A Sense of Doubt blog post #2364 - Books Read 2020 - a year in reading in review
Greetings,
Sunday posts are usually COMIC BOOK SUNDAY and lately WHAT I AM READING. Though this post is all about what I did read last year (I know, I should have posted it in January!), it's neither technically part of the WHAT I AM READING (as in right now) series nor is it really what I usually do with COMIC BOOK SUNDAY, though I am going to write some about comic books.
Given that I spent most of 2020 indoors and for months without new comic books to read, I presumed that I would read more books than usual. I did some re-reading. I made more progress in reading all of Stephen King's books. But I didn't actually read more books in 2020. My count here shows 35 books, a couple of which were started in 2019 and finished in 2020 or finished in 2019 but part of the books picture grid. Supposedly, I read 46 books in 2019.
I will share again the post of books from 2017-2019 farther below.
Here are my books from 2020.
I re-read The Traveler intending to go on and read the other two and then I didn't manage that feat. I re-read Snow Crash and On Writing by Stephen King because these are books I re-read often. I re-read The Consuming Fire to be better prepared for the Last Emperox by Scalzi. I re-read Connie Willis' The Last of the Winnebagos. But most notably, I re-read Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects and David Lagercrantz's The Girl in the Spider's Web -- a Lisbeth Salander novel -- as research for the novel I am writing set here in nearby Kalama, which I am currently calling OPPOSABLE.
Others are new. GREAT graphic novels! Ready Player Two!! Some great political books, like The New Jim Crow and Hoax. Another Stephen King in Bag of Bones, which was pretty good. I like to read (via audio book) Stephen King in the summer. I started the year with three books by Spider Robinson for another story I am writing. I read some Rainbow Rowell based on recommendations. I read The Painted Word to help a student with a paper. I read two books by my friend Helene and one by my friend Suzanne. I read the first MURDERBOT book by Martha Wells, and it's time to read more. I read the first Mistborn book by Brandon Sanderson based on many recommendations and will read the rest. And I finally got around to reading Schismatrix.
BUT some of the best books I read were ones I have not yet mentioned: A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker, Wanderers by Chuck Wendig, Two by Seanan McGuire: Every Heart a Doorway and Middlegame, and the short story collection Radicalized by Cory Doctorow.
I had intended to do mini book reviews for many of these, and I have written about come of them:
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1907 - Preparing to read THE LAST EMPEROX - synopses of THE COLLAPSING EMPIRE and THE CONSUMING FIRE - spoilers!Looking at the grids, I spot some of the best books in each grid picture. Though I do love the books written by my friends, Middlegame by Seanan McGuire is definitely the bets book in the first block of 24 books with Wanderers by Chuck Wendig and The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander as close seconds and thirds not counting graphic novels, all of which are excellent.
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell was one of my favorite books of the year and best of the second grid of 18 books, though not counting books I have read before -- Snow Crash and The Traveler -- and great graphic novels like Berlin, which I read in January of 2020 before the pandemic descended after my wife gave it to me for Christmas.
I have to give a shout out to Radicalized By Cory Doctorow in the first grid, which is a GREAT book of short stories. My opinion is much driven by the first story "Unauthorized Bread." Imagine a smart toaster that will only accept "authorized bread"? Sure, you can "jail break" (hack) your toaster to accept 'unauthorized bread," but you are also breaking the law when you do so. Do you really want to go to prison for 20-30 for hacking your toaster.
As a techie, you would think I am all for smart appliances, but I am not. The smarter we make devices, the more we open ourselves up to abuse and control. I don't want my device to refuse to work because of a bug that will take months to fix. That's why some devices like light fixtures and toasters are simple in design and function. I do not need to tell my light vocally to turn on and off and risk not being able to turn it on and off manually AND the hacking and data collection issues.
Anyway, still, 2020 was a good year of reading.
Here's some tallies of book reading from previous years.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1915 - 2018-2019: Books Read
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1915 - 2018-2019: Books Read
One theme of this blog that should be abundantly clear is that I love reading and that it definitely ranks as one of the very tip-top avocations in my life.
In 2019, I read 47 books, counting Middlesex twice, as I read it twice to prepare for a talk and to teach it in class. Of these forty-seven books, 36 of them are print books and of them are 11 graphic novels. I consumed 25 of the books via audio, while reading 11 print books in the traditional way, and 11 graphic novels, also traditionally, as one cannot read graphic novels via audio because of the pictures (duh).
