I can't believe we're almost at the end of 2015!! Anyway, I was wondering if you have a favourite book that you read this year, or if there was a new release you enjoyed - or even a new author you could recommend!?

What is your favourite reading/authors list for 2015?

I know!

I enjoyed "1984", and "The Night Land" by William Hope Hodgson. I also really enjoyed all of H. G. Wells's novels. There may have been more I read this year, as I have been reading a lot, but I can't remember any of the early ones. Oh, "The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals" was very knowledgeable and I would recommend that one also. I read "Shadows of Ecstasy" by Charles Williams, but it was disappointing. "The Greater Trumps" and "The Place of the Lion", which I read earlier than 2015, were better.

I've spent the year getting more and more obsessed with Brandon Sanderson's books. I'm not quite sure why. As far as writing skill goes, he's good, but not brilliant. He writes thoroughly entertaining, occasionally thought-provoking stories - not classics. I'm sure he'll be popular for the entirety of his career, but in a hundred years I doubt anybody will be reading his books. He's a storyteller, essentially; a craftsman more than an artist. I usually go for more literary works, not just good stories. But something about Brandon Sanderson's work just clicks with me. Some combination of the tropes he tends to use, the tone of his writing, his own personality and the way he interacts with fans - something just really speaks to me. So this year I finished up his Mistborn books, started the Stormlight Archive (so awesome!!), and got through some of his older works like Warbreaker that I hadn't gotten around to yet. His books are just really, really fun to read. And I get much more invested in the characters than I usually do. (I'm generally pretty coldhearted reading books. )

I also realized this year how much I love Connie Willis's writing. I had read To Say Nothing of the Dog before and enjoyed it, but this year I read Passage and loved it. The books of hers I've read are brilliant in how they appear firmly rooted in the real world - full of fiddly details, logistics, people running around trying to call each other on the phone - and then surprise you with deep ideas and unusual metaphors. I want to write like that! Her writing also manages to perfectly balance humor and pathos.