2011 – The Story So Far

For the first quarter of the year I read thirty books (though I didn’t actually finish some of those started in March until April – this morning, in fact).

I thought it might be interesting to compile a list of my favourites, and then update each quarter.

So, in the order I preferred them when I wrote the list this morning (and, of course, it may be subject to change), here’s my top thirteen books for 2011 so far:-

Frankenstein’s Prescription – Tim Lees (Tartarus)

The Leaping – Tom Fletcher (Quercus)

Blonde on a Stick – Conrad Williams (Max Crime)

Sylvow – Douglas Thompson (Eibonvale)

The Thing on the Shore – Tom Fletcher (Quercus)

The Painter, The Creature, and the Father of Lies – Clive Barker (Earthling)

I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like – Justin Isis (Chomu)

The End of the Line – Edited by Jonathan Oliver (Solaris)

Haunted Legends – Edited by Ellen Datlow & Nick Mamatas (Tor)

Burying Brian – Steven Pirie (Immanion)

Girl in the Woods – Jennifer McMahon (Sphere)

Homeschooling – Carol Guess (PS Publishing)

Blind Swimmer – Edited by David Rix (Eibonvale)

It’s an eclectic list, with seven novels, one non-fiction title, three anthologies, one collection and one novella. Quercus and Eibonvale are the only publishers to rank twice (though the second Eibonvale title is hanging on by a thread), and Tom Fletcher is the only writer to appear twice. And, of course, quite a few of these titles were first published in 2010, if not earlier, so it is a ‘best of Pete’s reading’ rather than ‘best of the year’.

It’ll be interesting to see how many of these titles will still be hanging around in nine months time.