Here are our favorite books published in 2013. Hover over the cover to see who recommends each book. Click the cover to read our review. Please keep in mind that we did not read every SFF book published this year, so we know we’ve missed some good ones! You can read some of our thoughts about these books in today’s later Thoughtful Thursday post, and you can add your comments there — we’d love to hear your opinions about our list.
ADULT SFF
YA FANTASY
ANTHOLOGIES / COLLECTIONS
December 26th, 2013. FanLit | Best of the Year | no comments |
Today we welcome Bradley Wirz, founder and CEO of GoneReading International, a non-profit organization that funds reading related charities. Since we first mentioned this wonderful organization, they have funded their first library in Ethiopia! You can support GoneReading by purchasing some of their gifts for readers such as the ones shown here. There are many more at their website and 100% of the profits go toward increasing literacy around the world. We’ll pick one commenter (anywhere in the world) who may choose up to $25 worth of merchandise from the GoneReading store!
November 28th, 2013. FanLit | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 12 comments |
Here are our favorite books published in 2012. Hover over the cover to see who recommends each book. Please keep in mind that we did not read every SFF book published in 2012, so we know we’ve missed some good ones! You can read some of our thoughts about these books in today’s later Thoughtful Thursday post, and you can add your comments there, too. We look forward to hearing about your favorite books of 2012!
ADULT SFF
CHILDREN / YOUNG ADULT
ANTHOLOGIES/ STORY COLLECTIONS
AUDIOBOOKS released in 2012
COMICS
We’ve discussed some of these books here.
January 10th, 2013. FanLit | Best of the Year | 1 comment |
We realize that we’re not professional literature critics — we’re just a group of readers who love to read and write about speculative fiction — but we started this site to help SFF readers decide what to read and most consumers, whether of fine dining, vacuum cleaners, or fantasy novels, seem to like some sort of quantification. Thus, we assign “ratings,” even though a few of us find the notion disagreeable. We challenged ourselves to come up with a standardized rating system. Though Marion and Ryan a couple of us are notoriously stingy with our stars,
April 26th, 2012. FanLit | Thoughtful Thursday | 10 comments |
Here are our favorite books published in 2011. Hover over the cover to see who recommends each book. You can read some of our thoughts about these books in this post. In the comments, let us know if you agree, and what books we missed that are on your Best of 2011 list.
ADULT SFF
CHILDREN / YOUNG ADULT
ANTHOLOGIES/ STORY COLLECTIONS
AUDIOBOOKS (older books released in audio format in 2011)
December 30th, 2011. FanLit | Best of the Year | 12 comments |
Elizabeth Campbell went to Dragon*Con last weekend and wrote in to tell us about bookseller Larry Smith.
Larry Smith, Bookseller, is a conventions bookstore. He and Sally Kobee sell new science fiction and fantasy books in hardback, trade, and mass market bindings. They are out of Ohio, so in addition to Dragon*Con, we see them at ConText.
They’ve been doing this for freaking ever, they know freaking everybody, and it seems like they have every single freaking book in stock. Sally seems to know what you’re looking for before you do.
September 6th, 2011. FanLit | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Elizabeth Campbell wrote in to tell us about a bookstore she loves. Orielis’ Books is an internet bookseller located in the Chapel Hill area. They attend the local SFF conventions:
“Orielis’ Books are always in the vendor room at the Cons we get to attend in the Virginia/North Carolina area. They are an online used books business, and build their “brick and mortar” by wheeling in their treasure-crates of books into the hotel for the duration of the weekend.
I love having them at the Cons,
August 23rd, 2011. FanLit | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Each of us has listed a few of our our favorite 2010 releases (hover over the cover to see who recommends each book). This year we’ve added an audio category — these are books that were released on audio for the first time in 2010. Read some of our comments about these books in this post.
Children / Young Adult
Anthologies
2010 Audiobooks
December 29th, 2010. FanLit | Best of the Year | 8 comments |
It’s quite a bit longer this year because we added a few new reviewers. Mostly we did not read the same books, but special mention goes to the first 10 novels which were highly recommended by more than one of us. Hover over the cover to see who recommends each book.
Children / Young Adult
Anthologies
January 1st, 2010. FanLit | Best of the Year | 2 comments |
Everyone’s talking about Tor’s upcoming release of The Wheel of Time: The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson.
Bill‘s got a copy in his hot little hands and we’ll be posting his review on October 27 at 12:01 am.
Meanwhile…. some of us aren’t too crazy about this cover art…
So, let’s have some fun with it! Can you suggest a BETTER title for a book with this cover? Put your title below. You may enter as many titles as you like.
October 24th, 2009. FanLit | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 29 comments |
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…
this sounds like a fun one