Daily Archives: December 29, 2011

2011: The New Authors

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My final total of books read for 2011 looks like being 178 but even if I do sneak in another one before Saturday midnight my new author tally of 83 books won’t change as I’m definitely in non-challenging, old favourites mode during my holiday week as the temperature hits scorching here.

My percentage of new authors has slipped slightly from last year’s almost dead even (82 of 163 finished books) but I’m happy enough that my ‘new to me author’ percentage is still over 45%. I’d like to maintain that next year though I suspect I might struggle a little as I’ll be doing less challenges (reading challenges are excellent for motivating me to read new authors).

I haven’t quite finished my favourite books of the year list but I fully expect the top two, possibly three, spots to be taken out by books from this list. That’s why I keep reading new authors.

  1. Ellery Adams – A Killer Plot (pub 2010, 3 stars)
  2. Sophie Hannah - Little Face (pub 2006, 1.5 stars)
  3. Camilla Ceder – Frozen Moment (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  4. Leighton Gage – Blood of the Wicked (pub 2008, 4.5 stars)
  5. Kate Ellis – A Perfect Death (pub 2009, 3 stars)
  6. Simon Brett – The Body on the Beach (pub 2000, 3 stars)
  7. Christopher Brookmyre – Pandaemonium (pub 2009, 5 stars)
  8. Alan Glynn – Winterland (pub 2009, 4 stars)
  9. Alan Orloff – Diamonds for the Dead (pub 2010, 3 stars)
  10. Boris Akunin – Pelagia and the White Bulldog (pub 2000, 2 stars)
  11. Dianne Day – The Strange Files of Fremont Jones (pub 1995, 2.5 stars)
  12. Bev Robitai – Murder in the Second Row (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  13. Andrew Croome – Document Z AUS (pub 2009, 4 stars)
  14. Michael Ridpath – Where the Shadows Lie (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  15. David Whish-Wilson – Line of Sight AUS (pub 2010, 4 stars)
  16. Adrian d’Hage – The Maya Codex AUS (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  17. Keigo Higashino – The Devotion of Suspect X (pub 2010, 2 stars)
  18. Charley Warady – 5ive Speed – A Novel (pub 2011, 4 stars)
  19. Christopher Fowler – The Water Room (pub 2008, 3.5 stars)
  20. Jon Loomis – High Season (pub 2007, 3.5 stars)
  21. Sam Eastland – Eye of the Red Tsar (pub 2010, 2.5 stars)
  22. Catherine O’Flynn – What Was Lost (pub 2007, 5 stars )
  23. Helen Grant – The Vanishing of Katharina Linden (pub 2009, 3 stars)
  24. Michael Duffy – The Tower AUS (pub 2009, 3.5 stars)
  25. Nick Brownlee – Bait (pub 2009, 2.5 stars)
  26. Martin Walker – Bruno, Chief of Police (pub 2008, 4 stars)
  27. Lenny Bartulin – The Black RussianAUS (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  28. Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström – Box 21 (pub 2008, 5 stars)
  29. David Owen – How the Dead See AUS (pub 2011, 4 stars)
  30. Michael Van Rooy – An Ordinary Decent Criminal (pub 2005, 3.5 stars)
  31. Jaye Ford – Beyond Fear AUS (pub 2011, 3 stars)
  32. Ernesto Mallo – Needle in a Haystack (pub 2005, 4 stars)
  33. Gary Corby – The Pericles Commission AUS (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  34. Eoin Colfer – Plugged (pub 2011, 4 stars)
  35. Domingo Villar – Water-Blue Eyes (pub 2006, 5 stars)
  36. Linda Cockburn – Who Killed Dave? AUS (pub 2009, 3 stars)
  37. Steve Hamilton – The Lock Artist (pub 2010, 3 stars)
  38. Valerio Varesi – River of Shadows (pub 2010, 3 stars)
  39. Alan Carter – Prime Cut AUS (pub 2011 4.5 stars)
  40. Angela Savage – The Half Child AUS (pub 2010, 4 stars)
  41. Thomas Enger – Burned (pub 2011, 3 stars)
  42. Geoffrey McGeachin – The Diggers Rest Hotel AUS (2010, 4 stars)
  43. J D Cregan – The Wonder of Seldom Seen AUS (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  44. Stan Jones – White Sky, Black Ice (pub 1999, 4.5 stars)
  45. Lars Keplar – The Hypnotist (pub 2010, 2 stars)
  46. Kel Robertson – Rip Off AUS (pub 2011, 4 stars)
  47. Unity Dow – The Screaming of the Innocent (pub 2002, 4.5 stars)
  48. Christopher Currie – The Ottoman Motel AUS (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  49. Arne Dahl – Misterioso (pub 2011, 3 stars)
  50. David McCullough – 1776 (pub 1995, 3 stars)
  51. Gordon W Dale – Fool’s Republic (pub 2011, 3 stars)
  52. Helene Tursten – Detective Inspector Huss (pub 1998, 4.5 stars)
  53. Rosamund Lutpon – Sister (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  54. Gianrico Carofiglio – A Walk in the Dark (pub 2003, 4.5 stars)
  55. Daphne Du Maurier – Rebecca (pub 1938, 3 stars)
  56. Denise Mina – The End of the Wasp Season (pub 2011, 3 stars)
  57. Jussi Adler-Olsen – Mercy (pub 2008, 4.5 stars)
  58. A. D. Miller – Snowdrops (pub 2011, 2 stars)
  59. Tom Franklin – Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (pub 2010, 5 stars)
  60. Nicole Watson – The Boundary AUS (pub 2011, 4 stars)
  61. John Lawton – Second Violin (pub 2008, 3 stars)
  62. Carolyn Morwood – Death and the Spanish Lady AUS (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  63. John M Green – Born to Run AUS (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  64. Kate Charles – Evil Intent (pub 2005, 4.5 stars)
  65. Mari Jungstedt – The Dead of Summer (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  66. Y.A. Erskine – The Brotherhood AUS (pub 2011, 5 stars)
  67. Jane Casey – The Burning (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  68. Shamini Flint – A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder (pub 2008, 4 stars)
  69. Sofi Oksanen – Purge (pub 2010, 4 stars)
  70. Barbara Fradkin – This Think of Darkness (pub 2009, rating 2.5)
  71. Megan Abbott – The End of Everything (pub 2011, 3? 3.5 stars? Not sure even now
  72. Jorn Lier Horst – Dregs (pub 2011, 4.5 stars)
  73. Cora Harrison – Scales of Retribution (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  74. Carlo Lucarelli – Almost Blue (pub 1997, 3.5 stars)
  75. Rebecca Cantrell – A Trace of Smoke (pub 2009, 4 stars)
  76. L.A. Larkin – The Genesis Flaw AUS (pub 2010, 2.5 stars)
  77. Charlie Huston – The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death (pub 2009, 3.5 stars)

