It's the end of the year (or at least soon will be) and I thought I'd do a little summary now, as it’s unlikely I’ll have time tomorrow.
This year I’ve read 184 books, let me clarify that a bit
I started 14 books I didn’t finish (because they were so bad) the worst of those I think was Guns, Germs and Steel my review below.
So I read a few pages of this book then decided to throw it in the bin. Not pass it on in any way. Just Dump it.
In the first paragraph - “Why did history unfold differently on different continents? In case this question immediately makes you shudder at the thought you are about to read a racist treatise, you aren’t” As Charlie Brooker pointed out on the 10 O’clock show recently someone introducing themselves as “Not a Racist” is a bit suspicious. Still that wasn’t what made me throw this book at the wall. A few pages later we have this: “New Guineans may have come to be smarter than Westerners. European and American children spend much of their time being passively entertained by TV” hmm that old saw of TV rots the brain, for which evidence is ambiguous at best and many studies actually say that moderate TV viewing actually increases intelligence. But no, Mr Diamond has obviously decided the goggle box is the Devil’s device as a few sentences on he says “irreversible mental stunting associated with reduced childhood stimulation” (the TV being an anti-stimulation device of course) and “mental abilities in New Guineans are probably genetically superior to Westerners, and they surely are superior in escaping the devastating developmental disadvantages that most children in industrialised societies now grow up” (my italics) Oh Really? Can you say sweeping generalisation without any evidence Mr Diamond?
And the reason he thinks New Guineans “may have come to be smarter than Westerners”? Well apparently it’s because they live a hand to mouth style existence struggling to find food (malnutrition in children is actually a cause of mental retardation isn’t it?) and fighting tribal wars so the stupid is killed off before it can breed and in Western society we’ve apparently conquered Maslow’s hierarchy of needs beyond the find food, find shelter level or as Mr. Diamond puts it “Europeans have for thousands of years been living in densely populated societies with central governments, police, and judiciaries where murders were relatively uncommon and a state of war was the exception rather than the rule.” Oh Really? Thousands of years you say, exactly what history books have you been reading Mr Diamond?
This book gets an average of 4.15 stars on LT?!? Most people say it is a must read although there are few thoughtful reviews (from people who actually read the book) pointing out much larger flaws than the ones I’ve highlighted above, and apparently Diamond, a non-historian, tells historians that they’ve been doing history wrong!
It was such an important book that not only is there an abridged version there is also a reading companion, a documentary series AND it won the Pulitzer? My flabber is well and truly gasted
And that’s probably the longest review I’ve ever done for 10 pages worth of reading!
I listened to 9 audio books
I read 11 ebooks (this is likely to increase next year now I’ve invested in an e-reader)
I read 41 Graphic Novels (10 of those were a re-read of Sandman to prepare for the new monthlies that are now delayed)
I read 10 ARCs (this is likely to increase next year too as I’m now reading ebook ARCs)
I read 37 books that I’ve owned for over a year without reading
I read 7 books by multiple authors
I read 34 books by female authors
I read 143 books by male authors
Wow that’s a scary gender imbalance there. I don’t deliberately choose books by gender and therefore you’d assume that I’d read roughly 50/50?
I rated 28 books “Average”
I rated 109 books “Good”
I rated 33 books “Brilliant”
My rating system explained -
Unfinished - self-explanatory really, it was so bad I couldn't finish it
Average - an OK book but one I wouldn't really recommend
Good - a good example of the genre, one I'd recommend
Brilliant- books that everyone should read, really outstanding and memorable
Out of those 33 books here are the ones that were not re-reads:
Gun Machine by Warren Ellis
well written police procedural on the edge of weird
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
The art and story work in combination perfectly as your drawn into Bechdel’s utterly compelling tale
Slowly Downward by Stanley Donwood
Highly recommended flash fiction, also check out Household worms
The poet’s corner (on audio) by John Lithgow
Brilliant collection of poems read out loud.
On writing by Stephen King
Recommended for Stephen King fans and those interested in the writing process
This book is full of spiders by David Wong (can’t wait until I can catch the film of John Dies at the end in 2014!)
