2006 State of the Bookshelf

Saw a post by a title similar to this on Tina’s site and loved the concept. Decided to copy her (just this once), even though I’m still sure I’ve missed a few books. I’m going to post my book review log for 2007 in a category of its own explicitly to make this easier in the future.

In 2006 I read the following books:

italics = reread
asterisk = new (to me) author (*)
bold = my favorites this year
exclamation mark = !unfinished
strikethrough = never finished, never will

Jennifer Government by Max Barry(*)
Kabuki 1: Circle of Blood by David Mack(*)
The Question of Hu by Jonathan D. Spence
Conjure Wife by Fritz Lieber
The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape The Universe by Martin Rees(*)
1×1 by e.e.cummings
소리와 고요사�?� (Between Sound and Silence) by 고창수 (Chang Soo Ko)(*)
The Golden Ass, by Lucius Apuleius(*)
The Painted Bed by Donald Hall(*)
North by Seamus Heaney
Hand to Mouth Paul Auster(*)
Seek! by Rudy Rucker
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison(*)
!Sleeping with Extraterrestrials by Wendy Kaminer(*)
Calculating God by Robert Sawyer(*)
!Prayers to Broken Stones by Dan Simmons(*)
H.G. Wells in Love, by H.G. Wells
Half the Day is Night by Maureen McHugh
Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson(*)
If Lions Could Speak and Other Stories by Paul Park(*)
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge(*)
Breathmoss and Other Exhalations by Ian R. McLeod
!The Dark: New Ghost Stories edited by Ellen Datlow
The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner
!Mothers and Other Monsters by Maureen McHugh
a book the title of which I forget, on shamanism in Korea(*)
Air by Geoff Ryman(*)
Nekropolis by Maureen McHugh
Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow
Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin(*)
A New Reformation by Matthew Fox(*)
Space Lords by Cordwainer Smith (*)

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle
(*)
The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond
Visionary in Residence by Bruce Sterling
Asterix in Spain by Goscinny & Uderzo
Asterix in Belgium by Goscinny & Uderzo
Comfort Women Speak: Testimony by Sex Slaves of the Japanese Military by Sangmie Choi Schellstede(*)
The Science of Aliens, by Clifford Pickover(*)
!The Comfort Women by George Hicks(*)
!Lipstick Traces by Greil Marcus
Crystal Express by Bruce Sterling
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester(*)
Opium: A Portrait of the Heavenly Demon by Barbara Hodgson(*)
Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin
!The Global Soul by Pico Iyer(*)
!A New Kind of Science Stephen Wolfram(*)
!The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul by Rudy Rucker
!Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson (I’m reading it now, but will have to put it on hiatus when I travel as I don’t want to start out on a journey with a half-read book… but have a feeling it will be bolded in next year’s list!)
딸�?� 종다 by 채�?�선 & 김�?�정 (– I helped translate it, even!)
Hunger by Lan Samantha Chang

That’s it for 2006. A lot of unfinished books, but that’s okay, they’re either in progress, or else were abandoned because they were saying nothing new to me (in the case of nonfiction). One more thing: some of the !unfinished books are probably future favorites, but I won’t mark them as such until they are in fact finished.

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