index by Robert Harris
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Graphs
Non-comics overall numbers:
By type:
With a total of 71 non-comics, this is my second-lowest year: only read fewer in 2006. Not that much lower than 2004 and 2005 though, each of which had 73.
Highlights
Non-fiction
The gonzo-journalism-from-Greece book
"Discordia"
was a good concept that I hope catches on: an e-book
somewhere between an essay and a book in both length and price.
"Dispirited" was an attack on the spiritual-but-not-religious
that unfortunately manages only the wrong half of the the trick:
intermediate in length, but the price of a full-sized book.
Stephen Pinker's
"The Better Angels of our Nature"
makes a fairly persuasive argument that things are getting better for
the human race over the long term. "Triumph of the City" does
the same for cities.
"When London Was Capital of America" and the Engels biography
"The Frock-Coated Communist" were interesting slices of history.
SF
"The Quantum Thief" was a great slice of modern science fiction with good ideas.
"Embassytown" was SF with a nice retro feel.
"On the Beach" deserves its reputation as a classic.
Non-SF fiction
"The Great Gatsby" also turned out to be surprisingly good for a classic.
"Pure" was a memorable, atmospheric novel about excavating a graveyard
in pre-revolutionary France.
Comics
Hardly read any comics, but "Habibi" was the definite highlight:
sexy, compelling and brilliantly composed, though its blatant orientalizing
will annoy some.
Well, that's about it for 2012. Hard to believe this marks ten years since I started in 2002. Will we still be here in 2022?
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