What were your highlights from 2020?

[Luffy]

Originally Posted by haertig

That's almost three per week! I am impressed. And you're not reading lightweight stuff either. I looked up that Grant book you mentioned to see if it might be something that interested me. It's shown as over 1100 pages. Quite the tome.

I consider my reading speed impressive if I finish one lightweight fiction novel in three weeks. I'm slow.

It's not a race. Next year I will have less time to read. I will be reading short books to complete my 100 books challenge for 2021.

[BelleZora]

Originally Posted by haertig

That's almost three per week! I am impressed. And you're not reading lightweight stuff either. I looked up that Grant book you mentioned to see if it might be something that interested me. It's shown as over 1100 pages. Quite the tome.

I consider my reading speed impressive if I finish one lightweight fiction novel in three weeks. I'm slow.

I'm retired so I can finally read as much as I want. I read plenty of lightweight novels.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by BelleZora

I'm retired so I can finally read as much as I want. I read plenty of lightweight novels.

Having read 113 books in the last 102 days (40,586 pages), including 3 over 1100 pages, I endorse the bolded segment. I've discovered that I enjoy Regency Romances, and have devoured dozens, alongside SF, mystery, and popsci. Whatever boils your crawfish applies to recreational reading as much as to anything else.

[astrangerhere]

I will edit this post later with a much larger response to Darzin's excellent questions, but I was working on my Zettelkasten notes so this one is fresh on my mind:

Of the 104 books I read (so far) this year, Rebecca Makkai's The Great Believers was my absolute favourite. Reading Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth in the same calendar year also gave me striking connections about Lost Generations and the pointlessness of the loss in both stories.

[BelleZora]

The Great Believers sounds like a book I will appreciate. I just picked it up from Amazon for only $4.99.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by BelleZora

The Great Believers sounds like a book I will appreciate. I just picked it up from Amazon for only $4.99.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

Reading Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth in the same calendar year also gave me striking connections about Lost Generations and the pointlessness of the loss in both stories.

One of my favorite books of all time.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by issybird

One of my favorite books of all time.

Will likely be my number 2 this year, but would definitely make an all-time list.

[Fbone]

I didn't have any euphorically beautiful reads this year. However, I did have a few enjoyable ones and I discovered a couple of new authors which is always exciting.

The Murderbot Diaries was very good.
The Collapsing Empire by Scalzi was too.
Lilith: A Snake in the Grass by Chalker was a surprisingly good read.
Spy School by Gibbs, good wit.
East of Hounslow by Khurrum Rahman was interesting debut.

New authors:
Jack Chalker
Frank Chadwick

[lazyreadr]

From the NYT bestseller list, because it is not as pompous and flat as some of the books on the general bestseller lists often are:

Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens

[Dazrin]

Here are my top reads for this year:

Favorite new-to-me book: This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Thank you astrangerhere for the strong recommendation of this last year (or 2018?).

Honorable mentions: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. Excellent story but it was hard for me to read books in a series this year so this one didn't quite make the top spot.

Favorite short story: Pockets by Amal El-Mohtar. Linked to the text version but you should listen to LeVar Burton's audio version here.

Honorable mention: Wikihistory by Desmond Warzel.

Favorite book published this year: False Value by Ben Aaronovitch

Honorable mention: N/A - I didn't get to a couple of the books I expected to be favorites - Network Effect by Martha Wells (I love Murderbot), Peace Talks by Jim Butcher and a couple new Penric and Desdemona novellas by Lois McMaster Bujold.

Right now I don't really have any must reads lined up for 2021. There is a new Orphan X story coming out in January but the last one wasn't my favorite of the series. Hopefully this one will go better.

[astrangerhere]

Is there a book you have been thinking about since March? AND What books did you tell your friends "you have to read this"?

I’ll cheat a bit and include two books, but they both answer the two questions above:

• I read This is How You Lose the Time War by Mx Gladstone and Amal El-Mahotar the last week of February. I thought when I read it that it would be in my top ten for the year, and I was right. I’ve tried to get tons of folks to read it (including a failed attempt to get the book club to read it). I keep seeing on my “Hall of Fame” shelf and wanting to read it again.
• I read Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers in June and it was one of my favorite reads of the year. If you are in the gay community and are of a certain age, you know someone who died from AIDS in the 80s. Makkai did a wonderful job of capturing the feelings of that decade the lives of those of us left behind. Definitely still thinking about it.

A book you couldn't put down or have re-read three times just this year?

• I re-read War and Peace with the #TolstoyTogether project starting in March when the US lockdowns began. It was my third read and I still love it very much.

A book that was worth the wait:
I’m going to cheat again and put two books.

• I read Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby for the first time of the year and it is my favorite Dickens now.
• But the big one I waited on and finally got through was Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth. I’ve owned it through a history of three e-readers and had started it a few times. Hung with it this time and it will definitely be in my top 10 this year.

Favorite book club selection?

By far my favorite book club book was Barbara Pym’s Quartet in Autumn which I read for the literary book club. I never would have picked it up outside the club, but now plan to explore Pym’s other works.

[Gibbo]

For me best books hands down are:

1. Stranded by Stuart James
2. The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz

[gmw]

I've been revisiting the Discworld this year (my version of a comfort read) and it turns out they are the only 5 star reads I've had. I have read some other very good books through the year, but nothing that seems likely to ever make it to true favourite status.

There were two books that came close, but in each case they were let down by the sequel (which in each case was really the second half of the story). These were: Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor and An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green - both YA books. I would still recommend these as excellent reads, and even the sequels for both are perfectly fine, they were disappointing only because the first book led me to expect better, instead they were just good.

Other memorable books include:

The Coco Pinchard books by Robert Bryndza were fun reads. Light and easy entertainment.

The Nevermoor series by Jessica Townsend has been a fun middle-grade fantasy. The setting was quite original and neatly told, but it's a little too obviously for younger readers to garner top ratings from me.

Factfulness by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund.


The Hank Green book, and the Hans Rosling non-fiction book, are the closest I came to telling others: You have to read this. In fact, while I'm here, everyone really should read Factfulness - important any year, but after this year in particular.


One of the worst books I read this year left me a little bemused because it was written by someone that provides a quite good writer's advice blog. A gentle reminder that there is a difference between doing things right and creating something that works. The former can help that latter, but can't guarantee it.


As for "can't wait" ... I find that less of a problem that I used to. Happy to wait, I have plenty to read while I do.

[issybird]

I really struggled with my ten best list this year. I usually strive for a balance among types of books, but this weird year I ended up reading a lot of memoirs. Somewhat reluctantly, I ended up with five on my ten best list and it could have been the whole list at that, as I liked some I excluded every bit as much as the ones that are here. Similarly, while I included only one book about the movie industry, I read several others equally as good. Other than the memoirs, the rest are comprised of two novels, one history, one biography and one book of short stories. I’ll note that two of the memoirs also fall into history, more or less, and one of those is a manga as well.

In no particular order:

• Naples '44: A World War II Diary of Occupied Italy by Norman Lewis
• Notes on a Silencingby Lacy Crawford
• God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine by Victoria Sweet
• Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
• Showa, 1926-1939: A History of Japan by Shigeru Mizuki
• Without Lying Down: Screenwriter Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood by Cari Beauchamp
• Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower
• The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope
• A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark
• Fools: Stories by Joan Silber

I realized when looking over my 2020 list that I omitted a book club find in my earlier post. Not a selection but a discovery via nomination, Never Done: A History of American Housework by Susan Strasser was a four-star read for me.