Books Read in 2020

 

Books of 2020- Installment #26

126. Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden and read by Darrell Dennis 

This book is a quasi-detective book but since the protagonist isn't a detective I am a little reluctant to say that.

127. Across the Void by SK Vaughn

This sprawling space odyssey has evil NASA administrators, a manic billionaire "genius", an incredible pilot, and great scientists. I felt that the story had so much unnecessary drama. If those characters sound interesting to you, maybe you'll disagree but I felt that this book had enough drama without some of those characters.

128. Take a Look at the Five and Ten by Connie Willis

Connie Willis is by far my most favorite writer of Christmas stories! This book is no exception! I love it!! She blends a love of Christmas, nostalgia for Christmas, and science fiction so beautifully!! I don't have the same level of sentimentality for Christmas that she does and yet she tells, crafts, births, such amazing Christmas stories that I do have that while I'm reading her stories! And for this one in particular it seems important to mention that.

129. Ghost Bus by Anna Kirtlan

I love this collection of short stories! They are all set in Wellington, New Zealand- a place I've never been, and they are delightful! I want to read more by her!

I've read 129 books and 92 were by woman, 32 were by men, 3 were anthologies by both women and men, 2 were by nonbinary authors, and 1 had no author listed. Additionally 12 1/2 were translations (although the book 3 American Indian Stories could be a translation as well). My year of reading lots of women and at least 12 translations is going well in that I've read mostly female authors, but the world is going through a pandemic and state sanctioned murders in the form of police brutality with a horrible man still at the helm and supported by horrible men in the Congress. In short this year has been really rough. What will this global health crisis leave us with? What changes will we make, not only in terms of the huge inequities of our health system where people of color and the poor (which let's face it- the system works really hard to ensure that people of color, especially black people, are poor) are more than extremely disadvantaged, but also all the other ways in which our society, our systems, actively damage people of color? Only time will tell. But I hope it is a greater sense of community, a need to care for one and another and support each other, not just people with the same colored skin as ourselves, not just people with the same sized wallet as ours. My naive? hope is all of this isolation leaves us wanting to lift each other up and not hold others down.

Books of 2020- Installment #25

121. Waste Tide by Qiufan Chen (陈楸帆), translated by Ken Liu , and read by Ewan Chung

This story is very much about the consequences of our consumerist impulses and our desires not to deal with our trash. It's a future where a society has grown up in the electronic waste of the world but especially the US. I had just finished this book a couple of weeks before Rose Eveleth's Flash Forward episode on waste. These two are a beautiful combo! 

122. Catherine House by 

I picked this book up because I heard the author talking about her book at a webinar this year and it was really interesting listening to her. This book is atmospheric and somewhat oppressive. The Catherine House is an exclusive college that doesn't charge its students tuition so obviously a lot of the students are drawn to the school because of the doors that it will open to them. But everything has a price...

123. The Fourth Island by Sarah Tolmie

This short novella was really interesting to me. When I was in sixth grade, my teacher told me about Irish fishing sweaters, that these sweaters had a person's name in it. Now that was a long time ago and maybe I don't remember what she said accurately but this book talks about this concept! Okay, so that's not the thrust of this book, but with novellas it's hard to say the right amount about it. It's good. I like it!

124. Pet by Alwaeke Emezi and read by Christopher Meyers 

This children's book is amazing! I would have loved this book as a child! I love the examination of right and wrong and what is a monster.

125. The Stolen Letter by Paige Shelton

I just love this Scottish bookstore series and was excited to dive right back in. This book filled me with anxiety in a way that none of the others in this series did. I couldn't figure out if that was because of the plot of the book (the bookstore is in danger of being closed down) or if it was really just the pandemic getting to me. I still don't know but think it was the pandemic magnifying the fears of the bookstore's potential closure.

I've read 125 books and 89 were by woman, 30 were by men, 3 were anthologies by both women and men, 2 were by nonbinary authors, and 1 had no author listed. Additionally 12 1/2 were translations (although the book 3 American Indian Stories could be a translation as well). My year of reading lots of women and at least 12 translations is going well in that I've read mostly female authors, but the world is going through a pandemic and state sanctioned murders in the form of police brutality with a horrible man still at the helm and supported by horrible men in the Congress. In short this year has been really rough. What will this global health crisis leave us with? What changes will we make, not only in terms of the huge inequities of our health system where people of color and the poor (which let's face it- the system works really hard to ensure that people of color, especially black people, are poor) are more than extremely disadvantaged, but also all the other ways in which our society, our systems, actively damage people of color? Only time will tell. But I hope it is a greater sense of community, a need to care for one and another and support each other, not just people with the same colored skin as ourselves, not just people with the same sized wallet as ours. My naive? hope is all of this isolation leaves us wanting to lift each other up and not hold others down.

