Mark Bould

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions (or, very often, arithmetic), but last night I started reading Mariana Enriquez’s Our Share of Night (2022), which so far is pretty good (not yet clear if I’ll want to keep it) but also a really awkward size and shape (233mm x 158mm x 52mm and 0.7kg in paperback).

Now, I like big books, I cannot lie, but what I can’t abide is unnecessarily large volumes. There is no physical reason why Our Share of Night could not have been published as an A-format paperback, rather than this ridiculously-dimensioned trade paperback.

Which reminded me of all the book-packing and lugging involved in moving house last year (150 boxes in the 20 litre range), and how much space in those boxes is taken up by ginormous books I want to read but probably don’t want to keep. So it’s time to bring some order to my life/box-stacks and challenge myself to plough through one of these unnecessarily humungous tomes per month this year – and then probably pass it on to a friend an enemy or to the only charity shop within staggering distance (although, obviously, with these behemoths I would prefer one that represented a cause of which I do not wholly approve).

Thus in addition to combining reading with an upper-body and core strength workout and the possibility of petty revenge, by December I will have succeeded in disposing not only of 12.427kg or (I think) 33908.807cm³ of books but also any sense of joy reading them might otherwise entail.

N.B. I haven’t yet decided which one I’ll read in which month because what I really need now is an accurate word-count for each book so as to figure out the most efficient order in which to read them  – i.e., the one that most speedily clears some goddam room in this house.

In 2022, I read 258 books (250 of them for the first time). Of these, 114 were by straight white men writing in English, 127 were by the rest of the world (but only 71 by women), with 19 multi-authored or otherwise too complicated to fit into those categories.

Of them, my favourite 18 works of fiction, in roughly this order but with the Delany definitely way out in front of everything else, were:
Samuel R. Delany, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders (2011)
Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver (1982)
Nelson Algren, The Neon Wilderness (1947)
Fiston Mwanza Mujila, Tram 83 (2014)
Max Porter, Lanny (2019)
Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland (2021)
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, The Time Regulation Institute (1962)
Olympe Bhêly-Quénum, Snares without End (1978)
Brooke Bolander, The Only Harmless Great Thing (2018)
Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman (2013)
Richard Powers, Bewilderment (2021)
Gretchen Felker-Martin, Manhunt (2022)
M.E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune 2052–2072 (2022)
Gabino Iglesias, The Devil Takes You Home (2022)
Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See (2014)
Ruthanna Emrys, A Half-Built Garden (2022)
Lee Maracle, Celia’s Song (2014)
Kathleen Ann Goonan, In War Times (2007)

And my favourite 4 works of non-fiction, in roughly this order, were:
Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective, White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism (2021)
Yasmin El-Rifae, Radius: A Story of Feminist Revolution (2022)
China Miéville, A Spectre, Haunting: On The Communist Manifesto (2022)
Robert T. Tally, Jr., For a Ruthless Critique of All that Exists: Literature in an Age of Capitalist Realism (2022)

The full list of 258 is below:
Brian W. Aldiss, Greybeard (1964)
Sherman Alexie, Reservation Blues (1995)
Nelson Algren, The Neon Wilderness (1947)
Tariq Ali, Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes (2022)
Charlie Jane Anders, Victories Greater Than Death (2021)
Jake Arnott, He Kills Coppers (2001)
Catherine Asaro, Spherical Harmonic (2001)
Madeline Ashby, Company Town (2016)
Mike Ashley, ed., The Platform Edge: Uncanny Tales of the Railways (2019)
Edward Ashton, Mickey7 (2022)
Paul Auster, Travels in the Scriptorium (2006)
–. Man in the Dark (2008)
–. Invisible (2009)
–. Sunset Park (2010)
Richard Ayoade, Ayoade on Ayoade: A Cinematic Odyssey (2014)

