Well, it was a good year for reading– at least partially because I got rid of the internet. I read 136 books, I think? Though I’m probably forgetting a couple.

A few of my favorites (not including books by people I know): The Throwback Special by Chris Bachelder, My Lord Bag of Rice: New and Selected Stories by Carol Bly, Patternmaster by Octavia Butler, A Kind of Flying: Selected Stories by Ron Carlson, About Writing by Samuel Delany, The U.S.A. Trilogy by John Dos Passos, The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany, Immobility and Father of Lies by Brian Evenson, The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century edited by Tony Hillerman & Otto Penzler, The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies by John Langan, The Mad and the Bad by Jean-Patrick Manchette, The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami, Straight Life: The Story of Art Pepper by Art & Laurie Pepper, The Dragon Griaule by Lucius Shepard, American Fantastic Tales, Volume 1: Poe to the Pulps edited by Peter Straub, All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren, and Cockfighter by Charles Willeford.

A few of my favorite stories: “Good and Bad” by Lucia Berlin, “The Tomcat’s Wife” by Carol Bly, “Golden Baby” by Alice Brown, “Amnesty” by Octavia Butler, “The Moment of Decision” by Stanley Ellin, “Black Bark” by Brian Evenson, “The Prelate’s Commission” by Jeffrey Ford, “The Gutting of Couffignal” by Dashiell Hammett, “You Become the Neighborhood” by Glen Hirshberg, “The Music Copyist” by Spencer Holst, “Vintage Season” by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore, “The Wide, Carnivorous Sky” by John Langan, “The Faery Handbag” by Kelly Link, “Sleep” by Haruki Murakami, “Hippocampus” by Adam Nevill, “Inconstant Moon” by Larry Niven, and pretty much every single story in the collection A Kind of Flying by Ron Carlson.

My least favorite book I read this year was The Players and the Game by Julian Symons, which I read because it was on the H.R.F. Keating list of the 100 Best Mysteries of All Time. I read a lot of books off that list, and got more and more confused, until I finally decided that whoever H.R.F. Keating is, our tastes are Very Different. I do, on the other hand, highly recommend The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century, edited by Hillerman & Penzler, which was nothing but a joy from beginning to end.

Reading goals for next year: more stories, fewer novels, lots of non-fiction.

Anyway, here’s the whole list:

Alling, Meredith. Sing the Song
Allingham, Margery. The Tiger in the Smoke
Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey
Bachelder, Chris. The Throwback Special
Baldwin, James. Another Country
Banks, Iain M. The Player of Games
Bardin, John Franklin. Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly
Bardin, John Franklin. The Deadly Percheron
Barron, Laird, ed. Year’s Best Weird Fiction Vol. 1
Barron, Laird. The Croning

Beatty, Paul. The Sellout
Bellow, Saul. The Adventures of Augie March
Blackwood, Algernon. The Complete John Silence Stories
Blake, Nicholas. The Private Wound
Bloch, Robert. The Dead Beat
Bly, Carol. My Lord Bag of Rice: New and Selected Stories
Brand, Christiana. Green for Danger
Brown, Fredric. Here Comes a Candle
Brown, Fredric. His Name Was Death
Brown, Fredric. The Fabulous Clipjoint

Brown, Fredric. The Far Cry
Butler, Octavia. Bloodchild and Other Stories
Butler, Octavia. Kindred
Butler, Octavia. Patternmaster
Butler, Robert Olen, and Masih, Tara, eds. The Best Small Fictions 2015
Card, Orson Scott. Speaker for the Dead
Carlson, Ron. A Kind of Flying
Castro, Adam-Troy. Her Husband’s Hands and Other Stories
Chandler, Raymond. The High Window
Chase, Joan. During the Reign of the Queen of Persia

Chaze, Elliott. Black Wings Has My Angel
Clarke, Arthur C. The Fountains of Paradise
Cline, Emma. The Girls
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone
Compton-Burnett, Ivy. The Mighty and Their Fall
Cross, Amanda. Death in a Tenured Position
Crumley, James. The Last Good Kiss
Datlow, Ellen, ed. The Best Horror of the Year Vol. 4
Datlow, Ellen, ed. The Best Horror of the Year Vol. 8
De Camp, L Sprague, and F Pratt. The Incomplete Enchanter

