One of the things that I paid with was reading time. I didn’t keep a log and I suck at entering stuff into Goodreads (if my phone isn’t right beside me when I start or finish a book, it ain’t happening), but my best guess is that I averaged only about twenty books a year between 2012 and 2019. Abysmal.

2020 was a little better, but I didn’t start counting until this past January, when I stumbled on Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method and started a bujo. (IKR?)

I set up a Books Read spread for 95 books (100 seemed like tempting fate after such a long drought), and as of today I’ve filled 91 of the slots. It’s been a good mix from popcorn books to very chewy reads that needed a bit more time settling in.

Calling these my top 5 is a bit of a cheat, because there’s a trilogy in here, but who’s going to sue me:

• 5. The Vanishing Half  by Brit Bennett: This had by far my favourite trans character of the year in it, and my only gripe with Reese is that I wanted more of him in the book. (Which, yeah, I know it wasn’t his book, but I fell hard. What can I say?)
• 4. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens: Prose that lights fireworks along all the senses. And a character I really rooted for.
• 3. Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots: Brilliantly twisted, hella punchy, wickedly hilarious, and surprisingly deep. I already want to read it again.
• 2. The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll: A bit of an outlier in here, because non-fiction, and because I’m not judging it on the writing. But it deserves to be here, because setting up a bullet journal made such an amazing impact on the ease with which I keep all the different reins of my life in my hands and under control.
• 1. The Broken Earth Trilogy (The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky) by N.K. Jemisin: Y’all, I screamed at these books so many times, I lost count. The planning that went into the structure, the heartbreaking character journeys, the prose … The PROSE! I can’t even. I highly recommend these. I know, I’m but a tiny speck in that particular choir. But in this case the hype is so not overblown. Go, read these. Don’t forget to breathe.

Marginally connected to that, I’m aux anges with the set-up of a KVM switch between my two machines, so that I can now write in Scrivener on the mac and still do everything else on the linux box WITH ONLY ONE MOUSE AND KEYBOARD. This makes my life so much easier.

Anyway, that’s my January update. I’ll now go back to shoveling snow.

Oh, wait, before I forget: I didn’t do a best of my reads of 2016 (sorry, I was swamped), but you guys will have to read Kirby Crow’s Malachite. Trust me on this. It is easily the best thing I read in 2016.

Static by L.A. Witt
This one hit me in a tender and very personal spot. Just to explain why it’s here, even though it didn’t come out this year; and that it’s here for reasons beyond the writing itself.
It pulled me right in from page one and didn’t let me go until the end. And it got under my skin. Its protag fluctuates between two genders in a world that doesn’t accept their ability to do so. It asks a lot of relevant question, and while it doesn’t have all the answers (who would?), it makes one thing abundantly clear – that people fare infinitely better if you just let them decide who they want to be. Even if that turns out not to be static.
Amen to that. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a protagonist I could identify with on quite that level. Did I mention, we need more diverse books?

Hostile Ground by L.A. Witt and Aleksandr Voinov
Hot damn. This was right up my alley. Lots of action and even more steam with a healthy dose of social relevance that never preaches and never takes away any of the suspense or fun.
You might have guessed it: We need more diverse books. Sense a theme here?
I’m really looking forward to the sequel.

Tied at 3rd place are the two hottest reads of the year. I’m talking solar eruptions, here:

Shock & Awe by Abi Roux

I’d been waiting for this one with bated breath since the short had been posted. And, man, was it ever worth it. I already know this is going to be one of those books that fall open on their own at certain spots, because I read the hell out of them. Pure feel-good, hot-as-hell joy.

Market Garden Capture & Surrender by Aleks Voinov and L.A. Witt

All the Market Garden books are hot, and I have a very soft (to say nothing of weak-kneed) spot for all of them. But this one takes it a step further, by adding an emotional depth to the heat that took me by surprise. I already read it twice, and it keeps getting better. The heat coming off the pages is incinerating, but it’s more than that. It’s a deeply emotional roller-coaster ride, well written, with characters that feel as alive as if they lived next door. Definitely the best Market Garden yet.

My personal number two:

Glitterland by Alexis Hall

A lot of hype surrounded the release of this novel, and, honestly, I picked it up expecting to be disappointed. Well, I wasn’t. Au contraire. As Darian would say: “That was proper special”.

Ash is class, and sophistication, and a self-absorbed dick, so damaged by privilege and a mental illness which de-constructs every assumption he ever had about himself that, ultimately, he is only able to retain his dignity by sacrificing someone else’s. But not so damaged that he doesn’t realise the omnishambles he’s made of his one-in-a-lifetime chance at happiness, and surprisingly pertinacious given the right incentive.

Darian is under-educated, straightforward joy with a shallow love for accoutrements of all kinds and a deep love for Ash.
Hopelessly out-everythinged by Ash, he nevertheless proves to be the better man by managing to keep his maltreated dignity intact just by being himself. In the end, it’s up to Darian’s handsome heart to save Ash’s sophisticated ass. And that was a privilege to watch.

This is a sly novel, in a good way.
It seduces with its lush, witty voice, and the sheer erudition of a narrator who casually references Plato’s cave parable while being fucked through spilled ink on his desk.
It pulls you into the peach blossom foam of its poetry, and you sink back with a superior little smile, so titillated by the champagne prickle of sparkling sarcasm, that you don’t notice its lethal edge until you pull your hands out and stare incredulously at the blood welling up from all those little nicks the blade of sarcasm leaves on human flesh.

A bold, bright, exceedingly well-told story with an underlying warmth that defies its often scathing tone.

At the top of my list:

Unhinge the Universe by Aleks Voinov and L.A. Witt

That was a bloody brilliant read. It dares you, balls out, to fall for an SS officer towards the end of WWII, and succeeds. A beautifully paced enemies-to-lovers story that is painstakingly researched and expertly crafted. I want to read it again and again.

No.3 is the deep, dark and lyrical Angels of the Deep by Kirby Crow. This one will stay with me for a long time. So. Much. Pain. I couldn’t breathe when I finished it, it was so heavy. The darkness is not without hope or redemption, but even the comparatively positive ending has an elegiac quality to it. I felt every ounce of the weight of the world that Beck carries on his shoulders.

So why read it? Because all that gravitas is cloaked in an opheliac beauty reminiscent of Rimbaud. Lush, vivid, richly detailed descriptions that engage all the senses. I too rarely come across a modern author who dares and is able to use the whole stunning palette of the English language with such lyrical perfection. (I suspect I would start to read the Income Tax Act if Kirby Crow wrote it.)

Playlist: Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads, Bruckner’s 8th Symphony and Björk’s Dancer in the Dark (and if that doesn’t tell you what to expect, nothing will)

No.2 is Dark Soul: The Complete Collection by Aleksander Voinov, who I’m lucky enough to call a friend, and who’s easily my all time favourite M/M author.

Dark Soul is an intense, hot, beautifully crafted ride. I’m glad I waited for the whole collection, because I found this utterly unputdownable.

And, for the record, I’ll never, ever get over the knife/gun play at the beginning. I think my book falls open on page 16. That, incidentally, is also my choice of hottest sex scene 2012.

No.1, Shattered Glass by Dani Alexander, was a dark horse for me, a complete surprise. And it blew me away. The sensuality of it, the irreverence, the edge-of-seat plot, the voice, the dialogues, the emotions that are all the more powerful for their understatement. And I don’t even like first person narrators. Absolute stunner. Go, read it.

If the selection in 2013 is even half as good as those three, we’re in for a brilliant reading year.