For the record, mostly, I like to read ON PAPER. Digital is great and convenient. I do own a Kindle. But I spend all day looking at screens. Since I read at night before bed, I like to look at paper. It's lo-fi, it's not shining with light, and it's relaxing.
Looking at these numbers of books read in 2019, they are close to the claim I often make that I do two-thirds of my reading each year via audio. Dismissing the graphic novels, twenty-five of thirty-six, looks to be almost exactly two-thirds leaving eleven, which is basically one-third of the total.
Since I did not do one of these posts for 2018, and will investigate the previous year a little lower in the post, then we shall see if these numbers prove the pudding through and through.
GOOD READS has helped me with an end of the year retrospective, which I sent via Twitter and include here.
— gmrstudios (@gmrstudios) December 29, 2019
I was prompted to find my own end of the year analysis by Good Reads when my friend Suzanne Kamata posted hers. So here's hers for a comparison:
https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2019/384871?utm_source=twitter
— Suzanne Kamata (@shikokusue) December 29, 2019
And she tells me she read closer to 100 books, probably, which is an amazing reading regimen. I mean, I read a lot, and I read more than books, so my reading output is not wholly measured by books. But 100 books in 12 months is over eight books per month.
EIGHT! That's almost as many as the number of traditional print books I read for the entire year (and that number, remember, is eleven)!
SO FAR 2020
And yet, somehow, I have found more time for reading since the year began. I started this post in January (of course) and now it's May. In four months (May just started), I am on a better book pace than last year. Sixteen books through four months is a pace to read sixty-four books this year, more than last year. Of course, this number includes graphic novels and audio books.
Of my sixteen so far, I read seven print books via traditional means (not audio), I read two graphic novels (though I am about to read a whole bunch more), and the remaining seven are all via audio, though three of them were re-reads: The Painted Word, Snow Crash, and The Traveler.
These numbers do not reflect single issues of comic books, articles, lots of nonfiction that I read parts of, and other various things.
Here's the books I am reading right now not yet in the lists shared in this blog entry:
This grid is a little inaccurate as The Fall of Berlin and Cunning Plans (Ellis) have been sitting in this queue for years. I actually read Cunning Plans.
But as you can see I am re-reading The Consuming Fire to get ready for reading The Last Emperox. I am reading Cory Doctorow's Radicalized and loving it. I may have to re-read Walkaway.
Radicalized may get its own post. It's that good.
That's a problem with reading (for me): memory.
2020 - so far
I will save my comments on the 2020 books so far for after the year is out or if I make individual posts.
Of these, subtracting those I have read before, I really loved Fangirl and All Systems Red. Of course, I really liked Indigo Girl by my friend Suzanne Kamata, but though I liked it, I am not mad for Gideon the Ninth as some are in SF and Fantasy fandom.
As evidenced here:
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1778 - 2010-2019: A Decade of Change in Science Fiction and Fantasy
THE BOOKS OF 2019
Okay, time for a review of the books of 2019 somewhat book-by-book. In past years, I tried to do reviews. In fact, if I could find more time to blog, I would love to thoughtful reviews of each book I read. But there's not time for that.
So, I will examine the first batch.
I read Annalee Newitz's first book Autonomous in 2018. I ended my reading year with their new book The Future of Another Time Line, which I liked a lot more than Autonomous. Not that the previous book is bad, it just did not stick with me afterwards as their new book did. Also, the audio narration was great. AUDIBLE.
Near the end of I read the latest book by my friend Helene Dunbar: We Are Lost and Found, set in NYC during the earl days of the AIDS crisis.I liked it a lot, and also, the narrator was fantastic: AUDIBLE. Knowing my friend as I do, I can see how the characters originated. Influenced somewhat by Brideshead Revisited?
She did a great job with the Eighties flair. The story is filled with LOTS AND LOTS OF ANGST, which is Helene's thing. A really great thing she did is reaching out to key people in GLADD and ....... to write afterword essays about this time period in America and what it meant for the gay community.
There's a whole bunch of graphic novels but not enough graphic novels, really, compared to my stack or my recent goals in the lack of weekly comics due to the pandemic. I am thrilled to have discovered Gideon Falls, which is one of my newest favourites. I have had the first volume of Bitch Planet and am glad I finally got around to reading it. I did not LOVE Pretty Deadly, though I like the grim reaper western cowboy themes. In that first grid, despite how much I loved the others, it may be Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me that wins best of the lot. I talked it up in all of my classes.