Read but not reviewed

  • Peter May’s Blowback (meh)
  • Tarquin Hall’s The Case of the Missing Servant (good, funny)
  • Alafair Burke’s The Dead Connection (again, meh)
  • Simon Becket’s Written in Bone (good, atmospheric)
  • Alice LaPlante’s Turn of Mind (brilliant, harrowing if you have any personal experience of people with Alzheimer’s disease)
  • S.J. Watson’s Before I go to Sleep (wtfwajt*)

Actually I did sort of review both of these last two books as I happened to read them in quick succession and they were, in a way, tackling similar subjects.

Do you try to read new to you authors or do you stick more to old favourites? Have you found any amazing new to you authors in 2011?

*what the f*** were award judges thinking?

What’s in a Name?

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The What’s In A Name challenge is an annual one that looks simpler than it was. To read a paltry 6 books across a whole year is nothing really but a couple of the categories proved a little difficult for me. Funnily enough I had no problems with titles containing the word evil or books with a life stage in the name (though it possibly says something about my damaged psyche that all my options incorporated ‘death’) but I ended up having to cheat a little with the last category I finished – a book with a size in the title. I don’t suppose ‘short’ is really a size but the book I had selected (containing the word Quarters) ended up soaking in the washing up water for about an hour and it hasn’t been the same since. All but one of the six books I read were rated 3 stars or above which means this was a good challenge, quality wise, as well as being a bit of fun (if you want to know without clicking on the review links Three Seconds was the book that did little for me).

Anyway thanks to Beth Fish Reads for hosting the challenge and though I am not intending to participate in more than one challenge next year if I do find myself looking for a bit of a challenge I can see myself being tempted by the 2012 version of this challenge