My Year in Books (including Brontes and vampires)
Favorite novels: Kate Atkinson, Started Early, Took My Dog; Roberto Bolano, Nazi Literature in the Americas; Stanley Crawford, Some Instructions to my Wife Concerning the Upkeep of the House and Marriage, and to my Son and Daughter, Concerning the Conduct of their Childhood; Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies; Rebecca West, The Fountain Overflows.
Favorite SF: China Mieville, The Kraken.
Favorite mysteries: Kate Atkinson, Started Early, Took My Dog; Iain Pears, Stone's Fall.
Favorite historical fiction: Richard Flanagan, Wanting; Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies; Julia O'Faolain, The Women in the Wall; Frans G. Bengtsson, The Long Ships.
Completely unclassifiable: Louise Sheck, A Monster's Notes.
Least plausible romantic outcome: A tie between Reginald Hilll, The Woodcutter, and Dara Horn, All Other Nights. Obviously, your mileage may vary.
Best warning against the danger of writing about obscure Victorian authors: Mark Samuels, "The White Hands."
Novel most approved of by students: John Updike, Gertrude and Claudius.
Proof that writing talent is not genetic: William Gilbert's The Inquisitor, which most certainly does not foreshadow any of his son's lyrics.
Most readable religious novel: Mary Murray Gartshorne, Cleveland: A Tale of the Roman Catholic Church.
This novel will self-deconstruct in thirty seconds: Gartshorne, Cleveland; Elizabeth Hardy, The Confessor. (Both are controversial novels about the danger of engaging in religious controversy.)
Worst Protestant poem: "The Living Dead."
Most appalling religious novel: Mme. Brendlah, Tales of a Jewess.
Best modern antidote to Tales of a Jewess: Lillian Nattel, The Singing Fire.
Religious novel above and beyond the call of duty: Martin Shee, Oldcourt.
Religious NOVEL most ADDICTED to CAPS for EMPHASIS: Robert Wood Kyle, The Martyr of Prusa, or the First and Last Prayer; A Tale of the Early Christians.
Has anyone seen the plot?: The Vicar of Iver: A Tale, which, despite the subtitle, had no storyline whatsoever.
Three-story houses constructed on quicksand: Martin Shee, Oldcourt; William Gilbert, The Inquisitor. Both novels contain a lot of material clearly intended to make length.
Something tells me that this title doesn't quite translate to the twenty-first century: Nicholas Whitestone, The Priest and His Pervert, as Illustrated in a Recent Case of Romish Proselytism.
Least truth in advertising: The True Catholic (an anti-Catholic periodical).
Most disappointing novel: Kate Grenville, The Lieutenant.
Most "well, that figures" ending: John Burnside, The Glister.
Most essential scholarly purchase: The second edition of John Sutherland's Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction (originally the Stanford Companion).
Favorite publisher of pre-twentieth century novels: Valancourt.
Best novel about the Bronte sisters: Jude Morgan, Charlotte and Emily.
Novel most closely following the "Rules for Writing Neo-Victorian Novels": Elizabeth Newark, Jane Eyre's Daughter.
Life imitates literature: Sheila Kohler, Becoming Jane Eyre.
X Meets Y: Michael Dibdin, The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (Holmes & Jack the Ripper); Earl Lee, Drakulya (Dracula & William Gull, one of the popular candidates for Jack); Elaine Bergstrom, Blood to Blood (Mina and a Jack the Ripper copycat); Jeanne Kalogridis, Lord of the Vampires (Dracula & Elisabeth Bathory); Kim Newman, Anno Dracula (Dracula &...um...just about everybody).
Best Dracula knockoffs: Fred Saberhagen, The Dracula Tapes; Caitlin R. Kiernan, "Emptiness Spoke Eloquent"; Kim Newman, Anno Dracula.
Bad vampire sex prize: "At that moment, both ends of me exploded with staggering pleasure, as if my body had been ripped in half and my skull cracked wide-open, letting in the heavens" (Karen Essex, Dracula in Love, 279).
That's an awful lot of vampire you've got there: James Malcolm Rymer, Varney the Vampyre (the whole thing!).
Most bizarre POD trend: Selling Wikipedia entries. Seriously?
Found book: Transit of Venus, which finally turned up after three years in, er, transit. (It was hiding in a suitcase.)
Longest title: John Hersey, The Child Buyer: A Novel in the Form of Hearings before the Standing Committee on Education, Welfare, & Public Morality of a certain State Senate, Investigating the conspiracy of Mr. Wissey Jones, with others, to Purchase a Male Child.
Favorite antiquarian purchase: A first edition of Emily Lawless, With Essex in Ireland...
Best free book: Richard D. Altick, The Shows of London: A Panoramic History of Exhibitions, 1600-1862.
Doorstop purchase of the year: Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years.
Best bargains: Anglican Magazine for the Young (15 volumes of it!); Emily Sarah Holt, Under One Sceptre, or Mortimer's Mission: The Story of the Lord of the Marches; Hilary Morgan and Peter Nahum, eds., Burne-Jones, the Pre-Raphaelites and Their Century; Josef L. Altholz, Anatomy of a Controversy: The Debate over "Essays and Reviews" 1860-1864; Leopold von Ranke, The History of the Popes, of Their Church and State, and Especially of Their Conflicts with Protestantism in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.