Samit Basu, The City Inside (2020)
Stephen Baxter, Ring (1994)
Elizabeth Bear, Ancestral Nights (2019)
Virginia Bergin, Who Runs the World? (2017)
Adele Bertei, Why Labelle Matters (2021)
Lauren Beukes, Afterland (2020)
Khavita Bhanot, ed., Too Asian, Not Asian Enough (2011)
Olympe Bhêly-Quénum, Snares without End (1978)
Brian Bilston, Diary of a Somebody (2019)
Lawrence Block, The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes (2015)
Brooke Bolander, The Only Harmless Great Thing (2018)
Guy Boothby, A Bid for Fortune (1895)
–. Dr Nikola (1896)
David Bowles, The Smoking Mirror (2015)
Gracie Mae Bradley and Luke de Noronha, Against Borders: The Case for Abolition (2022)
Benjamin Bratton, The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-Pandemic World (2021)
Will Brooker, Using the Force: Creativity, Community and Star Wars Fans (2002)
Max Brooks, Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre (2020)
Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland (1798)
–. Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist (1803)
Fredric Brown, What Mad Universe (1949)
–. The Lights in the Sky are Stars (1953)
–. Martians, Go Home (1955)
–. Rogue in Space (1957)
–. The Mind Thing (1961)
Jayna Brown, Black Utopias: Speculative Life and the Music of Other Worlds (2021)
Jenny Brown, Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now (2022)
William Brown, Non-Cinema: Global Digital Film-making and the Multitude (2018)
Joseph Bruchac, Killer of Enemies (2013)
John Buchan, Prester John (1910)
Samuel Butler, Erewhon: or, Over the Range (1872)

Alex Callinicos, Trotskyism (1990)
Bill Campbell, Koontown Killing Kaper (2012)
M.R. Carey, The Girl with all the Gifts (2014)
Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus (1984)
B. Catling, Earwig (2019)
David Caute, Red List: MI5 and British Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century (2022)
Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World (1666)
J.C. Cervantes, The Storm Runner (2018)
James Chapman, Cinemas of the World: Film and Society from 1895 to the Present (2003)
Elliott Chaze, Black Wings Has My Angel (1953)
Vivek Chibber, Confronting Capitalism: How the World Works and How to Change It (2022)
René Clair, Reflections on the Cinema (1953)
Wilkie Collins, The Frozen Deep (1874)
Richard Condon, The Manchurian Candidate (1959)
Thomas Cripps, Hollywood’s High Noon: Moviemaking and Society Before Television (1997)

Jack Dann, Terrorism (2013)
Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (1990)
Samuel R. Delany, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders (2011)
James De Mille, A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder (1888)
Kay Dick, They (1977)
Philip K. Dick, Time Out of Joint (1959)
Joël Dicker, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair (2012)
Cory Doctorow, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)
–. Little Brother (2008)
Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See (2014)
Jean-Claude Dunyach, The Thieves of Silence (2009)

Oliver Eagleton, The Starmer Project: A Journey to the Right (2022)
Greg Egan, Axiomatic (1995)
–. Luminous (1998)
Yasmin El-Rifae, Radius: A Story of Feminist Revolution (2022)
Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater (2018)
Ruthanna Emrys, A Half-Built Garden (2022)
Steven Erikson, Rejoice: A Knife to the Heart (2018)

D.O. Fagunwa, Forest of a Thousand Daemons: A Hunter’s Saga (1939)
Lee Falk and Ray Moore, The Phantom, the complete newspaper dailies: volume one 1936–1937 (1936–37)
Gretchen Felker-Martin, Manhunt (2022)
George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman (1969)
Robert Fraser, Victorian Quest Romance: Stevenson, Haggard, Kipling and Conan Doyle (1998)

David Gaffney, Out of the Dark (2022)
Basma Ghalayini, ed., Palestine + 100 (2019)
Kristen Ghodsee, Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons from Five Revolutionary Women (2022)
John Gibbs, Mise-en-scène: Film Style and Interpretation (2002)
David Gillespie, Early Soviet Cinema: Innovation, Ideology and Propaganda (2000)
Inez Haynes Gilmore, Angel Island (1914)
Saverio Giovacchini, Hollywood Modernism: Film and Politics in the Age of the New Deal (2001)
Jennifer Givhan, Trinity Sight (2019)
Basil Glynn, The Mummy on Screen: Orientalism and Monstrosity in Horror Cinema (2021)
Francis Godwin, The Man in the Moone (1638)
Kathleen Ann Goonan, In War Times (2007)
Vivian Gornick, Taking a Long Look: Essays on Culture, Literature, and Feminism in Our Time (2021)
Alex Grecian, The Yard (2012)
Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter (1948)

Blake M. Hausman, Riding the Trail of Tears (2011)
Joel Hawkes, Alex Christie and Thomas Nienhuis, American Science Fiction Television and Space: Productions and (Re)configurations, 1987–2021 (2022)
Nathalie Henneberg, The Green Gods (2010)
Matt Hills, Fan Cultures (2002)
Ernest Hogan, Smoking Mirror Blues (2001)
Stark Holborn, Ten Low (2021)
Michel Houellebecq, Atomised (1999)
Robert E. Howard, El Borak and Other Desert Adventures (2010)