Books of 2020- Installment #24

116. Undeading Bells by Drew Hayes and read by Kirby Heyborne

I just love this series and hope there are more coming!!!

117. Small Spaces by Katherine Arden
This is a really interesting Halloween story for children though not very young children. It's rather frightening. There's this encounter with a woman at a swimming hole that leads our main character into understanding a world that helps her on a scary, scary school trip... This book seriously reminded me of The Winter People.

118. I Remember You: A Ghost Story by Yrsa Sigurdardottir and read by Lucy Paterson

This Icelandic story is really interesting. We follow three people who go to an island in winter to remodel a house. Not a good plan! Turns out it's haunted- double not a good plan! Since we aren't attached to these people when the story opens and this book is a translation of a culture I don't know much about done in British English, read by a Brit, I found there to be so many layers of questions about what was going on in this book. 

119. Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade

This book is soooooooooooo good!! It's gotten lots of great press and it's totally deserved!! Totally deserved!! It's so good!!! Basically we follow a geologist - yay!!!- who is also a fan girl. Her fandom leads her to writing fanfic and developing a relationship with another fanfic writer that is a really deep and important relationship. Then... Oops! Spoilers!!

120. The Heirs of Locksley by Carrie Vaughn

So of course I was going to complete the duology. This one is even more not about Robin as is obvious from the title.

I've read 120 books and 85 were by woman, 29 were by men, 3 were anthologies by both women and men, 2 were by nonbinary authors, and 1 had no author listed. Additionally 11 1/2 were translations (although the book 3 American Indian Stories could be a translation as well). My year of reading lots of women and at least 12 translations is going well in that I've read mostly female authors, but the world is going through a pandemic and state sanctioned murders in the form of police brutality with a horrible man still at the helm and supported by horrible men in the Congress. In short this year has been really rough. What will this global health crisis leave us with? What changes will we make, not only in terms of the huge inequities of our health system where people of color and the poor (which let's face it- the system works really hard to ensure that people of color, especially black people, are poor) are more than extremely disadvantaged, but also all the other ways in which our society, our systems, actively damage people of color? Only time will tell. But I hope it is a greater sense of community, a need to care for one and another and support each other, not just people with the same colored skin as ourselves, not just people with the same sized wallet as ours. My naive? hope is all of this isolation leaves us wanting to lift each other up and not hold others down.

Books of 2020- Installment #23

111. The Fangs of Freelance by Drew Hayes and read by Kirby Heyborne
I just love this series!!

112. A Timeless Christmas by Alexis Stanton
Time travel and Christmas! I had to give this a try!

113. Deadly Assessments  by Drew Hayes and read by Kirby Heyborne
I just love this series!!

114. Out of Body by Jeffery Ford
Man, the 70s had an obsession with astral projection and as a child of the 70s I too am interested in astral projection. This topic is not particularly interesting to people anymore so I had to read this book! It's interesting and not what I was anticipating...

115. The Ghosts of Sherwood by Carrie Vaughn

I'm fascinated by stories that we keep telling over and over again. Robin Hood is one of those stories in English, and I'm very interested in other cultures and what they tell over and over again. That's a little more challenging to always figure out but I can look at the ones we retell again and again, so I checked out this new Robin Hood story!

I've read 115 books and 82 were by woman, 28 were by men, 3 were anthologies by both women and men, 1 was by a nonbinary author, and 1 had no author listed. Additionally 10 1/2 were translations (although the book 3 American Indian Stories could be a translation as well). My year of reading lots of women and at least 12 translations is going well in that I've read mostly female authors, but the world is going through a pandemic and state sanctioned murders in the form of police brutality with a horrible man still at the helm and supported by horrible men in the Congress. In short this year has been really rough. What will this global health crisis leave us with? What changes will we make, not only in terms of the huge inequities of our health system where people of color and the poor (which let's face it- the system works really hard to ensure that people of color, especially black people, are poor) are more than extremely disadvantaged, but also all the other ways in which our society, our systems, actively damage people of color? Only time will tell. But I hope it is a greater sense of community, a need to care for one and another and support each other, not just people with the same colored skin as ourselves, not just people with the same sized wallet as ours. My naive? hope is all of this isolation leaves us wanting to lift each other up and not hold others down.