Delany, Samuel. About Writing
Delany, Samuel. Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand
Delany, Samuel. The Ballad of Beta-2
Delany, Samuel. The Jewels of Aptor
Dickinson, Peter. The Glass-Sided Ants’ Nest
Didion, Joan. Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Dos Passos, John. The 42nd Parallel
Dos Passos, John. 1919
Dos Passos, John. The Big Money
Dunsany, Lord. The King of Elfland’s Daughter

Dunsany, Lord. Time and the Gods
Ellin, Stanley. The Specialty of the House: The Complete Mystery Stories 1948-1978
Eustis, Helen. The Horizontal Man
Evenson, Brian. A Collapse of Horses
Evenson, Brian. Altmann’s Tongue
Evenson, Brian. Father of Lies
Evenson, Brian. Immobility
Evenson, Brian. Last Days
Everett, Percival. I Am Not Sidney Poitier
Farrell, James T. Young Lonigan

Fleming, Joan. Young Man, I Think You’re Dying
Ford, Jeffrey. A Natural History of Hell
Ford, Jeffrey. Crackpot Palace
Gordimer, Nadine. The Late Bourgeois World
Hamsun, Knut. Growth of the Soil
Hansen, Joseph. Skinflick
Hartwell, David, ed. The World Treasury of Science Fiction
Heinlein, Robert. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Hempel, Amy. Reasons to Live
Hillerman, Tony, and Otto Penzler, eds. The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century

Himes, Chester. A Rage in Harlem
Himes, Chester. Blind Man With a Pistol
Holst, Spencer. The Language of Cats and Other Stories
Houllebecq, Michel. Platform
Houston, Pam. Cowboys Are My Weakness
Hubbard, L Ron. Final Blackout
James, P.D. The Black Tower
Johnson, Adam. Fortune Smiles
Jones, Stephen Graham. Mongrels
King, Stephen. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

Langan, John. The Fisherman
Langan, John. The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies
Leckie, Ann. Ancillary Justice
Link, Kelly. Magic for Beginners
MacDonald, John D. The Green Ripper
Mamatas, Nick. I Am Providence
Manchette, Jean-Patrick. The Mad and the Bad
McClanahan, Scott. The Incantations of Daniel Johnston
McKillip, Patricia. Ombria in Shadow
McMurtry, Larry. All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers

Millar, Margaret. Beast in View
Millar, Margaret. Beyond This Point are Monsters
Mirrlees, Hope. Lud-in-the-Mist
Moorcock, Michael. The Black Corridor
Moore, Lorrie. Self-Help
Morrell, David. The Totem
Murakami, Haruki. The Elephant Vanishes
Murphy, Pat. The Falling Woman
Nevill, Adam. The Ritual
Nguyen, Viet Thanh. The Sympathizer

O’Hara, John. The Lockwood Concern
Olmstead, Robert. Coal Black Horse
Pepper, Art & Laurie. Straight Life: The Art Pepper Story
Pohl, Frederick. Jem
Powers, Tim. Last Call
Rendell, Ruth. A Judgement in Stone
Ross, Adam. Ladies and Gentlemen
Sayers, Dorothy. The Nine Tailors
Shepard, Lucius. Green Eyes
Shepard, Lucius. The Dragon Griaule

Simenon, Georges. My Friend Maigret
Sims, George. The Last Best Friend
Spillaine, Mickey, and Collins, Max Allan, eds. A Century of Noir: Thirty-Two Classic Crime Stories
Stapledon, Olaf. Last and First Men
Stark, Richard. The Jugger
Stark, Richard. The Man with the Getaway Face
Stark, Richard. The Mourner
Stark, Richard. The Outfit
Stark, Richard. The Score
Stefano, Karen. The Secret Games of Words

Straub, Peter, ed. American Fantastic Tales, Volume 1: Poe to the Pulps
Straub, Peter. Koko
Symons, Julian. The Players and the Game
Tepper, Sheri. Beauty
Tey, Josephine. The Franchise Affair
Tremblay, Paul. A Head Full of Ghosts
Uhnak, Dorothy. The Investigation
Wambaugh, Joseph. The Glitter Dome
Warren, Robert Penn. All the King’s Men
Westlake, Donald. Nobody’s Perfect

White, Ethel Lina. The Wheel Spins (The Lady Vanishes)
Willeford, Charles. Cockfighter
Willeford, Charles. Pick-up
Willingham, Calder. The Gates of Hell
Woolrich, Cornell. Night Has A Thousand Eyes
Wright, Richard. Native Son