Ok, so...

Let's see...books I've read so far this year:

City of Dreams and Nightmare, by Ian Whates
Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, by Jonathan L. Howard*
Handling the Undead, by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson*
New Amsterdam, by Elizabeth Bear
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde*
Kraken, by China Mieville
Widdershins, by Charles de Lint
Changes, by Jim Butcher#
Magic Burns, by Ilona Andrews#
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke*
Welcome to Bordertown, edited by Holly Black and Ellen Kushner*
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack, by Mark Hodder
Elsewhere, by Will Shetterly*
Nevernever, by Will Shetterly*
Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen*
Soulless, by Gail Carriger
The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo
Hard Spell, by Justin Gustainis
Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett*
Johannes Cabal the Detective, by Jonathan L. Howard*
The Strain, by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo Del Toro
Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest
Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, by Genevieve Valentine*
Rosemary's Baby, by Ira Levin
In the Suicide Mountain, by John Gardner*
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs

Books that I've actually bothered to review...1.

Quick review: all the books with * beside them are books I'd recommend to someone else. All books with # show up late in a series, and I'd recommend the whole series. Start at the beginning.

Most of the books without a recommendation aren't necessarily bad, just...not good enough to try to pressure anyone else into reading. Some of them weren't good, or were almost good, or were really good up until they totally dropped the ball.

On a side note, books I've started, but haven't finished yet, and may or may not finish before the year is out, and so may or may not count toward my total:

Heat Wave, by Richard Castle
Side Jobs, by Jim Butcher
Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, by Mary Roach
What We Eat When We Eat Alone, by Deborah Madison
The Hangman's Daughter, by Oliver Potzsch
The Definitive HP Lovecraft, by HP Lovecraft
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle

The top two I only have in hard copy, and so they're picked up when I'm not busy reading on my kindle. Also, I can't decide if Heat Wave is deliberately that bad as a statement of opinion on Richard Castle by the ghost writer, or if it wasn't worth any effort because it was going to sell the exact same number of copies whether it was brilliant or...what it is.

Bonk is excellent, but I discovered that my library now offers kindle books, and I checked on out before finishing Bonk, then realized I only had one week to read the book, so Bonk got shelved on account of being mine and available to read whenever I've run out of library books.

What We Eat When We Eat Alone...is, um, entertaining, but only as casual reading.

I'll cop to losing interest in The Hangman's Daughter and moving on to other things. I might pick it up again, if only because I paid money for it.

Finally, Lovecraft and Doyle are amazing. They're forces unto themselves. I started reading them just because I felt like if I was going to be influenced by them, it might as well be direct influence. I didn't expect to enjoy their work as much as I do, but mostly a story or two at a time. Especially Lovecraft. I'm turning into a genuine fan of his, but if I tried to read his entire works in one go, I'd end up like one of his characters. And no one wants that.

Well, I don't.