This was in one sense an excellent year for books, because it was the year of MY BOOK: Tortall: A Spy's Guide came out on October 31st, after several years of working with the world's best coauthors and my dear and amazing friends Tamora Pierce, Julie Holderman, and Tim Liebe. It makes me both scared and happy to think that the book is out there for other people to read and enjoy (or not -- hello, Goodreads reviews!), but I'm definitely sad that we're not working on it anymore; writing letters back and forth with Julie, or trying to gauge exactly how terrible to make Neal's love poetry, was pretty much the most fun I've ever had.

As far as reading other people's books, this was the first calendar year that was also a full-time, two-semester school year, so I was a bit low on free time... Lots of Gail Carriger over the summer, and Patrick O'Brian kept me company on the road -- it was particularly fun to read The Fortune of War, which is largely set in Boston, while on a trip to historic Deerfield! Best newly-encountered fiction of the year I'd say was The Girl With All the Gifts, with an honorable mention to The Golden Globe. Non-fiction-wise, I enjoyed Get Well Soon; the tone occasionally veered too far into "lol funny blog post," but that was more than balanced out by Wright's genius stroke of using each chapter to make a point about handling future epidemics, and to hammer home how inevitable they are.

I didn't do so well with last year's post's "gotta read this soon!" books, so I'll keep it short this time: I promised a friend I would pick up Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell again and actually stick with it. Its great, dark, hulking mass is currently staring at me from the coffee table as I finish a biography of Napoleon's chief surgeon, which seems as good a lead-in as any. Also promised my mom that this would finally be the year I read one of her favorites, Niccolo Rising. Two books, though big ones. I can do that, right?

...right?