2020 Year in Review

My 2020 End-of-the-Year Review

It's not unusual that very little of what I read this year was published this year. What is unusual is that one of those things was actually written by me. Yay, me!

The year should have a total of 30 posts, including this 2019 Review, this entry, and, I'm hoping, one more book before the year is over.

Of the books read, most were fiction, but there was more nonfiction than usual. Some of the nonfiction came from free downloads with interesting titles or topics, like Celts or the Soviet Nuclear Weapons Program (which I remember little of now). The rest were math books, biographies and self-help/inspirational. Plus a pub quiz book.

Fiction is a mixed bag. There are at least two books I didn't finish, but there were other books I gave up on that I didn't bother to list. In the latter case, it was either because I was asked for a review and didn't wish to be mean publicly, or I gave up before I even hit 10% of it. There's also the Best of Tor.com 2016 which I made a dent in, but the book is huge, and I wanted to read other things.

Speaking of Tor, their free ebook of the month club has given me lots to read, not that I've read a lot of it. But the timing of The Haunting of Tram Car 015 coinciding with my just finishing A Dead Djinn in Cairo was too good to pass up. That rated its own entry.

There were two Oz books (one was manga), and two Kinsey Milhone mysteries (one better than the other). And aside from the Tor book, there were a couple of anthologies (including my own): If We Had Known, and Unidentified Funny Objects. I have books 1, 2, 3 and 8 in that latter series. Book 9 will probably kickstarter in the spring, and I'll fill in some gaps. (And maybe submit something.)

Ebooks accounted for 18 of the 28 book entries. Of those, only two were library books, and most of the rest were free downloads. I think only UFO 1 and If cost money. Both of those would be among the best things I read this year. I finally read Redshirts, but I was a little disappointed, but that could be all the buildup I've gotten since it's release. I don't know what I expected of it.

On the nonfiction side, putting the math and games aside, A Sick Life and Out of the Silence were interesting reads, while The Highly Sensitive Person might give me something to think about.