Not as funny as John Dies at the end (a 5 star book from 2012) but a much better put together story
Jagannath by Karen Tidbeck
highly readable collection of shorts
Isle of 100,000 graves by Fabien Vehlmann Jason
This is a delight to read with fairly simple but fitting art.
The Half-made world & The Rise of ransom City by Felix Gilman
Well told tale in a fantastic and fantastically weird world
must read sequel but read The half made world first
Roadside Picnic by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky
Highly recommended for lovers of SF and the weird
You're all jealous of my jetpack by Tom Gauld
A really quite amusing collection of singe page comics
Unbuilt Bristol by Eugene Byrne
Great resource and very entertaining history
The Orphan Master’s son by Adam Johnson
It blew me away, a definite 5 star read
Mechanique by Genievive Valentine
Beautiful, painful, joyous, adventurous tapestry to be savoured and devoured and thrust into the hands of all those who share your reading tastes…
Die Wand by Marlen Haushofer
A quiet contemplative read, recommended
The violent century by Lavie Tidhar
The world is lovingly detailed and we get to see the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s with an alternative history.
The fictional man by Al Ewing
Highly recommended especially if you like metafiction and stories about the creative process
Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer
Stunning & useful, what a great book!
Lighter than my shadow by Katie Green
Highly recommended autobiography
The crystal mirror by Tim Malnick & Katie Green
This is a seriously beautiful book
Beyond the killing fields by Sydney Schanberg
Powerfully intelligent writing on the subject of war. Highly recommended. Have a box of tissues to hand when reading though
That’s it for reading but what about writing?
Well I attended a Vala book launch in February for Barbara Turner-Vesselago’s book Writing without a parachute - http://www.valapublishers.coop/writingwithoutaparachute and a random comment from Sarah Bird (of Vala) got me thinking. Sarah and I were talking about creative writing and I said that I should do some but was afraid I’d be bad at it. She replied something along the lines that the only way to get good is to practise and that creative writing was fun and everyone should give it a go. This is not new advice but for some reason, probably as I’d been fired up by the Bristol Festival of Literature the previous October, it struck a spark. 2013 was the year I finally stopped procrastinating and got writing.
As I suspected my first attempt wasn’t brilliant (see below) but given some encouragement from Dave Gullen (who didn’t say he hated it or that I should stop) I kept writing. From there I entered a few competitions, got an honourable mention in the 1000 words one, won the Hodderscape one and got my writing in print for the first time in The Naked Guide to Bristol & a story accepted into an anthology Airship shape and Bristol fashion http://hierath.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/airship-shape-and-bristol-fashion-table-of-contents/ soon to be published by Wizard’s Tower Press. Well if that wasn’t encouragement enough I don’t know what is so I’ve started to write “the thing that may eventually one day, possibly, maybe, end up as a book” (that’s the working title obviously).
In 2014 watch this space – so far I’ve started a 2nd first draft as the 1st first draft (of a different story) stalled at around 20,000 words (I think I need to be a better writer to attempt that story and will return once I’ve done something “easier” and completed a novel). My 2nd first draft stands at a grand total of 15,784 words. However this time I’m not pantsing and have a journal with an outline and notes which hopefully will help.
My first attempt at a short story, a little less than a year ago (written in April – see even after deciding to write in 2013 I spent 2 months working up to it!)
Christmas steps
There was a stabbing on
Christmas steps. We were both there. It was foggy, and dark, but with that
Backhouse said that the
statue is of no particular person but represents “a reminder of people from
the Past” which seemed appropriate, however he also
said that his art “is about the way in which
the ones that had other statues
nearby to converse silently with in tones of creaking stone or the
ping of rain off bronze but it would
be terribly lonely for those, like the horseman, who had no other
statues close by. I wondered about
his lonely thoughts watching road traffic burping past or the
random wanderings of shoppers and
revellers like ants who have lost their sense of smell.
You were walking down Park
Row. The smell of fish and chips only partly masked the muffling wet
a new fantasy in my head as
usual. At this point I was wondering what the collective noun for
statues was. I was disappointed to
find that the Wikipedia entry on collective nouns didn’t have
statues. It had a “rout of snails” and a
“scurry of squirrels” and a “trip of stoats” but nothing related
to statues.
