Purview, Round 3

Here are a few more links to other Best of/2008 Favorites lists, with more in a few days perhaps, work/stomach permitting:

Asking the Wrong Questions - 2008, A Year in Reading: Best and Worst Books of the Year, 2008: A Year in Reading: Best Short Stories of the Year - For some reason, I tend to overlook Abigail Nussbaum's blog. It's not because I disagree with her choices (often, she and I seem to have similar tastes, and when we do disagree, she has cogent reasons for why a story didn't work for her), but I think it's because she doesn't update as much as others. Regardless, her two lists are full of books and stories (like Bacigulupi and Lanagan's stories) that I've either read and greatly enjoyed or are books/stories that I mean to acquire/read in the near future.

NextRead - Roundup: The Reads 2008 - Gav's list is short and to the point. Very series-heavy. Surprisingly, I have read none of the books mentioned so far, although I do have a review copy of Peter Brett's debut novel, called The Warded Man here in the US, to read sometime in late February/early March, time permitting.

Post-Weird Thoughts - 2008 in Review (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V) - Brazilian SF writers/bloggers Fábio Fernandes and Jacques Barcia have a really good blog collaboration going, with Post-Weird Thoughts being the English edition of their two separate Portuguese-language blogs. Fábio wrote a very nice 5-part review series and our tastes more or less are the same, except he liked Joe Abercrombie and Jonathan Carroll's latest offerings more than I did. Maybe one of the more comprehensive short fiction lists in these roundups I'll cover as well.

Realms of Speculative Fiction - The ULTIMATE (and somewhat bloated) Best of 2008 List, Part I - Even though it doesn't seem that this collaborative blog of four Slovenian friends/SF reviewers will write their own list just yet, I thought I'd give a nod to the beginnings of their second annual roundup of other blogs' best of/favorites lists. There likely will be many on their lists that won't appear here, so I would suggest checking theirs out to compare/contrast.

The Bodhisattva - Tomio's 10 favorite reads of 2008 - Jay Tomio is one of the three owners of the Bookspotcentral website, as well as the person responsible for the Heliotrope e-zine. On his personal blog, Jay listed 10 books that he discusses at further length in BSC's annual roundup of its reviewers' thoughts on their 2008 reads. Unsurprisingly, a great many of the books on his list, I either read/enjoyed or I own and will read in the near future.

This Book and I Could Be Friends - Best and Worst of 2008 - E.L. Fay's blog is a new one, only being in existence since September, but I like how she devotes coverage not just to her favorite reads of the year (again, this isn't a 2008-exclusive list), but also to the ones that she dislikes. Nice non-genre selection as well; the Karinthy and Tusquets books I plan on buying/reading in the near future, based on her brief descriptions of both. Bonus points for having D.H. Lawrence on a list and especially Women in Love (even if I liked The Rainbow a tad bit more when I first read it in 1996).


Enough for this third installment, as the next one will see a few more blogs and perhaps links to various forums' discussions on their favorite books. Next weekend (or earlier, if I have the time/energy), I plan on noting a few general trends in types of books read when I glanced through these various lists.