Favourite Books 2021

I'm not sure I've ever done the same format for my annual favourite books post, and so here's another way of doing it for 2021. Categories, winners and runners up. I'll no doubt do something different again next year. (By contrast, my annual short story post is a model of consistency, and will be coming soon...)

So, here we go:

Best Collection: Sometimes We're Cruel, J.A.W. McCarthy - full write up here

Runner Up: The Trains Don't Stop Here, Martin Cosby - Aickmanesque strangeness, without being derivative or needlessly opaque (a hard trick to pull off)

Best Anthology: Uncertainties V, ed. Brian J. Showers - has an intro that should be read by all authors & connoisseurs of creepy, unsettling fiction. And the stories that follow more than live up to its promise.

Runner Up: Stitched Lips: An Anthology Of Horror From Silenced Voices, ed. Ken MacGregor - the anthology that introduced me to the most new authors this year

Best Novel: Mistletoe, Alison Littlewood - a wonderfully creepy, chilly winter ghost story, which still more than worked when I read it in the middle of summer

Runner Up: Crooked, Austin Grossman - Richard Milhous Nixon + Lovecraftian beings & dark magic

Best Novella: John's Eyes, Joanna Corrance - a brilliant concept (artificial eyes go HAL on their owner), brilliantly done

Runner Up: The Exercise, Mark West - WW2 period horror, a page-turner which avoids all the usual triteness that phrase conjures up

Best Non-Fiction: Writing The Uncanny, ed. Dan Coxon & Richard V. Hirst - the best book on writing I've bought since Wonderbook, which is saying something

Runner Up: Sinclair ZX Spectrum: A Visual Compendium, Sam Dyer  - not exactly 'on brand' for this blog, but a pure hit of nostalgia and 8-bit creativity

Best Misc: The Essential Calvin & Hobbes, Bill Watterson - I'm a big softie really

Runner Up: Casting The Runes RPG, Paul St. John Mackintosh - full write up here

 

Best Reread: 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King - what more can I say about this one that I have't already?

Runner Up: The Master & Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov - a dark delight, even the second time around