Author/poet/blogger Tim Jones on what he read in 2011

In the epic tradition of What I Read In 2009 and What I Read In 2010 comes ... What I Read In 2011! "It's what I wanted Transformers 3 to be if I'd only had a bigger special effects budget" says cult indie film director Michael Bay.

I read 59 books in 2011. Here are links to a number I reviewed.

1. Wit of the Staircase by Saradha Koirala - debut NZ poetry collection; I really liked the wry humour and linguistic play on show here
2. A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction, edited by Anna Caro and Juliet Buchanan - NZ speculative short story anthology, including my story "The Last Good Place"
3. A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis - British memoir and meditation on grief
4. Grendel by John Gardner - US novella: the Beowulf story imagined from the monster's point of view
5. Returning by Pat Whitaker - NZ science fiction novel - an intriguing mixture of SF and alternate history
6. Carry On, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse - British humour; a collection of Jeeves & Wooster short stories
7. Hemingway in Spain by David P. Reiter - Australian poetry collection centred on the titular author's exploits in Spain
8. Dwarf Stars 2010, edited by Joshua Gage - annual anthology of short speculative poetry published by the Science Fiction Poetry Association
9. The Baron In The Trees by Italo Calvino - Italian novel in translation; like all the Calvino I have read, very good indeed
10. Reindeer People by Piers Vitebsky - another very good book - a nonfiction account of time spent with indigenous reindeer herders in Siberia from a British author of Russian descent
Full piece at Tim's blog.