I was almost not going to do this, but then I got the notice that the nominations for the Hugos are open, and I thought, well, I'll have to go over my reading for that anyway... These are books I read for the first time last year, and maybe have been published at any time in the past or future.

My book-reading list is here: I read 120 books total, along with 46 volumes of comics, which is up on 2008.

Favourite Adult SF/Fantasy

I read a fair bit of urban fantasy this year, and Seanan McGuire's Rosemary and Rue was probably the one I enjoyed most unreservedly. A strong mystery with an engaging heroine and plenty left to explore. Also no annoying romantic options.

Also up there was Tanya Huff's Smoke and Ashes, which was charming, funny and hot - Tony finally gets some resolution on his crush - with some added digs at fandom. It was also probably the most embarrassing book for me to buy this year, thanks to the raunchy cover art. I read five Tanya Huff books this year that I'd never read before, and blogged about most of them. They are all worth reading.

New to me, but not new to the world: Karin Lowachee's series, beginning with Warchild, and ending with Cagebird, which I've talked a little about already. I really like how Karin Lowachee describes what people don't say: the small gestures and expressions that are so hard to convey in words.

The book I read last year that I didn't put on my list then but I probably would in retrospect: A Door into Ocean, by Joan Slonczewski. Classic feminist sf novel about an all-woman pacifist society. This book has really stuck with me - which, being as I read it a year and a half ago, is quite noteworthy. It does make me feel like a very uncivilised person, but I'm generally content with that.

Favourite YA SF/Fantasy

Patrick Ness's The Ask and the Answer was gripping and horrifying. Like The Knife of Never Letting Go, it ends on a cliffhanger, but rather than seeming unnecessary, the ending here is satisfying - everything's on stage for the big battle.

I've already talked about Guardian of the Dead, which is the 'future' part of my reading, and pretty much hit all of my buttons for YA fantasy. Even the dragons, if you accept my equating of taniwha with dragons.

But What About the Non-Genre Stuff?

Hooray for Anna Hibiscus!, by Atinuke, is a sweet story collection for kids around 5-8 years old. It would make a good read-aloud - the prose has an excellent rhythm. Indian Summer by Pratima Mitchell was my favourite non-genre YA novel. The characters were particularly appealing, as there was very little in the way of teen angst to suffer through - their problems were real problems - and it was an altogether charming read.

The trouble with non-genre stuff is that it isn't really on the same level as the genre stuff for me - I read widely in children's fiction, because that's my job, but I only read three adult novels last year that weren't sci-fi or fantasy. And none of them are on my best of list.

Best of the Rest

I don't read a lot of non-fiction, but what I did read was generally very good. My particular favourite was Zygmunt Bauman's Modernity and the Holocaust, which actually gave me a new way of thinking about things. I read Stephanie Levine's Mysticks, Mavericks and Merrymakers for the same class, which was also a good read - I suppose it's an ethnography of Lubavitcher girlhood, and I found some of the applications to feminism quite interesting (in that the girls are generally more content with themselves than their counterparts in secular US society).

I read even less poetry, but I really loved Selina Tusitala Marsh's Fast Talking PI. I kept meaning to review it, but never got around to it. You can read and hear some of her work on the Pasifika Poetry page.

I did not read any spectacularly weird books this year, which is disappointing to look back on. The closest contender was probably Kanehara Hitomi's Autofiction, except that it was also a really dire reading experience, with the most unlikable narrator I have ever encountered. So that would be the worst book of the year. If you want to read something of hers, go for Snakes and Dragons, which has a bizarrely fascinating plot to go along with the awful inhabitants of the story.