Last 2020 retrospective that I’ve got for you this week. Happy new year!
Over the last couple of years, I’ve kept a running thread on Twitter of the books I read, part of my effort to keep myself on track with a reading goal of roughly a book a week. In 2018, I blew past my goal with 74 books, but last year, I missed my goal (42 of 52), but still read a lot of great books. This year, I didn’t quite hit the goal either, but I did better than I did last year.
An easy reason for that is that I didn’t set enough time to read. When asked, I tell people that my goal is to set aside 30-40 minutes a day of dedicated reading time, and that my time was first thing in the morning, before I booted up email, Slack, and Feedly. I’ve also found that as I did a lot of driving, I listened to more audiobooks (usually alongside the print edition)
The last couple of years, I’ve slipped a bit out of that habit — the COVID-19 pandemic certainly hasn’t helped this year, given that for most of the spring, my infant daughter was here, along with my son, who was doing remote learning: some of my time got eaten up simply by more parenting time. That eased off this summer a bit as they both went to daycare and school, and I was able to snatch time away in the afternoons after they left or when work slowed down a bit.
I tend to read mostly science fiction and fantasy, and I’ve been trying to read more outside of the genre: literary-ish fiction, nonfiction, and so forth. It also pushes me to read stuff that I might not otherwise pick up, and to focus on reading more authors of colors and from marginalized backgrounds. I think I succeeded there, and in doing so, I found some new authors and titles that really blew me away, exposing me to new perspectives and imparted new insights into the world. Looking at the final count, they comprised more than half of my reading this year, which I’m pretty happy with, although there’s always more to do.
So, here’s what I’ve read in the last 12 months:
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgshig Rice
Westside by W.M. Akers
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
Finna by Nino Cipri
Delta-V by Daniel Suarez
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Vagrant Queen by Magdalene Visaggio and Jason Smith
Republic Commando: Hard Contact by Karen Traviss
Ms. Marvel: Generation Why by G. Willow Wilson
Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi
Tales from the Loop by Simon Stålenhag
Gravity of a Distant Sun by R.E. Searns
Sixteenth Watch by Myke Cole
The Last Emperox by John Scalzi
The Lost Book of Asana Moreau by Michael Zapata
Hearts of Oak by Eddie Robson
Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang / Ken Liu
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Andromeda Evolution by Daniel Wilson
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
Burn-In by Peter W. Singer and August Cole
Department of Mindblowing Theories by Tom Gauld
Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett
Red Dust by Yoss
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal
Mexican Gothic by Siliva Moreno-Garcia
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Failed State by Christopher Brown
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
Ring Shout by P. Djéli Clark
Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay
A Wealth of Pigeons by Harry Bliss and Steve Martin
Embers of War by Gareth L. Powell
The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon
Serpentine by Philip Pullman
Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional History of New York City by Julia Wertz
The Salvage Crew by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline
Archeology from Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past by Sarah Parck
Madi: Once Upon a Time in the Future by Duncan Jones and Alex de Campi
Sourdough: Or, Lois and Her Adventures in the Underground Market by Robin Sloan
What didn’t I finish? I’ve got a huge stack of books here in my workspace — books stacked into various priority stacks — stuff to read right away, books to get to for various projects, and titles that I’ll keep around as a reminder that I’d like to get to when the mood strikes me.
So, time to reset the count, and start again tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll hit my goal in the next 12 months. What’s on your list to read, and how are you approaching reading in 2021?
Andrew
Happy new year Andrew.
I've read only one of these (Indians), but many more are in queue. Which points to one of my approaches: scour lists like yours. I also find a lot by falling down rabbit holes on Amazon. Then I have a must-read list of authors including Charles de Lint, Kim Stanley Robinson, John Irving, and newer additions like Sylvain Neuvel and Neal Stephenson.
Currently underway; Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, KSR's Ministry of the Future (which is a bit of a slog at the end), and Stephenson's Snow Crash audio.
Most memorable last year were books one and two of the Dandelion Dynasty. Book three cannot come soon enough.
Hi and Happy New Year.
I just finished reading Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs. (Being a student of US history, I feel a bit ashamed not ever having reading it before.) I found it difficult to follow at times but got better towards the latter part of the writing. It could be because it was more about battles and names that were familiar or that I was just more into it by that point?
I am currently reading a Star Wars novel titled Labyrinth of Evil by J. Luceno and I am enjoying it so far mainly due to the reoccurrence of beloved characters and references that I have grown to know so well! Still entertaining but only quarter through it.
I have preordered the new Star Wars High Republic novel and will dig into that when it is released or shortly thereafter.
I really do want to do more reading this year and I believe I will as all of my projects I have been needing to get done were completed in 2020! How I will see this done I am unsure of as I really need to focus and I often have a hard time doing that with many projects in the fire and my brain not stopping to take a break!
Happy reading?!