New Year! January Reading, yay! :)

Last year is past, and I think it's time to focus on what's new. And I have to say, I started off this year with some very very good books. :)

M. John Harrison - Light
After listening to my friend's conference presentation in November, which I only half understood, I pretty much immediately went out and acquired this intricacy of a novel. It is quite indescribable, but well worth reading. I have to admit I read it wrong - thinking it Book 1 of a trilogy, intended to be read as a trilogy, I read it as such, always thinking "There will be explanations later, because this is just the first, right?". This is definitely the wrong way to approach the beauty of this. Take it as it is, for what it is.

China Miéville - London's Overthrow
Such a small book, but what content! I read some of this before, when it was published online. However, noe living in this city, and looking back at the Olympics, this offers a lot more. 

Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London
Urban fantasy in my favourite city? Alright! Even though it shares some similarities with the Dresden Files, it is entirely its own thing. I was not happy with all of it, but I give it the benefit of being a first-time novel, and will certainly give the second one in the series a try as well. Lots of good, interesting ideas, but maybe a little disconnected yet, a little hard to follow. I always loathe it when an in-book-character says something like "Suddenly I understood everything" - and I don't. At all. Well. Maybe next time. :)

The reason I'm reading a little slower than I should be is, sadly, that I'm more or less reading around five books at the same time (right now: Is that a fish in your ear?, Coriolanus, Experiences in Translation, Cold Days, The City and the City) plus articles for university etc., so actually getting to the end something is, these days, a little rare. It just takes time.

However, I'd still like my goal remain the same. 52 books. I can so do this. :)

2013 books

London is so much around me, writing about it will still have to wait. Rather, I'll finish my 2013 book list, and see where this year of reading has taken me.

The last post was in October...so let's start from there.

October (continued)
Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons - Watchmen
Hajime Isayama - Attack on Titan #1
Hajime Isayama - Attack on Titan #2

November
Neil Gaiman - The Sandman: Overture, Issue 1

December
China Miéville - Kraken
Tony Parsons - The Family Way
Peter S. Beagle -The Last Unicorn
Eiichiro Oda - One Piece #68

This adds four novels to my count, plus three manga books, and an actual bona fide comic issue (which really doesn't count as a whole book, but...so lovely).

Which means, in total, I've read 50 books/novels, and 26 manga volumes - plus a lot of articles and book chapters for university, and a lot of rereading One Piece for a conference I attended in May, which I didn't list here.Not quite the "1 book a week" I was aiming for, but considering all that happened this year, I think I'm happy with that result. :)

I might do a complete list of books read like last year, because that just makes for awesome reading. I might also do some reviews/comments on what I've read. We'll see. :)