Books of 2020- Installment #22

106. Beowulf by Maria Davhana Headley and read by JD Jackson
I so love Maria Davhana Headley and her book the Mere Wife, so I had to read this book. I decided to do it as an audiobook and holy shit JD Jackson is a fantastic narrator!! Fantastic!!

107. Bloody Acquisitions by Drew Hayes and read by Kirby Heyborne
I just love this series! :D 

108. The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Taunton
So I loved The Seven and Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and even reread it this year! I had high hopes for this book in part because of that but also because it was set in the 1600s on a Dutch ship sailing from Indonesia to the Netherlands- something that I've no real experience with. It was all right.

109. The Colorado Kid by Stephen King
OMG!! I love the TV show Haven and rewatched it during the pandemic and decided I really needed to. And while it's so different I loved it!! I could totally hear Dave and Vince from the show as I read and it was delightful!!

110. Theme Music by T. Marie Vandelly and read by Sarah Mollo-Christensen 

So this is such a scary-ass book and I could not stop listening to it!!! The narrator and main character is the sole survivor of an incredible family tragedy, but since she was an infant she doesn't remember it and has to rely on others to tell her about what happened. I don't want to say more but I was completely gripped by this story. There are things I saw coming but they were not "spoiled" for me because of all the elements that kept me guessing and on edge!

I've read 110 books and 80 were by woman, 25 were by men, 3 were anthologies by both women and men, 1 was by a nonbinary author, and 1 had no author listed. Additionally 10 1/2 were translations (although the book 3 American Indian Stories could be a translation as well). My year of reading lots of women and at least 12 translations is going well in that I've read mostly female authors, but the world is going through a pandemic and state sanctioned murders in the form of police brutality with a horrible man still at the helm and supported by horrible men in the Congress. In short this year has been really rough. What will this global health crisis leave us with? What changes will we make, not only in terms of the huge inequities of our health system where people of color and the poor (which let's face it- the system works really hard to ensure that people of color, especially black people, are poor) are more than extremely disadvantaged, but also all the other ways in which our society, our systems, actively damage people of color? Only time will tell. But I hope it is a greater sense of community, a need to care for one and another and support each other, not just people with the same colored skin as ourselves, not just people with the same sized wallet as ours. My naive? hope is all of this isolation leaves us wanting to lift each other up and not hold others down.

Books of 2020- Installment #21

101. Riding Freedom by Pam Munoz Ryan and read by Hughes Hughes  
This is a great story about a real person that I just learned about and so wanted to learn more- Charlie Parkhurst.

102. 3 American Indian Stories narrated by Katie Hugh
I enjoyed this book but wow! Information on this audiobook is lacking!!

103. The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant by Drew Hayes and read by Kirby Heyborne
What a balm to my soul! Fred is a very mild-mannered accountant who prior to the start of the book became a mild-mannered accountant vampire. He has a very dull life that was at least initially was also a very dull undead life. He does have adventures and quite a few exciting things happen to him but he's always a reluctant participant. 

104. Leave the World Behind by Rmaan Alam and read by Marin Ireland

This book has a really interesting premise. The main characters are in a vacation rental and suddenly the owners of the rental appear on their doorstep saying that something appears to have gone down and they'd just feel better if they could stay in their home instead of going back to the city. Well, they renters don't remember them as being the owners and since they are white and the owners are Black we as the readers have to look at what is the reason for their discomfort. Has something really happened? Are they really the owners? Should they let them in? Unfortunately for me the premise was much more interesting than the execution...

105. Undeath & Taxes by Drew Hayes and read by Kirby Heyborne

I devoured these books!!

I've read 105 books and 78 were by woman, 22 were by men, 3 were anthologies by both women and men, 1 was by a nonbinary author, and 1 had no author listed. Additionally 9 1/2 were translations (although the book 3 American Indian Stories could be a translation as well). My year of reading lots of women and at least 12 translations is going well in that I've read mostly female authors, but the world is going through a pandemic and state sanctioned murders in the form of police brutality with a horrible man still at the helm and supported by horrible men in the Congress. In short this year has been really rough. What will this global health crisis leave us with? What changes will we make, not only in terms of the huge inequities of our health system where people of color and the poor (which let's face it- the system works really hard to ensure that people of color, especially black people, are poor) are more than extremely disadvantaged, but also all the other ways in which our society, our systems, actively damage people of color? Only time will tell. But I hope it is a greater sense of community, a need to care for one and another and support each other, not just people with the same colored skin as ourselves, not just people with the same sized wallet as ours. My naive? hope is all of this isolation leaves us wanting to lift each other up and not hold others down.