Gabino Iglesias, The Devil Takes You Home (2022)
Rachel Ingalls, Mrs Caliban (1982)
Simon Ings, Wolves (2014)

Kevin Jackson, Constellation of Genius – 1922: Modernism and All That Jazz (2012)
Fredric Jameson, Raymond Chandler: The Detections of Totality (2016)
Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver (1982)
N.K. Jemisin and Jamal Campbell, Far Sector (2020–21)
Hao Jingfang, Vagabonds (2016)
Kij Johnson, The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe (2016)
Mat Johnson, Pym (2011)

Richard Kadrey, The Grand Dark (2019)
Matthew Kaopio, Written in the Sky (2005)
John Kessel, The Moon and the Other (2017)
Hari Kunzru, Red Pill (2020)
Ambelin Kwaymullina, The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf (2014)

Christopher Landon, Ice Cold in Alex (1957)
Joe R. Lansdale, Lost Echoes (2007)
–. Rusty Puppy (2017)
Matthew Lawrence and Laurie Laybourn-Langton, Planet on Fire: A Manifesto for the Age of Environmental Breakdown (2021)
Alain le Drimeur, The Future City (1890)
Chang-Rae Lee, On Such a Full Sea (2014)
Stan Lee, et al, Marvel Essential: The Fantastic Four, volume one (1961–64)
Stan Lee, et al, Marvel Essential: The Sub-Mariner, volume one (1965–68)
Stan Lee, et al., Marvel Essential: Avengers, volume two (1966–67)
Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History (2022)
Fritz Leiber, Gather, Darkness! (1943)
Doris Lessing, Shikasta (1979)
–. The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five (1980)
–. The Sirian Experiments (1980)
–. The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 (1982)
–. The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire (1983)
Kelly Link, Get In Trouble (2015)
Darcie Little Badger, Elatsoe (2020)
John Litweiler, Ornette Coleman: The Harmolodic Life (1992)
M.J. Locke, Up Against It (2011)
Mark Lynas, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (2007)

Paul J. McAuley, Eternal Light (1991)
–. A Very British History: The Best Science Fiction Stories of Paul McAuley, 1985– 2011 (2013)
Mike McCormack, Notes from a Coma (2005)
Laura Jean McKay, The Animals in That Country (2020)
Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective, White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism (2021)
Barry N. Malzberg (as K.M. O’Donnell), Gather in the Hall of Planets (1971)
–. In the Pocket and Other S-F Stories (1971)
Lee Maracle, Celia’s Song (2014)
Elan Mastai, All Our Wrong Tomorrows (2016)
Lary May, The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way (2000)
Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vladimir Mayakovsky: A Tragedy (1913)
China Miéville, A Spectre, Haunting: On The Communist Manifesto (2022)
Sam J. Miller, Blackfish City (2018)
Denise Mina, The Red Road (2013)
David Mitchell,  Slade House (2015)
Alejandro Morales, The Rag Doll Plagues (1992)
Joanne Morreale, The Outer Limits (2022)
Bill Morris, Motor City Burning (2014)
Walter Mosley, The Right Mistake (2008)
Chantal Mouffe, Towards a Green Democratic Revolution: Left Populism and the Power of Affects (2022)
Fiston Mwanza Mujila, Tram 83 (2014)
Howard L. Myers, The Creatures of Man (2003)

Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading (1935)
Kim Newman, The Quorum…and Other Stories (1994/2013)
Jeff Noon, Falling Out of Cars (2002)

M.E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune 2052–2072 (2022)
Vladimir Obruchev, Sannikov Land (1926)
Nnedi Okorafor, Noor (2021)
Chad Oliver, The Shores of Another Sea (1971)

Michelle Paver, Dark Matter (2010)
Victor Pelevin, S.N.U.F.F.: A Utopia (2011)
Robert G. Penner, ed., Big Echo Anthology (2021)
Alexander Pierce and Mimi Mondal, eds., Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler (2017)
Max Porter, Lanny (2019)
Richard Powers, Bewilderment (2021)
Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, The Long Earth (2012)
Douglas Pye, Movies and Tone (2007)

Chen Quifan, Waste Tide (2013)
Daniel Quinn, Ishmael (1992)

