Saturday, November 20, 2010

Top Five Books of 2010 versus Top Five Older 2010 Reads (by Liviu Suciu)

(click through for a larger image)

While there is more than a month in 2010, I thought it instructive to look at my top five 2010 novels versus the top five older novels read by me in 2010.

Top five 2010 novels:

1. Surface Detail (rv) by Iain M. Banks (sf, standalone within the loose Culture series)
2. The Invisible Bridge (rv) by Julie Orringer (historical fiction, debut)
3. The Scarab Path (rv)/Salute the Dark (rv) by Adrian Tchaikovsky (fantasy, Apt #4/5)
4. The Folding Knife (rv) by KJ Parker (fantasy, standalone)
5. Aurorarama (rv) by Jean-Christophe Valtat (sf, English original, standalone though the author plans more books in its milieu)

Top five older novels read in 2010:

1. The Opposing Shore (rv) by Julien Gracq (sf, standalone from 1951)
2. The Notebook (rv) by Agota Kristof (historical fiction, first in a trilogy from the 1980's)
3. Altai by Wu Ming (Italian language only for now and free online, historical fiction from 2009, sequel to the celebrated Q which is available in English free online too - FBC Rv of Q)
4. The Affirmation by Christopher Priest (sf, standalone 1981)
5. Wanderers and Islanders by Steve Cockayne (fantasy, first in a trilogy, 2002)

The Opposing Shore is my overall choice for #1, followed by The Notebook and then the top 5 2010 novels in that order and then more 2010 books before the older #3-#5.

Edit: 11/24 Just read The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata (1960's, second edition translation 2005/6) and it moves to #4 here