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Best Books of 2013 Survey-From Boston Bibliophile

How many books read in 2013?

34, as of December 29th.

How many fiction and non-fiction?

Officially, 3 non-fiction and the rest fiction. However, that's not counting the vast amounts of literary criticism I read this year.

Male/Female author ratio?

21 female and 9 male authors (some were repeats). It's funny, I've gone from slightly slanting toward male authors to strongly slanting towards female authors!

Favorite book of 2013?

The Best of All Possible Worlds, Wanderlust, and Woman on the Edge of Time.

Least favorite?

I mostly DNF'ed books I didn't like this year...so of those I did finish, Patternmaster by Octavia Butler.

Any that you simply couldn’t finish and why?

Having other priorities this year really freed me up to just say "no" to books for pleasure that I wasn't getting into. That would include London Falling and The Wet and the Dry. The former was just not my style, the latter was interesting in terms of content, but badly organized and not as insightful as it could have been.

Oldest book read:

Probably Gerusalemme liberata, published in 1575.

Newest?

MaddAddam came out in September 2013.

Longest and shortest book titles?

The Best of All Possible Worlds; MaddAddam

Longest and shortest books?

A Discovery of Witches; Every Boy Should Have a Man

How many books from the library?

At least 10 (not counting lit crit, of which I had at least 20 out at one time).

Any translated books?

Only poor lonely Gerusalemme liberata aka The Liberation of Jerusalem.

Most read author of the year, and how many books by that author?

Margaret Atwood, and two. Actually, she is tied with Jerry Spinelli, I also read two of his.

Any re-reads?

None that I counted for the blog.

Favorite character of the year?

Elisabeth Eaves, in Wanderlust.

Which countries did you go to through the page in your year of reading?

Spain, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Portugal, India, France, Canada, Australia, Peru, the planet Cygnus Beta, the Dominican Republic, New Jersey, England, the planets Urras and Anarres, and the moon Triton.

Which book wouldn’t you have read without someone’s specific recommendation?

I was definitely encouraged to read Insurgent, The Good Lord Bird, and MadAddam via blog zeitgeist.

Which author was new to you in 2012 that you now want to read the entire works of?

Karen Lord, Preston L. Allen, Marge Piercy

Which books are you annoyed you didn’t read?

The final two Malloreon books!

Did you read any books you have always been meaning to read?

I finally read Insurgent, and The Female Man had been on my TBR list for years. Other than that, it was more reading authors I'd wanted to read more of, like Junot Diaz, Jhumpa Lahiri, Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Margaret Atwood.

*Bonus*

How many SFF books did you read this year?

12

How many of the books you read were published this year?

7

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