Raymond Chandler is on pins and needles.
My 2011-12 reading season is officially over. For the last two years, I've been sorting out my favorite yearly reads under the form of an award ceremony. It's fun and it allows to reward different aspects of literature. I announced nominees all over November, for the following thirteen categories:
Best Book Cover
Funniest Book
Best Short Story
Best Short Story Collection (new category)
Best Non-Fiction Book
Best New Book (Published in 2012)
Best Novella (new category)
Best Crime Novel
Best Literary Novel
Best New Writer (that I hadn't previously read)
Best Female Character
Best Male Character
Best Novel
These are blog awards, so I don't exactly feel bound by any sorts of ethics, except my own judgment and integrity. The only requirement to be eligible for the award is that I must have completed reading your book in the period from November 1st 2011 to October 31st 2012. It can be a new book or two hundred years old, I don't care. It's based on my personal readings alone. It's been probably my busiest reading year so far, with 112 books. So here is the list of eligible works.
John Rector - Already Gone
Leonard Fritz - In Nine Kinds Of Pain
James Lee Burke - The Neon Rain
The Dirty Poet - Emergency Room Wrestling
John Fowles - The Collector
Anne R. Allen - The Gatsby Game
John Rector - The Grove
Anthony Neil Smith - All The Young Warriors
Andrew Vachss - Strega
Edward A. Granger - The Adventures Of Cash Laramie & Gideon Miles Vol. II
Richard Russo - Empire Falls
Paul Harding - Tinkers
Ray Banks - Dead Money
John Rector - The Cold Kiss
Duane Swierczynski - Hell & Gone
Jonathan Franzen - Freedom
Dani Amore - Death By Sarcasm
Keith Rawson - The Chaos We Know
Chuck Klosterman - IV
Pearce Hansen - Gun Sex
Jack Kerouac - On The Road
R. Thomas Brown - Merciless Pact
Jutta Profijt - Morgue Drawer Four
Pearce Hansen - Street Raised
McDroll - Kick It Together
Lawrence Block - The Sins of the Fathers
Tom Piccirilli - Every Shallow Cut
Ed Lynskey - Ask The Dice
James Warner - All Her Father’s Guns
R. Thomas Brown - Mayhem
Chuck Wendig - Blackbirds
Heath Lowrance - Miles to Little Ridge
Robert Stone - Dog Soldiers
Michael Offutt - Slipstream
Eric Beetner - Dig Two Graves
Lawrence Block - Time to Murder and Create
Malachi Stone - Wicked King Dick
Derek Hayes - The Maladjusted
Gerard Brennan - Wee Rockets
Scott Phillips - The Adjustment
Ryan W. Bradley - Code for Failure
Richard Godwin - Apostle Rising
Daniel O’Shea - Old School
William Gay - Twilight
Allan Guthrie - Savage Night
Craig Clevenger - The Contortionist’s Handbook
Tao Lin - Shoplifting from American Apparel
Victor Gischler - The Deputy
Richard Godwin - Mr. Glamour
Nik Korpon - By the Nails of the Warpriest
Robert Pobi - Bloodman
Howard Linskey - The Drop
Gaston Leroux
- Le Fantôme de l’Opéra
Roger Smith - Dust Devils
Tom Piccirilli - The Last Kind Words
Nik Korpon - Old Ghosts
Warren Ellis - Crooked Little Vein
Chris F. Holm - 8 Pounds
Lawrence Block - In The Midst Of Death
Roger Smith - Ishmael Toffee
Ben Tanzer - My Father’s House
William Gay - Provinces of Night
Richard Godwin - Piquant: Tales of the Mustard Man
Anthony Neil Smith - Psychosomatic
S.E Hinton - The Outsiders
Richard Lloyd Parry - People Who Eat Darkness
Col Bury - Manchester 6
Joe R. Lansdale - The Bottoms
Julia Madeleine - The Truth About Scarlet Rose
David Foster Wallace - Oblivion
Will Christopher Baer - Kiss Me, Judas
Jason Lee Norman - Americas
Ken Kesey - One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest
Fingers Murphy - Everything I Tell You is a Lie
Ben Tanzer - So Different Now
Jenniver Hillier - Freak
Steve Finbow - Nothing Matters
Jim Thompson - Savage Night
Chuck Wendig - Shotgun Gravy
H.G Wells - The Island of Dr. Moreau
Don Winslow - Savages
Paul D. Brazill - Drunk on the Moon
Hilary Davidson - The Damage Done
Andrez Bergen - Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat
Tom Piccirilli - Clown in the Moonlight
John Updike - The Centaur
Larry Bird - Drive
Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory
Don Winslow - The Kings of Cool
Denis Johnson - Jesus’ Son
R. Thomas Brown - Hill Country
Elmore Leonard - Pronto
Chad Rohrbacher - The Azreal Deception
Chris F. Holm - Dead Harvest
Dave Zeltserman - Outsourced
Thomas Harris - Red Dragon
Roger Smith - Capture
Chuck Klosterman - Downtown Owl
Burning Bridges: A Renegade Fiction Anthology
Donald Ray Pollock - Knockemstiff
Vincent Zandri - The Innocent
Sara Blaedel - Only One Life
Ben Tanzer - 99 Problems
Thomas Harris - The Silence of the Lambs
Marcus Sakey - Scar Tissue : Seven Stories of Love and Wounds
Joe R. Lansdale - Savage Season
Jack Rylance -Copacabana
John Hornor Jacobs - This Dark Earth
Beat to a Pulp - A Rip Through Time
Carson McCullers - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Tony Black - The Storm Without
Harlan Ellison - Shatterday