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I could sum up 2013 in a number of ways: Switched careers; travelled the Pacific coast; published my second book; learned I was going to become a father [!].

Another way would be this: I read. I read a lot.

Here are the titles I tackled in 2013:

The Priest’s Graveyard by Ted Dekker
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire & The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson
Writing Movies by Gotham Writers’ Workshop
Requiem For A Dream by Hubert Selby Jr
We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
101 Secrets For Your Twenties by Paul Angone
An Anthology Of Madness by Max Andrew Dubinsky
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Velocity by Dean Koontz
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Push by Sapphire
The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings
Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee

What I really loved about my 2013 reading adventures is that I became immersed in the worlds of different characters: A computer-hacker spy with a dark past; a group of Coney Island drug addicts; the mother of a 16-year-old murderous sociopath; a leader of a dystopian revolution; an inner-city illiterate victim of incestuous rape; a father-of-two who learns his comatose wife had been unfaithful to him; a dysfunctional couple who use their dinner guests as pawns in their marital war.

Yet in each of these worlds, I found myself at home with the characters – despite how different my world is from theirs. I felt them sharing their joys and pains as if we were talking over a cup of coffee.

This fills me with  anticipation for the coming year. For the stories I’ll encounter. For the characters I’ll meet. For the way I’ll be impacted by their experiences.

What’s the most different-from-my-own-world story you’ve encountered in a book [or a film]?