Book of the Month (December 2016) and Final Round Up

2016 is soon about to draw to a close and for me it feels like this year has gone past really quickly. Though having said that it seems I have had more time for reading this year looking at the number of books I read in 2015 compared to this year:

Out of that 207, 158 were crime fiction books, though due to re-reading my final total number of reviews (for novels, short story collections and lit criticism) on the blog for this year is 195 (give or take a book or two – there was far too much counting involved in the making of this post in my opinion). Although pre 1960 detective fiction from the UK and USA dominated I still managed to read a few books written by authors in other countries such as Australia, Finland, Sweden, Russia, Italy, Norway, Ireland and France. This is something I hope to do more of next year and in particular I am keen to try and track down more pre 1960 detective fiction from other countries in the golden age detective fiction style. Most of my reading unsurprisingly came from books published from the 1930s to 50s, though I still managed to read a book from every decade from 1900.

As well as doing my usual monthly round up in this post I have also decided to highlight some of my favourites reads from 2016, including a separate category for those published in this year.

Book of the Month: December

Due to the hectic nature of December and Christmas etc. I haven’t been able to read as much as I would have liked. On the whole these books were average or not so good reads. However this did mean that choosing this month’s winner was a lot easier, making Roger East’s Twenty-Five Sanitary Inspector (1935), this month’s winner.

Apart from getting kudos for choosing such a bizarre yet well fitting title, I also really enjoyed the comedy the novel is infused with and the general bizarreness of the story’s setup. Close runners up though were Arthur Upfield’s The Bachelor’s of Broken Hill (1950) and Elizabeth Gill’s Strange Holiday (1931).

Favourite Books Published in 2016.

Deciding on the books for this category was definitely an easy task and I would heartily recommend all of them:

• Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz,
• Chameleon People by Hans Olav Lahlum,
• Gender and Representation in British ‘Golden Age’ Crime Fiction by Megan Hoffman,
• The Sinking Admiral by the Detection Club,
• The Ageless Agatha Christie ed. J. C. Bernthal,
• Westmorland Alone by Ian Sansom,
• Cat Among the Herrings by L C Tyler

Other Favourite Reads of 2016

Apologies for the length of the list but there were so many good reads this year it was hard to narrow my list down. But hopefully it might give you some ideas for what books you would like to read in 2017.

•  Mist on the Saltings (1933) by Henry Wade,
• So Bad a Death (1949) by June Wright,
• The Mystery of the Three Orchids (1942) by Augusto De Angelis,
• The Leavenworth Case (1878) by Anna K Green,
• Murder Must Advertise (1933) by Dorothy L Sayers,
• The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929) by Anthony Berkeley,
• Five Little Pigs (1942) by Agatha Christie,
• The Wrong Murder (1940) by Craig Rice,
• The Chimney Murder (1929) by E. M. Channon,
• The Moving Toyshop (1946) by Edmund Crispin,
• Case for Three Detectives (1936) by Leo Bruce,
• Jane and the Wandering Eye (1998) by Stephanie Barron,
• The Judas Window (1938) by Carter Dickson,
• The Wooden Overcoat (1951) by Pamela Branch,
• Dancing With Death (1947) by Joan Coggin,
• The Norwich Victims (1931) by Francis Beeding,
• Blood on His Hands (1937) by Max Afford,
• Deadman’s Quarry (1930) by Ianthe Jerrold

All that it remains for me to say is thanks to you my readers for visiting and commenting on my blog this year. Happy New Year! (well in 8 and bit hours anyways).