It’s been a book year in the Snoek-Brown household. I already posted about the book-shopping my wife and I did over the Thanksgiving weekend, but we’ve recently picked up several more books — some as gifts, some as door prizes, some as new purchases of our own — and yesterday, as I was straightening up the house, I stacked up all the books lying around the living room and realized we’d amassed 20 books in just the past couple of weeks!
Which got me thinking how many books we’ve picked up over the past year in general, and gang, it’s a ton. Easily a few dozen, and that’s on top of the books stacked up in the living room. And while many of those books are older, things we’ve long wanted or have been missing from our collection, a whole bunch of those books are brand new, just published this year by friends of mine.
So I decided to make a list of all the books in 2013 by people I know. (I say “all the people” — but I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few. I might have to post a follow-up list in a few days!)
Consider this your shopping list. Pick as many as you want or can afford; give liberally as gifts to friends and family. I haven’t got round to all of these — some I haven’t bought yet myself, and some I’ve bought but haven’t got around to reading yet — but many of these I can personally recommend. And, actually, I could recommend all of them, because I know some great writers, folks, and I trust that these books are all great even if I haven’t read them yet.
Below is a list of the books, by sort-of-genre, but it’s just a list. My librarian wife likes to say that we all judge books by their covers, regardless the usual admonition against it, and she’s right — sometimes we grab books on instinct, based partly on what they look like — so below the list, I’ve made a gallery of all the books I can find covers for. You can also find most of these on a special bookshelf I’ve created in Goodreads.
Academic | Fiction | Humor | Memoir | Poetry
David Gillota, Ethnic Humor in Multiethnic America
Laura E. Thomason, The Matrimonial Trap: Eighteenth-Century Women Writers Redefine Marriage
Stevan Allred, A Simplified Map of the Real World
Kassten Alonso, The Pet Thief
David S. Atkinson, Bones Buried in Dirt
Gabriel Blackwell, The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men: The Last Letter of H. P. Lovecraft
Christopher Bowen, We Were Giants
Matthew Burnside, Book of If & Ever (proceeds from this book go to the Make a Wish Foundation)
Matthew Burnside, Escapologies
Matthew Burnside, Infinity’s Jukebox
James Claffey, Blood a Cold Blue
Justin Lawrence Daugherty, Whatever Don’t Drown Will Always Rise
Monica Drake, The Stud Book (out now in hardback; out in paperback Dec. 31)
James H. Duncan, The Cards We Keep (a portion of each sale will go to the Food Bank of New York City this Christmas)
Ben Patrick Eden, The Tower of Sarah
Ruth Tenzer Feldman, The Ninth Day
Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly, The Tilted World
Danny M. Hoey, Jr, The Butterfly Lady
Ben Larken, The Man in the Wall: The Hollows, Part Two
Kristina McMorris, The Pieces We Keep
Brad Pauquette (ed), Best of Ohio Short Stories
Misti Rainwater-Lites, Bullshit Rodeo
Kevin Sampsell, This is Between Us
Michael J. Seidlinger, The Laughter of Strangers
Samuel Snoek-Brown (yep — that’s me!), Box Cutters
Ben Tanzer, Orphans
Susan Tepper, The Merrill Diaries
Nathaniel Tower, Nagging Wives, Foolish Husbands (should be out in time for Christmas)
Meg Tuite, Bound By Blue
Meg Tuite, Her Skin Is a Costume
Elissa Wald, The Secret Lives of Married Women
Ryan Werner, Murmuration
Mark Russell and Shannon Wheeler, God Is Disappointed In You
Nicole J. Georges, Calling Dr. Laura
Eva Hunter, A Little Mormon Girl
Bruce Bond, Choir of the Wells
Russell Brickey, Cold War Evening News
Anhvu Buchanan, The Disordered
Natalie Giarratano, Leaving Clean
Dena Rash Guzman, Life Cycle
Jeffrey Hecker, Instructions for the Orgy
Marie Marshall, I Am Not a Fish
JP Reese, Dead Letters
David Shattuck, Invisible Cities
Noel Sloboda, Our Rarer Monsters
John Sibley Williams, Controlled Hallucinations
Samuel Snoek-Brown 
Reblogged this on DRG and commented:
Sam did this so now I don’t need to. WOW –
Cool list – glad I made it on there. 🙂
Of course! 🙂
What a great, resounding cheer of literary joy this list is, Samuel. I have a few of these on my bedside reading stand, a few on my to-buy list, a few on my gift list, multiple copies of one of these in boxes in my house (being a publisher), and I will have to look into the others. Thanks for sharing.
You published Stevan Allred’s A Simplified Map of the Real World, yes? I’m kicking myself that we ran out of funds before I could grab that at the Oregon authors event at the Historical Society after Thanksgiving! I’ve been hearing good buzz, and I love story cycles (I’m teaching a class on them now). That book is WAY up my to-buy list (I might try to wrangle a copy of Christmas), and I’m looking forward to reading it. Thanks for publishing it!
Samuel, email me your address through our contact page, and I’ll send you one! The link is here: http://www.forestavenuepress.com/contact/
Done! Thanks so much!