Perhaps I should invent one?
A stillness of statues, a silence of statues, a freeze
of
statues
perhaps or a pondering of statues since they
must think deep thoughts. A quick search
led
me, amusedly, to @collectivenouns
on Twitter and so I had to immediately
follow them, still no
better
suggestions there though. These musings
brought me to the bottom of the steps. I checked
the
Bristol culture webpage again to start me off.
In medieval times, the Christmas
Steps was [should
that be were? I thought] called Queene
Street,
a statue of the Madonna and child,
rubbed smooth by generations of people for luck. The beheaded
statue can still be seen just inside
the entrance to St Bartholomew’s Court.
I was researching a story, about a stabbing, I
was going to set it on Knyfesmyth street. It was going
to
be about a young man, younger than me so maybe your age, who comes to rub the
statue of the
Madonna
and child for luck. He’s annoyed a powerful criminal and men are coming for
him, the kind
of
men I’m probably going to describe as burly. I could also describe them as
utterly barking and
very,
very dangerous. I wonder if beheaded or disarticulated statues would have their
own
collective noun.
The iconoclasts defaced many statues and the Taliban famously blew up the
Buddhas of Bamiyan
so an effacement of effigies perhaps.
I wonder what thoughts swirled around your
head as you approached the top of the steps.
I
wondered
at the time what thoughts would swirl around the head of my young man as he
looked
for some
superstitious or supernatural aid. Was he a true believer or did the smoothly
rubbed
statue hold
some particular meaning to him. Perhaps he had noted the statue previously
whilst
shopping for
a knyfe? Or perhaps I should develop a scene with a small beggar girl who tells
him the
magic contained
within the statue and how it saved her from some dread disease of the street?
Perhaps I should
have a fighting of beggars, since I’m still thinking of collective nouns and
that’s
such a good one.
You
were silhouetted at the top of the steps and I assume I must have been the same
at the bottom.
I
only half noticed you as I was looking at the steps and making mental notes
whilst mostly looking
at my
phone. You paused slightly and started down the well-worn route trodden by many
over the
centuries.
I stood, hand in pockets, lost in thought wondering about the specialist knife
merchants
who
used to occupy what I was looking at. I wondered how many synonyms for knife
there actually
are
and which would fit my story best. A dimly glinting dagger perhaps or a
wickedly thin dirk
maybe, possibly
I should be alliterative; a cruel cleaver, a strident stiletto, ugh, one to
play with later
I guessed.
Was
it an opportunity for you? Did you think I was someone else, people often do,
I’ve been told I
have
one of those faces that make people think they know me. Did you catch the
tenuous half
shaped
story as it flitted up and down the stairs or was that only visible to me?
Perhaps it caught
you and
you sleepwalked through actions given fleeting form on the fog. You approached closer
and I finally
became fully aware of you and thought I should walk up the steps now. My writer’s
glance worked
to categorize you and add to my young man at the same time. Your dark ski
jacket
becoming an
oilskin in my imagination, your baseball cap a different, more time appropriate
headwear as I tried
different shapes in my imagination. You looked straight at me then and I wonder
what you saw.
My
slightly dreamy but intense gaze illuminated by the screen of my phone is
perhaps all you
focussed
on. Perhaps you’d had a bad night, perhaps you were angry at the world, perhaps
you
were high,
perhaps you spotted an opportunity, perhaps I had unknown mortal enemies that
had
paid for an
assassin, perhaps you were an escapee from a secure mental institution, I am
left with a
plethora of
perhapses.
I
had thought a knife would glint but perhaps there was to be no fog in my story.
I had thought my
burly
fellows would grunt as they stabbed but you emitted no sound. You slashed and
stabbed until
my
guts were in ribbons, the fog rolled down the steps and matched the fog of
darkness that closed
my
eyes as you ran away, my phone taken, your footsteps sounding very fast to my
slowing, ever
more slowly, beating heart, at least now I’ll be able to describe what it feels like
to be stabbed.
