My round up of books I’ve read in 2019, another year of reading fiction and non-fiction wordage, this time with some hard-hitting book awards thrown in for good measure.

This year’s reading was a splendid tapas of fiction and non-fiction dishes. I finished studying in September which freed up time for recreational reading (so much of the year before then had been taken up with text books and journal articles). Here’s a quick round up of some of my favourites, but if you can’t take the suspense then head to the end of the post for my Dust Lounge Book Awards of 2019.

Just some of this year’s reads

Stand out fiction books for me came from the likes of Paul Tremblay, Gareth Powell, William Gibson, Sarah Lotz and Max Barry. Top marks have to go to Tremblay’s “The Little Sleep”, possibly the weirdest detective book I have ever read.

Gibson’s “The Peripheral” was probably the smartest book I read this year – the sort of book that you wish you could have written – although Tchaikovsky’s “Children of Time” had the smartest spiders.

“Body Farm Z” by Deborah Sheldon gave me my fix of zombie action, filling the disappointing hole that The Walking Dead keeps digging with kangaroo shaped undead.

In the interests of returning to my own writing this year, I started reading more short fiction, with inspiration coming from King’s “The Bazaar of Bad Dreams”, Ellis’s “Asylum of Shadows” and Beukes’s “Ungirls“.

When it came to non -fiction, true crime and cyberpsychology were the dominant themes. Britton’s “Picking up the Pieces” was a riveting read – I had the pleasure of seeing him doing a lecture a few years back and could listen to that man talk for hours. Aiken’s “The Cyber Effect” was equally interesting – and incidentally was my first full audio-book experience – although as with any book about ‘popular’ science I’d encourage reading with a critical eye. These aren’t research projects or journal articles. These are books designed to present a particular viewpoint and to make the author some money. They are not, necessarily, giving you the full picture. If the topic interests you, read around.

The Dust Lounge book awards of 2019

But what is a 2019 round-up if it doesn’t have an awards list, right? So without further ado, I present to you the Dust Lounge’s Book Awards of 2019 – sure to be a fixture at all red carpet events in the near future.

• Smartest read of the year: “The Peripheral” by William Gibson
• Smartest spiders of the year: “Children of Time” by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Best short read of the year: “The Ungirls” by Lauren Beukes
• Weirdest read of the year: “The Little Sleep” by Paul Tremblay
• Best reason not to start mountaineering of the year: “The White Road” by Sarah Lotz
• Best zombie kangaroo of the year: “Body Farm Z” by Deborah Sheldon

I’m sure you’ll join me in congratulating all books that were written or read in 2019, and here’s to a 2020 filled with more damn fine wordage.

AND CHEESE.