I re-read The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage to be able to read The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth. I admit that I like the second book better than the first, though I did like the story of the storm and flood and Lyra as an infant far more in a second read than a first. However, to age Lyra to young adult years (early 20s?) and bring by back Malcolm from the first book (La Belle Sauvage) while referencing Lyra's adventures in the His Dark Materials books was a wonderful idea on Pullman's part. But the rift in the story between Lyra and her daemon Pantalimon is heart breaking and just what the story needs. As always through the dark times do we succeed. I love Pullman's work, and these stories have my whole heart: I will keep reading.
I was eager to read Margaret Atwood's "sequel" to The Handmaid's Tale when I heard about it. The Testaments starts a bit slowly but it builds up steam as it goes. I have always loved the most minute level of Atwood's detail work, all those little things. Atwood's prose should be sipped like nectar. It's rich and fragrant and yet darkly humorous and emotionally moving. I was telling people that this book should be read if only for the depiction and development of Aunt Lydia. It's NOT The Handmaid's Tale, but then it shouldn't try to be. I was not sure I loved it right away as a story and a novel, though I always love Atwood's prose, but in the end, I did love it. I don't care if she wrote it to cash in on the success of the HULU show of The Handmaid's Tale. She deserves this success and these accolades. Would we have told Tolkien not to write the Lord of the Rings because The Hobbit did not need a sequel? And Atwood steered clear of a "novelization" of the storylines unfolding in the HULU show. It's another great book by her, and I hope she can write several more great books before coming to the end of her life.
As you can see, in 2020, I just read Mistborn, which I did not like nearly as much as Skyward, and I am likely to get Sanderson's sequel, Starsight, and gobble it up very soon. I bought Skyward mainly because of the cover. The audio book was great, and one of my favourites of last year. One of my colleagues, Amber Lemiere, recommended A Small Place by Jamaica Kindcaid to me, and so one afternoon I picked it up and read it straight through. Then I read parts of it again. I need to read it yet again as the best things about it have slipped my mind and only the enjoyment remains.The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodore Goss inspired me enough to want to read the second book, which is currently in my stack, sort of near to the top. After years of having it in my stack and now as an avid reader of David Brin's blog CONTRARY BRIN, I finally managed to read The Postman, which I liked rather a lot and not just because Brin keeps referencing it as we seem to be headed for the "end of days." Warren Ellis supplied me with the recommendation for The Blinded Man and the Swedish writer Arne Dahl, which I liked a great deal more than the Georges Simeon book I also read on Ellis' recommendation. And I also managed to read Spark by John Twelve Hawks to get current and get inspired to do a re-read of his Dark River series, of which I finished the first one so far in 2020. Also, I read Nnedi Okorafor's Broken Places Outer Spaces, which I liked very much. Also, I have a little crush on Okorafor.
And so, I finally got around to reading Stephen King's 11/22/63, which I simply adored. I am not often fond of the popular writers (JK Rowlings is a notable exception), but Stephen King is a gem, and despite times when I think he is self indulgent in the extreme (though I would be, too, if I was him), I always enjoy his work immensely, especially his re-surgence since recovering from his being hit by that car.I read two music memoirs back to back: Moby's Then It Fell Apart and Ani DiFranco's No Walls and the Impossible Dream. DiFranco's book was everything Moby's wasn't: positive to negative, somewhat humble to ridiculously arrogant and absurdly decadent. But I feel for Moby. I fear I might have become what Moby became if I had been on his career trajectory. I feel that he and I have similar world views and experiences. Though there are differences, we surely would have found each other and been pals if we went to the same high school. I like Moby's book because I like Moby's music, but I didn't really like it as a book, a memoir, or could admire it as a life lived. Moby's an idiot, which is surely what people would say of me as I might have done the same things he did. I admire Ani DiFranco immensely. I am even more proud that my new friend and colleague Abbie Leavens joined me in Portland (about a year ago as I write these words today May 16th) to see DiFranco talk about her book and get our signed copies with the ticket purchase.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1612 - No Walls and the Recurring Dream by Ani DiFranco
I re-read Middlesex for the third and fourth times because I spoke on it for a community conversation -- https://sensedoubt.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-sense-of-doubt-blog-post-1550-on.html -- and I taught it a couple of times -- https://sensedoubt.blogspot.com/2019/11/a-sense-of-doubt-blog-post-1727.html. Along the way I read two books by Cordelia Fine: Delusions of Gender and Testosterone Rex as I prepared the talk and class content. There are other school books here as well from my Humanities class at Concordia, such as a re-reading of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and new to me books, like A Human Being Died That Night, I Rigoberta Menchu, and Exterminate the Brutesas well as reading Paulo Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which I had read parts of but not the whole thing.
