Lisa’s 2010 Review

I just barely made it through my baseline number of books this year, passing the 50 book mark the last week of December. This is significantly worse than last year, when I read 71. I read 20336 pages this year, averaging 55 pages a day (down from 27590 pages last year, 75 pages a day). The only statistic I went up on was average book length: last year was 388 pages, this year was 398.

I started to rant that picking a top 5 would be a pain this year since overall it seemed like I read a lot of mediocre fantasy, but as I went back through my list it became obvious that several stood out above the others. For once it wasn’t an onerous task to pare down my list of favorites to 5, however. I’m a little dithery on the last item on the list – I could have happily interchanged The Cardinals Blades with The Child Thief… but I wasn’t feeling dark enough to include the latter in the list today. So, in no particular order, my top 5 favorites of 2010:

1) The Warded Man
2) The Lions of Al Rassan
3) The Price of Spring
4) The Way of Kings
5) The Cardinals Blades


And the full list of books that I read this year:

• The Ninth Circle by Alex Bell
• Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton
• Iorich by Steve Brust
• Bone Dance by Emma Bull
• The God Engines by John Scalzi
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susana Clarke
• An Autumn War by Daniel Abraham
• Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb
• The Price of Spring by Daniel Abraham
• Mean Streets - The Warrior by Jim Butcher
• The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines (Didn’t Finish)
• Servant of a Dark God by John Brown
• The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan
• Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
• Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaimain
• Tuck by Stephen Lawhead
• Changes by Jim Butcher
• The Lions of Al Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
• Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe (Didn’t Finish)
• The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
• The Child Thief by Brom
• Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Dragonfly Falling by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb
• Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
• Kraken by China Mieville
• The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
• Sisters Red by Jackson Pierce
• How to make friends with demons by Graham Joyce
• Budayeen Nights by George Alec Effinger
• A Magic of Dawn by S. L. Farrell (Didn’t Finish)
• Blood of the Mantis by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Memoirs of a Bookbat by Kathryn Lasky
• Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton
• Salute the Dark by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton
• The Cardinals Blades by Pierre Pevel
• The House on Durrow Street by Galen Beckett
• Dreadnought by Cherie Priest
• The Alchemist in the Shadows by Pierre Pevel
• Antiphon by Ken Scholes
• The Misenchanted Sword by Lawrence Watt-Evans
• The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett
• Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero by Dan Abnett
• Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
• King's Peace by Jo Walton
• Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
• The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett
• Dawnthief by James Barclay (Didn’t Finish)

Here’s to hoping for a more booky (and higher quality) 2011!