"Empire Falls" is next up on my reading list. I've rarely been disappointed by a Pulitzer winner ("Oliver Kitteridge" being the exception), and I'll check out this series if Russo does it for me.

Finishing off On the Move by Oliver Sacks as I type (well, not really, but you get the idea). Moving on to The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra. I've heard nothing but good things about that novel, and thought A Constellation of Vital Phenomenon was a pretty damned solid. I've even read a few opinion pieces…

I spent the front half of the month picking through some of the Canada Reads selections. I've only read three of them, and was disappointed on the whole with this year's output, but I'll get back to reading the last two before the debates open up in March. I'll be happy to give my opinion on those if it interests…

The Thousand Autumns of Jacon de Zoet is my go-to recommendation for people who are interested in Mitchell, but daunted by Cloud Atlas. Great novel.

With the conclusion of Snyder & Capullo's Batman, the perfect time to move away from floppies and wait for shelf-pleasing collections.

I'll look into it! I tend to be a big fan of magic realism.

We seem to be on the same page! "The Goldfinch" rocketed itself to my top 5 books of all time after I read it last year.

Just started into Joseph Boyden's "Three Day Road." I'm trying to dig in to a lot of CanLit that I may have missed, and this one happened to be a book club pick. So far I'm enjoying it. Boyden has a great eye for establishing time and place, and his character work tends to be consistent and engaging.

Undermajordomominor was one of my favourite books last year. Such a fun read.

What was something you read that upset and inspired you at the same time?

Alright, alright, I'll read "The Rabbit Back Literature Society", the AV Club praise has been high for most of this end of the year business.

As far as superhero fare goes, I think that Aaron's "Thor" is the perfect mix of modern story with bombastic superhero action. Also, Snyder & Capullo's "Batman" continues to impress almost four years in.

Ah, now I feel like I've got to do a top 3 Mitchell:
1) Cloud Atlas
2) The Bone Clocks
3) The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Agreed, very much like Murakami. Though I have been hit-and-miss with the Murakami I've read, so maybe that's why I had a negative reaction to "number9dream." I've also yet to read "Ghostwritten." I've done my Mitchell way out of chronological order for the most part, but do enjoy the cameos all the more for it.

I'm expecting "Station Eleven" for Christmas. I've heard nothing but good things and it always excites me to support a fellow Canadian!

Mitchell is by far my favourite author, and I try and force him on anyone with a heartbeat and a grade 12 reading level. Start with "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" if you are looking for a literary, but not post-modern, intro to his work. "number9dream" is the only book of his that I haven't enjoyed.

A fair point. The series definitely dipped in quality as it peddled to the various crossovers (AvX and Battle of the Atom were both subpar).

Is it just me, or did anyone else think Jason Aaron's "Wolverine & the X-Men" captured in equal parts Morrison's and Whedon's X-men runs? I had a lot of fun with it.

I know this is the least attractive incentive to finish "The Way of Kings", but it is a setup for "Words of Radiance" which is 1200 pages of climax from the first novel. With that said, "The Way of Kings" also had a lot of really fun moments towards the end. Having read all the "Mistborn" to date, "The Stormlight…

The first one was great partially because of the in media res strangeness of the universe. The second novel suffered a bit from plot set up, but that is the curse of the middle of the trilogy.