2019: The Year in Review

For a year without a Challenge checklist, I had a pretty eclectic year. Granted, I didn't read as much as I would have liked, and I lost a lot of my reading time this past summer due to ... reasons. Also, at least two crossword puzzle books factored in, as I needed a diversion every now and then.

There were over three dozen posts last year, almost all of them about completed books. Only two about books that I gave the old college try before abandoning them for not being good, enjoyable, or even well-written.

There were fiction books and nonfiction, sci-fi and foreign translations, graphic novels and self-help, math book and game books, long and short.

In the graphic novel category: I discovered the series Amulet at my last school, before discovering that each issue was published about a year or more apart -- and that the final issue had not been published yet. Indeed, at the time, it probably hadn't been written yet, as #8 was not that old. There were summer comic books, most of which were disjointed collections of monthly titles, which shared a theme, but not a coherent story line because too many parts were left out. (And different included titles had different side plots.)

The odd thing was that I made no entry for One Piece and haven't since 2017 when I listed the first 27 books. I know I'm somewhere in the 30s, possibly low 40s, so I need to find out which was the last book I read, so I can catch up and make another entry. Honestly, I don't remember if I read any last year. I would have had to have put them on hold at the library. (Note: that's actually not a bad way to check on it.)

I will plug Amazon only because I tend to use their images, but because of their annual "World Book Day" where I get to download a bunch of free translations, and then proceed to read one or two of them. This year, I read another Japanese book, Go (even though I should have gone to another part of the world), and a Dutch book, An American Princess: The Many Lives of Allene Tew. The amazing thing about the Dutch book was that it took place, for the most part, in the United States, in New York and Pennsylvania. Allene Tew was born in New York at the fringes of high society, rose up and eventually married actually royalty in Europe. She died in Holland, and the author worked backward from there -- no spoilers, as the story starts with her final days, far from the place where she was born. Had I had more time to go walking this year, I thought about a tour of places she'd lived (or were mentioned in the book) -- the Manhattan ones, at least. Fascinating book, and there were some copies of original society pages included.

In the fantasy category: last year's eSpec Books sale gave me a collection of Precinct books, by Keith R. A. DeCandido (I recently found out it's "de Candid o"), except for Mermaid Precinct, which I selected after winning a flash fiction contest. (Those are gone now.) I liken it to a fantasy Barney Miller with its cast of characters that originated in roleplaying games, but are three-dimensional.

Nonfiction, other than the translation, included essay books ("Writing Science Fiction", and "Breakfast on Mars" which is NOT science fiction) and self-help. Humble and Kind was a gift book with the lyrics to the Tim McGraw song (which he didn't write) along with a short essay introduction (which he did). Speak Thai was just a quickie free ebook, which I read as a curiosity -- it didn't achieve its goal. I don't need to break up with my phone -- in fact, I need to get a better phone -- but reducing screen time wouldn't be a bad idea. And, of course, there were two math books.

Finding a challenge for 2020 may be difficult. Many are boring, or just have dumb things added. I think I did okay last year. Plus, I have a whole lot TBR.