2013: The Year In Books

2013books

With another year coming to an end, it is time to take a look back at the 18 books I read over the past year, 6 overall less than last year but the same total if you exclude the graphic novels.  Of those 18, 5 were non-fiction and, of the 13 novels, 5 were TV show tie-ins.  Only 3 of the books came from the “to-read” drawer, and 7 were e-books, which was a new category for me last year.

 

A majority of the books I read this year were by authors I’ve never read before.  The 11 authors that I read for the first this year were:
Alan Sepinwall
Joe Hill
Rebecca Forster
Sarah Silverman
Kimberly McCreight
Andrew Gross
Ben Mezrich
Tina Fey
Ron Rapoport
David Mack
Dustin Diamond

The ghost writer for Richard Castle was the only author I read multiple times in 2013.

The five books that I read this year that were released this year were Richard Castle’s Deadly Heat, Kimberly McCreight’s Reconstructing Amelia, Brad Meltzer’s The Fifth Assassin, Warren Ellis’ Gun Machine, and From Black Sox to Threepeats, edited by Ron Rapoport.

Finally, the breakdown by month.  Being off again for most of December certainly helped pad the total a tad bit.

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Book 10 (of 52) – Eyes Wide Open

Eyes Wide Open - Andrew Gross

Eyes Wide Open – Andrew Gross

I had never heard of Andrew Gross before reading this book, which I must have picked up for free on Amazon Kindle.  He apparently had done some co-writing with James Patterson before eventually striking out on his own.  This tale, based partially on his own nephew’s death, was somewhat enjoyable and did manage to catch my interest, despite some flaws.

Gross weaves together a story about a young teen who allegedly committed suicide, the uncle who wouldn’t accept the official version of the story, and the ties to a murdering cult leader that seemed an awful lot like Charles Manson.  For the most part, the story was engaging, but there were a few leaps of faith required to make the story keep going.

To be honest, I’m not sure if I would ever search out another entry from Andrew Gross, but, if another special were to pop up like that one that landed this tome in my digital library, I could probably be compelled to give it a shot.