Year in Books 2020

Your Humble Blogger read 62 books in 2020—I’ll do a separate post with statistical analysis, as I like to do. This year I’m grouping them into genres, which is pretty arbitrary. As usual, these are books that I read for the first time in 2020; I’m not counting re-reads. I probably read a few that I forgot to write down, too.

The largest group are the Speculative Fiction books that would probably be found on the grown-up shelves:

• 5 to 1, by Holly Bodger
• A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik
• A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine
• A Pale Light in the Black, by K.B. Wagers
• Circe, by Madeline Miller
• Deathless Divide, by Justina Ireland
• Deeplight, by Frances Hardinge
• False Value, by Ben Aaronovitch
• Tales from the Folly, by Ben Aaronovitch
• Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir
• Lovecraft Country, by Matt Ruff
• Network Effect, by Martha Wells
• Nine Goblins, by T. Kingfisher
• Paladin’s Grace, by T. Kingfisher
• Oona Out of Order, by Margarita Montimore
• Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke
• The Kingdom of Copper, by S. A. Chakraborty
• The Left-Handed Booksellers of London, by Garth Nix
• The Physicians of Vilnoc, by Lois McMaster Bujold
• The Poppy War, by R. F. Kuang
• The Resisters, by Gish Jen

Of those, I would say that Deeplight is my favorite, alongside The Resisters and Paladin’s Grace.

And then the ones that would probably be on the YA shelves:

• An Ember in the Ashes, by Sabaa Tahir
• Faith, by Julie Murphy
• Kind of a Big Deal, by Shannon Hale
• Landscape with Invisible Hand, by M. T. Anderson
• Star Daughter, by Shveta Thakrar
• The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, by Suzanne Collins
• The Fever King, by Victoria Lee
• Trixter, by Alethea Kontis
• A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher

I think the Wizard’s Guide was my favorite of those. I really liked Faith as well, although I didn’t actually know as I was reading it that it was a tie-in to an actual comic book series.

Some mystery novels, all of which are set in the late 19th or early 20th century:

• Riviera Gold, by Laurie R. King
• A Spy in the House, by Y. S. Lee
• A Study in Scarlet Women, by Sherry Thomas
• A Conspiracy in Belgravia, by Sherry Thomas
• The Hollow of Fear, by Sherry Thomas

I obviously liked the Sherry Thomas books enough to read all three of them, although that was mostly because they were incredibly trashy and light.

Some historical novels that aren’t primarily mysteries or have particular speculative elements:

• The Evening and the Morning, by Ken Follett
• The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
• The War I Finally Won, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
• The War that Saved My Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
• Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel

I really enjoyed the Kimberly Brubaker Bradley books. The Nickel Boys was powerful, but at least at the moment it feels like my least favorite of the Whitehead books I’ve read.

Some novels which aren’t primarily mysteries, and which may have a couple of speculative elements but wouldn’t be shelved in the SF section:

• Braised Pork, by An Yu
• Cactus League, by Emily Nemens
• Night Boat to Tangier, by Kevin Barry
• Plain Bad Heroines, by Emily Danforth

These all had good and bad points, and I liked them enough to finished them, but I didn’t love any of them, and I probably wouldn’t seek out any of these writers again unless the subject of the book caught my eye.

Plays and a book of reviews and essays:

• A Very Very Very Very Dark Matter, by Martin McDonagh
• Autumn, by Richard Wesley
• Chimerica, by Lucy Kirkwood
• The wrong Mr. Wright, by George Howells Broadhurst
• Plays and Players, by G.B. Shaw

I also started an attempt to read all of Shakespeare’s plays this year, which tailed off about midsummer. However, I read Cymbeline, Henry VI Part I, II and III, King John and Two Gentlemen of Verona as well as Venus and Adonis, none of which I’ve ever read before. I also am pretty sure I read more plays than this, but I don’t have any in my notes so they don’t go on the list. And during my furlough from the library that employs me, I had access to a lot fewer plays than I usually do.

Also a few graphic works:

• Check Please book 2, by Ngozi Ukazy
• Guts, by Raina Telgemeier
• Ms. Marvel Volume 1, by G. Willow Wilson

A few memoirs or non-fiction works:

• Home Work, by Julie Andrews
• Me, by Elton John
• Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race, by Reni Eddo-Lodge

That’s all of them. A pretty good Year in Books.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.