I always read Orson Scott Card's latest books in the Ender or Formic Wars series as soon as they come out via audio, so I read The Hive. For years, since the T-shirt blog, I think, I have had a draft of a post about Card's anti-gay-marriage stand, as a Mormon, and yet how I have decided to separate the art from the artists as I read his work for many years before I knew was a religious bigot, even if he is a reasonably spoken one.I finally got around to reading Corey White's first void witch book Killing Gravity, but I would have to re-read it before moving on to the subsequent volumes. As usual, I get recommendations from Ellis, which here on the grid above constitute Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan, which I liked more than last year's Gnomon. Both are good but not gripping. I filled in gaps with some of the other things you see, like LeGuin stories and graphic novels. Of course, I read Scalzi's The Consuming Fire when it came out, but first, I re-read The Collapsing Empire. Coincidentally as I type these words, I am re-reading The Consuming Fire -- Thank you Wil Wheaton audio -- to prepare for the third book of the trilogy: The Last Emperox. AND I really enjoyed Joe Hill's NOS4A2, much more than either the TV show or the comic books of the same name.
One of my traditional reads was Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse, which I expected to love and instead liked a lot.I learned of the book via Locus Magazine, and it took me forever to read because of work, comic books, and exhaustion. I read in bed, so if I am exhausted or my wife wants to watch things, it really cuts into my reading time.
So, my reading of Trail of Lightning progressed slowly but not because of lack of enjoyment but more because of distraction and exhaustion.
I just saved the second book in my queue, and I am considering pre-ordering Ronahorse's next book due in October.
Someone took this picture to the right, and it appealed to me.
The book has received many accolades as evidenced on its AMAZON page:
Review
A NPR 2018 Great Reads Selection for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy
A Library Journal Best Book of 2018 Selection
A Kirkus Reviews Best of the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2018 Selection
An Amazon Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2018 Selection
A B&N Sc-Fi & Fantasy 50 Greatest Debut SFF Novels Ever Written Selection
A Tor.com Best Book of 2018 - So Far Selection
A B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Best Book of 2018 So Far Selection
Selected as a Highly Anticipated Summer Read by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks.
An Amazon Best Book of the Month Selection
One of Bustle's top 20 books of the decade
“Someone please cancel ‘Supernatural’ already and give us at least five seasons of this badass indigenous monster-hunter and her silver-tongued sidekick.", - The New York Times
“What an astonishing tour de force with thrilling action, fascinating characters and a near future vision of America that I've never seen before. Urban fantasy just got a whole new lease on life.” -- -- Charlie Jane Anders,, Hugo Award-winning author of All the Birds in the Sky
* "Roanhorse vividly depicts Navajo land, legends, and culture in her marvelous fantasy debut.", - (STARRED REVIEW) Publishers Weekly
* "This exciting postapocalyptic debut, with its heady combination of smartly drawn characters, Wild West feel, and twisty plot, is a must-read.", -- (STARRED REVIEW) Library Journal
"Super great! It is so exciting to read such a fresh take on Urban Fantasy." -- Ana Grilo,, Kirkus Reviews
"It’s the perfect book to pack for the beach or on a summer trip.” -- – Andrew Liptak, , The Verge
“Roanhorse is indigenizing the future of science fiction and fantasy.”, – SYFY Wire
“What’s not to love about Trail of Lightning? It’s a frakking awesome novel and a fantastic prelude to what is sure to be a thrilling series.” -- – Alex Brown, , Tor.com
"This is a fast, fun read." -- - Liz Bourke, , Tor.com
A Library Journal Best Book of 2018 Selection
A Kirkus Reviews Best of the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2018 Selection
An Amazon Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2018 Selection
A B&N Sc-Fi & Fantasy 50 Greatest Debut SFF Novels Ever Written Selection
A Tor.com Best Book of 2018 - So Far Selection
A B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Best Book of 2018 So Far Selection
Selected as a Highly Anticipated Summer Read by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks.
