In 2006 I read over 200 books - lost count but I think the final tally was 207 - up considerably from last year's 137. This was partly because I read quite a lot of shorter books, but also I think I did more travelling where it was easy to keep reading. In addition, I had a few attempts at sertting up small reading programmes for myself, such as the Unread Books Project and pursuing a couple of obscure authors, which actually gives you an incentive to read them fairly quickly so that you can get on with the next sf paperback.

Comics

I read six graphic novels in 2006 (down from eight in 2005).

Non-fiction

I read 70 non-fiction books, about 34% of my total reading; an increase on both counts from 40 and 29% last year. ( Read more... )

Fiction

I read 131 fiction books this year, up considerably in number (but not in proportion) from 89 last year. ( Read more... )

SF

I read 101 books in the sf field this year, counting seven non-fiction books on sf topics, which is up from last year's 79 (but down in percentage terms, from almost two-thirds to less than half). ( Read more... )

Books of the Year

Non-fiction

In no particular order: Robert Cooper's The Breaking of Nations is a brilliant examination of what international politics is about by a senior practitioner; Lost Lives is harrowing but essential reading for anyone interested in Ireland's recent past; and Indefensible unexpectedly develops from being a day in the life of a defence lawyer to an exploration of the possibility of redemption. Honourable mentions to Fanny Kemble's first person account of slavery in the Old South, Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, and Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton.

Fiction

Although I read many classics of non-genre fiction this year, the two I enjoyed most were an unpretentious children's book, The Warden's Niece by Gillian Avery, a charming children's novel set in nineteenth-century Oxford; and Ismail Kadarë's The File on H, a very thought-provoking exploration of Albania and its relations with the outside world.

SF

Only one of my top four sf books was published for the first time in 2006, and that was a compilation of the author's previous work: Impossible Stories, which pulls together Zoran Živković's visions (many previously published in Interzone) and makes a satisfying if somewhat mysterious read. I thought that Terry Pratchett hit all the right notes with Thud!, an allegory on sectarianism and bigotry - not in themselves new themes for Pratchett, but done somehow more sure-footedly here. Similarly, of the past Nebula winners, I particularly liked Elizabeth Anne Scarborough's account of the Vietnam War through a mildly fantastic lens, The Healer's War. And I can't understand why I had not previously heard much about The Wreck of The River of Stars by Michael F. Flynn, a superb hard sf story about the crew of a doomed spaceship, with characters and scenes that lingered in my mind for months after I had closed the cover.

18) The Warden's Niece, by Gillian Avery

The Warden's Niece is no relation to The Warden, though of course they share a common background in the nineteenth century (this book set in 1875 and written in 1957). Eleven-year-old Maria runs away from school to her great-uncle who is the Warden of an Oxford college. She gets put in with the three sons of the neighbouring house, and their eccentric temporary tutor Mr Copplestone (who would certainly be played by Stephen Fry in the movie version). She also develops her own little research programme, solves a historical mystery, and thus gets her Bildung. It's a lovely little book. My favourite scene is where she manages to talk her way into the Bodleian Library, in a combination of drive to find the answers to the historical mystery that has been puzzling her, and carrying out the terms of a dare from one of the boys next door. But I am a sucker for the Bodleian anyway.