This week’s theme is the Top Ten books I read this year. Off we go! The titles will link to my reviews, so you can read more about them.

1. The Tropic of Serpents and Voyage of the Basilisk, Marie Brennan. Can’t choose, don’t make me. Both of these really kicked my love for the series into a higher gear, after I wasn’t that enchanted by A Natural History of Dragons.
2. The Tale of Duelling Neurosurgeons, Sam Kean. Very good non-fiction; engaging, interesting, wide-ranging.
3. Karen Memory, Elizabeth Bear. So. goshdarn. cute. Also cool alternative history.
4. The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth J. Dickinson. Criticisms by other people be damned, I loved it.
5. The Wicked + The Divine: Fandemonium, Jamie McKelvie & Kieron Gillen. It’s bloody gorgeous.
6. Cocaine Blues, Kerry Greenwood. This was a reread, which mostly I’ve avoided in this list, but it was like reading a new book, because I liked it so much more this time.
7. A Taste of Blood Wine, Freda Warrington. This series has me mega-conflicted morally, but enraptured in terms of the writing quality.
8. Lock In, John Scalzi. Scalzi’s books are always solidly fun, and this was a little more than that, I think.
9. Remnant Population, Elizabeth Moon. Awesome elderly female protagonist!
10. Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari. Very good overview of human prehistory and history.

I totally recommend all ten of those — they weren’t all 5* reads, but they were very enjoyable.

This week’s theme is the top ten new to me authors I’ve read this year. So, with the help of Goodreads, here goes!

1. Kerry Greenwood. Actually technically not new to me, because I’d read Cocaine Blues before. But I hated it, for some reason, and didn’t read the whole thing the first time. This time, I devoured it and went on to eat up the rest of the series too (something I’m still in progress with). So I’m going to pretend the first time didn’t happen. I was clearly cranky at the time.
2. Leigh Bardugo. I know I’m late to the party, but I finally read Shadow and Bone, and found myself unexpectedly riveted.
3. Ann Leckie. Again, rather late to the party, but at least it meant that I got to read the whole trilogy more or less at once, with just a couple of months waiting for the last one!
4. K.J. Parker. I’m not just late to the party, I crashed in after several hours. But I read the Tor.com novella and now I know I need to get round to more of Parker’s work.
5. Freda Warrington. Her vampire novels are just ridiculously addictive. Hurrah for Titan rereleasing them so they came to my attention.
6. Patricia Briggs. I have some problems with her books, but they’re also dead fun.
7. Elizabeth Bear. Rather late to the party again, but Karen Memory made me want to read more of her work.
8. Seth Dickinson. The Traitor Baru Cormorant was awesome.
9. Zen Cho. I enjoyed Sorcerer to the Crown.
10. Greg van Eekhout. I really need to get round to the third book in his trilogy, Dragon Coast.

I’ll be interested to see what other people have discovered this year! A couple of mine were actually debut authors, but as you can see from where I’ve been late to the party, a lot of them were discoveries of authors who’ve been going a while.

The theme for this week is 2016 debuts we’re looking forward to, but I’m honestly terrible at keeping track of what’s getting released, let alone by debut authors. So instead I’ll go with any books getting released in 2016.

1. A Court of Mist and Fury, Sarah J. Maas. I expect this is one a lot of people are anticipating!
2. The Hanging Tree, Ben Aaronovitch. Again, I bet there’s plenty of people waiting on tenterhooks for this one.
3. A Gathering of Shadows, V.E. Schwab. I wasn’t as excited by the first book as some others were, but I still thought it was fun and I’m looking forward to seeing Kell again.
4. The Thorn of Emberlain, Scott Lynch. I can only say of course.
5. Necessity, Jo Walton. It’s by Jo Walton, of course I’ll pick it up. More so because it finishes up the trilogy.
6. The Devil You Know, K.J. Parker. I loved the previous Tor.com novella by Parker, so I’m interested in this one.
7. Every Heart a Doorway, Seanan McGuire. I still need to actually read Seanan McGuire’s work in general, but I’ve been interested in this one for ages. Gimme already.
8. Ghost Talkers, Mary Robinette Kowal. I’m loving the cover.
9. Truthwitch, Susan Dennard. Been hearing good things.
10. Tell the Wind and Fire, Sarah Rees Brennan. I really need to try reading Brennan again, and I’m intrigued by the sound of this one.

This probably ruins me for a future list about 2016 releases, but shush.

This week’s prompt is to do with Thanksgiving, which is always a little weird since, as a British person, I definitely don’t traditionally celebrate Thanksgiving. But it’s a nice opportunity to thank some bookish people.

1. Mum. For many, many doors into portable universes, both through teaching me to read, sharing books, buying me books, recommending books…
2. Lisa. For sharing many portable universes with me, over the last ten years!
3. Robert. For running the SF/F bookclub and becoming a friend over the last year.
4. Jo Walton. For writing books, providing sage advice, and being a friend.
5. Lynn O’ Connacht. For many many good conversations about books, including plenty of recommendations and shared books!
6. Ryan from SpecFic Junkie. For much encourage, chatter about books, and the general takeover of Habitica with things about books.
7. Cait from Paper Fury. For a disproportionate number of giggles to how long I’ve been following her blog/twitter.
8. To all the friends who know books are the best way to distract me. And there’s certainly been some tough times where I’ve needed this.
9. To all of you who comment and like my posts. Otherwise it’d be a bit lonely around here.
10. To Helen Hippo. For being my constant companion through universes fictional and real, even if I have worn most of her fur off.

’nuff said, I think.