An Amazon Best Book of the Month Selection
One of Bustle's top 20 books of the decade
“Someone please cancel ‘Supernatural’ already and give us at least five seasons of this badass indigenous monster-hunter and her silver-tongued sidekick.", - The New York Times
“What an astonishing tour de force with thrilling action, fascinating characters and a near future vision of America that I've never seen before. Urban fantasy just got a whole new lease on life.” -- -- Charlie Jane Anders,, Hugo Award-winning author of All the Birds in the Sky
* "Roanhorse vividly depicts Navajo land, legends, and culture in her marvelous fantasy debut.", - (STARRED REVIEW) Publishers Weekly
* "This exciting postapocalyptic debut, with its heady combination of smartly drawn characters, Wild West feel, and twisty plot, is a must-read.", -- (STARRED REVIEW) Library Journal
"Super great! It is so exciting to read such a fresh take on Urban Fantasy." -- Ana Grilo,, Kirkus Reviews
"It’s the perfect book to pack for the beach or on a summer trip.” -- – Andrew Liptak, , The Verge
“Roanhorse is indigenizing the future of science fiction and fantasy.”, – SYFY Wire
“What’s not to love about Trail of Lightning? It’s a frakking awesome novel and a fantastic prelude to what is sure to be a thrilling series.” -- – Alex Brown, , Tor.com
"This is a fast, fun read." -- - Liz Bourke, , Tor.com
About the Author
Rebecca Roanhorse is a Nebula award-winning and Hugo-nominated speculative fiction writer. She is also a 2017 Campbell Award Finalist for Best New Science Fiction and Fantasy writer. Her novel TRAIL OF LIGHTNING is the first book in the SIXTH WORLD series, followed by STORM OF LOCUSTS in 2019.
Shelives in Northern New Mexico with her husband, daughter, and pug. Find more at rebeccaroanhorse.com and follow her on Twitter at @RoanhorseBex.
Shelives in Northern New Mexico with her husband, daughter, and pug. Find more at rebeccaroanhorse.com and follow her on Twitter at @RoanhorseBex.
I re-read Watership Down last year to ready myself for the newly animated version on Netflix, which I still have not watched. I also re-read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child because at some point in the year I could not remember anything about it. My memory is becoming increasingly worse and worse.
I taught Alex + Ada, which many of my students liked a lot, and I may teach it again. However, one of the best books I read last year was The Child Finder, which was a book I bought at Powell's simply because of the local flavor, the local author, and somewhat the subject matter.
Oh, and obviously I had read Watchmen before, but I was back to teaching it, so I re-read it a couple of times.
2018
I never did a post for the books of 2018, which is weird. This post is already long, so my comments will be more abbreviated than the ones for 2019, but here are a few thoughts. I have read John Twelve Hawks' Against Authority multiple times. I like digital books, but I wish I had a print-paper copy of this book.And as I wrote about with 2020-2019, I am in a re-read mode of his DARK RIVER series, starting with The Traveler.
As for Zinn, I had been sharing with my students for years the beginning and the stuff on Columbus. When the audio came out, I jumped on it as a way to read the whole book. The genocide of native people's by European invaders was bad, and I knew it was bad. Slavery was really bad, and I thought I knew how bad: it was worse. Really, things the Spaniards did were more awful and horrid than I thought.
I got some push back on reading Zinn's A People's History of the United States from some of my Facebook friends, but I rather liked it. I realize there's bias, but then there's bias in everything.
I already mentioned that I read Harkaway's Gnomon on Warren Ellis' recommendation, and I liked it, but I wasn't blown away. Same with the Brooke Bolander The Only Harmless Great Thing. Both are very, very good. I was not blown away.
Blown away? Company Town. Fantastic book. That's the only one in this grid that blew me away. I love Scalzi (Head On), I love my friend Helene (Boomerang), and I loved Revival. None blew my mind.
However, in this grid, I am loving Nnedi Okorafor (I have a crush) and enjoyed Who Fears Death immensely. I am also happy that I finally got around to reading Stephenson's Cryptonomicon: thank you audible.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Binti books by Okorafor. Also, I rather liked Artemis about as much as The Martian.
2017
I did do a post on the books from 2017, and you can read it here:
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #965 - 2017 - Books Read - a review
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2005.16 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1778 days ago
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2108.08 - 10:10
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- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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