2008 in Review: Coming Attractions

Starting around Christmas Day and continuing through New Year's Eve, there will be a series of posts covering the 2008 releases that I believe merit closer attention. Although I have read to date 370 books (and have an outside shot at 400, now that I'm off work for two weeks), my posts shall by no means be considered "definitive" assessments; they are but crib notes to what I found to be enjoyable, illuminating, provocative, thoughtful, and/or reflective pieces of literature.

Here are the categories that I'm going to cover. Mind you, some of these will be displaying my relative ignorance rather than my erudite observation, but so be it:

• Young Adult Fiction
• Graphic Novels
• Spanish-language/Works in Translation
• Debut Novels
• Anthologies
• Short Story Collections/Novellas
• Related Works/Non-Fiction
• Best Novels (may repeat some of the titles mentioned in the other categories)
  

In addition, there will be a few lengthier reviews mixed in, including Ekaterina Sedia's The Alchemy of Stone and John Rieder's Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction. I also have plans for a few others, but those might be published elsewhere, so no further comment until I myself know more (plus I have to write them, and we know my review writing has slacked off since June).

That pretty much is it. If any have any questions, feel free to ask them. If you feel compelled to challenge my selections, I'd love to hear about it and to discuss the reasons why I chose X and not Y. After all, these type of posts are all about generating discussion, no?