Robert B. Ray, How a Film Theory Got Lost and Other Mysteries in Cultural Studies (2001)
The Red Nation, The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save the Earth (2021)
Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo (1972)
John Rieder, Speculative Epistemologies: An Eccentric Account of SF from the 1960s to the Present (2021)
Dylan Riley, Microverses: Observations from a Shattered Present (2022)
Rebecca Roanhorse, Black Sun (2020)
Adam Roberts, The Thing Itself (2015)
David Roberts, Andrew Milner and Peter Murphy, Science Fiction and Narrative Form (2023?)
Keith Roberts, The Lordly Ones (1986)
Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman (2013)
Sam Rohdie, Montage (2006)
J.H. Rosny-Aîné, Quest for Fire (1911)
Kristin Ross, Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune (2015)
Victor Rousseau, The Messiah of the Cylinder (1917)
Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow (1996)

William Sanders, Journey to Fusang (1988)
Robert J. Sawyer, End of an Era (1994)
Joshua Schuster and Derek Woods, eds, Calamity Theory: Three Critiques of Existential Risk (2021)
Richard Seymour, The Disenchanted Earth: Reflections on Ecosocialism and Barbarism (2022)
Stephen Shapiro and Mark Storey, The Cambridge Companion to American Horror (2022)
Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures (2020)
Lucius Shepard, Kalimantan (1990)
Robert Silverberg, Downward to the Earth (1970)
Clifford D. Simak, Time and Again (1951)
Vandana Singh, Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories (2018)
Olga Slavnikova, 2017 (2006)
Iain Robert Smith, The Hollywood Meme: Transnational Adaptations in World Cinema (2017)
Martin Cruz Smith, The Girl from Venice (2017)
Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland (2021)
Neal Stephenson, Termination Shock (2021)
Francis Stevens, The Citadel of Fear (1918)
Alfredo Suppia, Southerly Short Circuits: The Brazilian Science Fiction Film (2024)
Christina Sweeney-Baird, The End of Men (2021)
E.J. Swift, The Coral Bones (2022)

Wole Talabi, ed., Africanfuturism: An Anthology (2020)
Robert T. Tally, Jr., For a Ruthless Critique of All that Exists: Literature in an Age of Capitalist Realism (2022)
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, The Time Regulation Institute (1962)
Ben Tarnoff, Internet for the People: The Fight for Our Digital Future (2022)
Roy Thomas, et al., Marvel Essential: Avengers, volume three (1967–68)
Roy Thomas, John Buscema, George Perez et al, Marvel Essential Fantastic Four, volume 8 (1975–77)
Amy Thomson, The Color of Distance (1995)
Tade Thompson, Far From the Light of Heaven (2021)
Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx (2003)
Karen Traviss, City of Pearl (2004)
Tlotlo Tsamaase, The Silence of the Wilting Skin (2020)
Yasutaka Tsutsui, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (1967)
Cadwell Turnbull, The Lesson (2019)
Amos Tutuola, The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952)

Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Governing the World without World Government (2022)

Tomás Vergara, Estranging History: Alterity and Capialism in Speculative Fiction (2024)
Gerald Vizenor, Darkness in St Louis Bearheart (1978)
Antoine Volodine, Radiant Terminus (2014)

Isabel Waidner, Sterling Karat Gold (2021)
David Foster Wallace, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999)
Rosie Warren, ed., Salvage 11: Already, Not Yet (2022)
–. Salvage 12: A Ceaseless Storm (2022)
Harry Warwick, The Aesthetics of Enclosure: Dystopia and Dispossession in the Hollywood Science Fiction Film, 1979–1917 (2022?)
Ian Watson, Evil Water and Other Stories (1987)
Franz Wedekind, Mine-Haha or, On the Bodily Education of Young Girls (1903)
Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary (2021)
Martha Wells, All Systems Red (2017)
–. Artificial Condition (2018)
–. Rogue Protocol (2018)
–. Exit Strategy (2018)
–. Network Effect (2020)
–. Fugitive Telemetry (2021)
Ian Whates, ed., Stories of Hope and Wonder: In Support of the UK’s Health Workers (2020)
Aliya Whiteley, Skyward Inn (2021)
Jack Williamson, The Legion of Time (1938/52)
Connie Willis, Blackout (2010)
–. All Clear (2010)
Don Winslow, The Force (2017)
Herman Wouk, The ‘Caine’ Mutiny (1951) – can’t believe I finally read my old A-format paperback of this, which has travelled tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of miles in my luggage as my emergency small-big book
Lawrence Wright, The End of October (2020)

Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown (2020)

Rachel Zadok, Sister-Sister (2013)
Chen Zo, Black Water Sister (2021)