The year in books

92 books in 2006, 24 of which were science fiction. This year mainstream fiction with an international bias was definitely my preference, though I think in 2007 my focus will probably be on more marginal SF genre writing. Under the cut, all books are linked to their brief review, and highlighted in blue are the 10 most memorable reads of the year... most enjoyable of all was Dmitri Verhulst's Problemski Hotel, most challenging was Peter Dimock's subversive A Short Rhetoric for Leaving the Family, and the best SF I read this year was undoubtedly Geoff Ryman's Air.

fiction
Mario Delgado Aparaín, The Ballad of Johnny Sosa, 1991  [ review ]
Nicholson Baker, A Box of Matches, 2003  [ review ]
Alex Berenson, The Faithful Spy, 2006  [ review ]
Elise Blackwell, Hunger, 2003  [ review ]
Jan Blensdorf, My Name is Sei Shonagon, 2004  [ review ]
Chico Buarque, Budapest, 2003  [ review ]
John Burdett, Bangkok Eight, 2003  [ review ]
Michael Chabon, The Final Solution, 2005  [ review ]
Louis de Bernières, Sunday Morning at the Centre of the World, 2001  [ review ]
Peter Dimock, A Short Rhetoric for Leaving the Family, 1998  [ review ]
Mark Dunn, Ella Minnow Pea, 2001  [ review ]
Maxence Fermine, The Black Violin, 1999  [ review ]
Marcello Fois, The Advocate, 1998  [ review ]
Michael Frayn, A Very Private Life, 1968  [ review ]
Gao Xingjian, Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather, 2004  [ review ]
Peter Goldsworthy, Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam, 1999  [ review ]
Juan Goytisolo, The Blind Rider, 2003  [ review ]
Helon Habila, Waiting for an Angel, 2005  [ review ]
Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, 2004  [ review ]
Andrew Hicks, Thai Girl, 2004  [ review ]
Ian Holding, Unfeeling, 2005  [ review ]
Michel Houellebecq, Lanzarote, 2000  [ review ]
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, 2005  [ review ]
Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation, 2005  [ review ]
Graham Joyce, Smoking Poppy, 2001  [ review ]
Alan Judd, The Devil's Own Work, 1991  [ review ]
Ismail Kadare, Three Elegies for Kosovo, 1998  [ review ]
Hitomi Kanehara, Snakes and Earrings, 2004  [ review ]
Andrew Kaufman, All My Friends Are Superheroes, 2005  [ review ]
Michael Kimball, How Much Of Us There Was, 2005  [ review ]
Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Sightseeing, 2004  [ review ]
lê thi diem thúy, The gangster we are all looking for, 2003  [ review ]
Martin Malone, The Broken Cedar, 2003  [ review ]
Andreï Makine, A Life's Music, 2001  [ review ]
Alberto Manguel, Stevenson Under the Palm Trees, 2002  [ review ]
Rigoberta Menchú & Dante Liano, The Girl from Chimel, 2000  [ review ]
Cees Nooteboom, The Following Story, 1991  [ review ]
Amélie Nothomb, Fear and Trembling, 1999  [ review ]
George Orwell, Animal Farm, 1945  [ review ]
Meher Pestonji, Sadak Chhaap, 2005  [ review ]
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust, 1975  [ review ]
Alina Reyes, When You Love You Must Depart, 1993  [ review ]
Joseph Roth, The Legend of the Holy Drinker, 1939  [ review ]
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran, 2001  [ review ]
Leonardo Sciascia, The Day of the Owl, 1961  [ review ]
Gaétan Soucy, the little girl who was too fond of matches, 1998  [ review ]
John Steinbeck, Burning Bright, 1950  [ review ]
William Styron, The Long March, 1952  [ review ]
Patrick Süskind, The Pigeon, 1987  [ review ]
Dimitri Verhulst, Problemski Hotel, 2003  [ review ]
Jeanette Winterson, Weight, 2005  [ review ]

science fiction
Greg Bear, Eon, 1985  [ review ]
Karel Capek, R.U.R., 1920  [ review ]
Philip K. Dick, The Man Who Japed, 1956  [ review ]
Philip K. Dick, Vulcan's Hammer, 1960  [ review ]
Philip K. Dick, Dr. Futurity, 1960  [ review ]
Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 1968  [ review ]
Philip K. Dick, Ubik, 1969  [ review ]
Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly, 1977  [ review ]
Marcos Donnelly, Letters From The Flesh, 2004  [ review ]
Howard Fast, A Touch of Infinity, 1974  [ review ]
Daniel F. Galouye, Dark Universe, 1961  [ review ]
M. John Harrison, Nova Swing, 2006  [ review ]
L. Ron Hubbard, Return to Tomorrow, 1950  [ review ]
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, 2005  [ review ]
Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon, 1966  [ review ]
Fritz Leiber, The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich, 1936  [ review ]
Roger Levy, Icarus, 2006  [ forthcoming review for Strange Horizons ]
Ken MacLeod, The Highway Men, 2006  [ review ]
Geoff Ryman, Air, 2004  [ review ]
John Scalzi, Old Man's War, 2005  [ review ]
Theodore Sturgeon, More Than Human, 1953  [ review ]
Theodore Sturgeon, Thunder and Roses, 1997  [ review ]
Michael Swanwick, The Periodic Table of Science Fiction, 2005  [ reviewed for Foundation ]
Steven Utley, Where or When, 2006  [ reviewed for Vector ]

non-fiction / autobiography / biography
Lisa Appignanesi, ed., Free Expression is No Offence, 2005  [ review ]
John Berger, and our faces, my heart, brief as photos, 1988  [ review ]
François Bizot, The Gate, 2000  [ review ]
William Burroughs, The Cat Inside, 1992  [ review ]
The Dalai Lama, An Open Heart, 2001  [ review ]
Edwidge Danticat, After the Dance, 2002  [ review ]
Nic Dunlop, The Lost Executioner, 2005  [ review ]
Brian Eno, Harold Pinter, John le Carré, Richard Dawkins, Michel Faber, Haifa Zangana, Not One More Death, 2006  [ review ]
Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time to Keep Silence, 1957  [ review ]
Gao Xingjian, One Man's Bible, 1999  [ review ]
Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957  [ review ]
Jack Kerouac, Tristessa, 1960  [ review ]
Julieanne Kost, Window Seat: The Art of Digital Photography & Creative Thinking, 2006  [ review ]
Theary C. Seng, Daughter of the Killing Fields, 2005  [ review ]
Elizabeth Smart, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, 1945  [ review ]
Patrick Süskind, On Love and Death, 2005  [ review ]
Anthony Swofford, Jarhead, 2003  [ review ]
Helen Ware, ed., The No-Nonsense Guide to Conflict and Peace, 2006  [ review ]

Album of the year

Akataka, 2004
This year's most played-to-death was the eponymously titled Akataka, which I downloaded in mid-October. Several months earlier I'd found a free mp3 of the track 'Pure' at Amazon, and was taken by its openness and extraordinary sense of space, atmosphere and landscape. I kept coming back to it periodically before finding the downloadable album at iTunes and, thankfully, spending a mere eight quid on the most rewarding CD I've heard this year. This music comes directly from the bleak landscapes of Arizona and it feels that way, floating with ethereal tension over the tumbleweed and rocky deserts. Akataka's vocals are like a twice-as-haunted Michael Stipe and the guitars seem to stretch time, sometimes in the way John Martyn used to when at his most atmospheric, and all nine songs were unhurriedly recorded over the space of four years. This is songwriting for a solitary state of mind, but it's music that deserves to be shared.