Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels Of 2016

Convenience Store Woman is very good, I had to switch gears because I'd assumed it'd be a chronicle of working misery, not about a person who finds order and contentment in her work.

The Power is ok, I think? Didn't leave that much of an impression.

More than halfway through Jerusalem, will slay that mammoth in 2022 hopefully.

Nothing to contribute but hope you’re feeling a bit better Daniel?

I read some of Charlie Jane Anders’s short stories in the apocalypse short story collections The End is Nigh/The End is Now/The End Has Come and didn’t really care much for them which is a shame cos I used to like her on io9! But then again it’s a totally different medium from novel writing and not everyone does well at both.

Convenience Store Woman is the only one from this year I've read so far.

A strike out for me.

Hope you’re feeling better, Daniel.

I went with Underground Railroad, which I haven’t yet finished but is very good. Haven’t read any of the others.

Went with The Girls because only one I read and its deep focus on the narrator's POV, as she in lifelong memory palace w windows blown out etc, guides reader and self through her early teen visits to a Manson Family-based situation---the Love God and his Rock Star buddy-client-mark seem like a rehash, but the girl followers and some friends-frenemies, future roommates and parents are not, though the limits of plausible first-person narrative can be felt at times, as usual. But the narrator takes it all in, as much as she can. Seems pretty plausible, incl. sometimes amazing, to this simple male mind.

Happy new year, and hope you're better Daniel.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Transit by Rachel Cusk
Autumn by Ali Smith

All good to great except Ali Smith who just doesn't do much for me. Homegoing or Transit probably getting my vote.

Have to go Lovecraft Country because it's the only one I've read.
Do want to read jerusalem and Underground Railroad & think I was thinking that earlier in the last week.

Have read The Girls, Autumn, and Jerusalem. Gotta vote Jerusalem though they were all worthwhile.

I think this is the first one where I've read not a one! I own Swing Time and will someday read it, I'm sure it's great. And I think I have All The Birds in the Sky on Kindle, I bought it once when it was on ultra-sale.

Of the two I've read, would probably go for Colson Whitehead over Ali Smith. Even if the experimentation of the second half of the book isn't precisely successful, it still has an emotional punch and has grown in my imagination.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I think I forgot to vote, should've thrown one to Homegoing.

Yeah I'm doing better guys, was just a cold for me really. Back in London now, so expect regular programming to resume!

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 2017

I own quite a few books from this list that I've not yet read (Rosewater, Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming, Death Is Hard Work). I should do something about that.

The books from this list that I have read (Transit, Convenience Store Woman) were both excellent.

having said (um, maybe not) that it was a bust for me, i now see 3 things that i have read here - Rosewater, Autumn, The Power. the first two of which were ok, the latter of which went badly wrong.

Wow, I somehow missed all but one of these--the only one I've read is Lovecraft Country.