Thursday, December 31, 2020

Thoughts on my 2020 Reading


Behind the Numbers — 

I read 132 books in 2020. That’s one less than I read in 2019.  I had a slow start with only eight books dispatched in January and seven in February.  The pandemic took hold, and I settled in to a more normal pace of 12-15 books each month.  I have been keeping a book list since 1996. I read 67 books that year.  From ’96 through 2020, I have read 3,404 books.  So many books, so little time. 


Best Fiction — 

In many respects, I dislike the idea of the best of this and the best of that.  Let’s just say that the books I single out — both new and old — are among the books I enjoyed the most, and that I believe others will enjoy as well.  My enjoyment can derive from the author’s skill, the characters (Dickens has no equal here), the narrative or a concept or idea that’s being  put forth.  With that caveat before us, here are the books I most highly recommend:


Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell

Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart

The Mirror & The Light, Hilary Mantel

Simon the Fiddler, Paulette Jiles

In the Memory of the Forest, Charles T. Powers.

The Soul of Kindness, Elizabeth Taylor

The Long and Faraway Gone, Lou Berney

The Searcher, Tana French

Redhead by the Side of the Road, Anne Tyler

Slaughterhouse-Five, Ryan North & Albert Monteys based on the novel by Kurt Vonnegut


I started praising Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet as soon as I put it down in April. In a word it is superb, and is absolutely the best book that I read this year. O’Farrell is an Irish novelist and not well known in the states. That’s unfortunate, she a superb writer.   Hamnet is an excellent introduction to O’Farrell. I also recommend The Hand That First Held Mine.


Another little known novelist is Paulette Jiles.  Born in Missouri, Jiles was graduated from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She spent many years in Canada before moving to Texas where she now lives on a 36-acre farm west of San Antonio.  The background helps explain Jiles two most recent books — News of the World and Simon the Fiddler — both set in Texas. News of the World was recently made into a movie starring Tom Hanks.  If you liked Lonesome Dove, these books are for you.


Shuggie Bain, which won the Booker Prize, is a stunningly powerful first novel.  


In the Memory of the Forest by Charles Powers was recommend by the novelist Dan Fesperman. Like Jiles, Powers was born in Missouri. He worked as a reporter for the Kansas City Star, later serving as foreign correspondent for the Los Angles Times.   In the Memory of the Forest, set in Poland, is his first and only novel.


Slaughterhouse-Five by Ryan North and Albert Monteys is an excellent adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s extraordinary novel. If you’re curious about graphic novels, but not sure where to begin, this is a great entry point.  It shows how the addition of “pictures” (art, drawings, whatever you choose to call it) can illuminate and expand on an author’s writings.


Mantel, Taylor, Berney, French and Tyler are not new to my “best of” list.


Best Non-Fiction — 

Perhaps it’s just me, but there seemed to be a broad range of excellent non-fiction books this past year.  Let’s look at those I found especially worthwhile:


Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald

The Big Goodbye, Sam Wasson

His Truth Is Marching On, John Lewis and the Power of Hope,Jon Meacham

No Time Like The Future, Michael J. Fox

Sticky Finger, The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine, Joe Hogan

Anything You Can Imagine, Peter Jackson & the Making of Middle-Earth, Ian Nathan

Dirt, Bill Buford

Astral Weeks, A Secret History of 1968, Ryan H. Walsh

Yellow Bird, Sierra Crane Murdoch


Remember H is for Hawk? Yeah, Vesper Flights is by that Helen Macdonald.  Is it going too far to say these essays on nature take flight? The Big Goodbye is an account of the making of one of my favorite films, Chinatown.  As for the rest . . . a tribute to an American hero, the third memoir from Michael J. Fox, Lord of the Rings, French food, misdeeds on the reservation and Van Morrison.  Squarely in my wheelhouse.


I re-read a number of books in 2020, and I want to say more about that. I also want to write about:


falling in love with the works Ursula K. LeGuin, 

books that disappointed me this past year, 

self-published books (which didn’t disappoint), 

the 33 and 1/3 series, 

historical fiction, 

mysteries,

the poverty of the national book awards, 

and the value of a home library containing books you have yet to read. 

My 2020 Reading List


 “Books are always better when read than explained.”

The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern 


January

1. Texas Flood, The Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan, 

Alan Paul and Andy  Aledort

2. Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens

3. The Shores of Tripoli*, James L. Haley

4. Demelza, Winston Graham

(Book Two in the Poldark series)

5. A Flame of Pure Fire, Jack Dempsey and the Roaring ‘20s, 

Roger Kahn

6. A Darker Sea*, James L. Haley

7. Why Call Them Back From Heaven?^, Clifford D. Simak

8. Many Rivers To Cross, Peter Robinson


February

9. Enough, C.D. “Tony” Hylton, III

10. Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book, Harvey Kurtzman

11. The Peripheral^, William Gibson

12. Agency, William Gibson

13. Marley, Jon Clinch

14. The Caribbean Account, Alan Furst

15. Fredericksburg!, George C. Rable


March

16. The Big Goodbye, Sam Wasson

17. The Worm Ouroboros, E.R. Eddison

18. The Falcon Thief, Joshua Hammer

19. Long Range, C.J. Box

20. American Secession, F.H. Buckley

21. The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio, ed. Mark Evanier

22. Apeirogon, Colum McCann

23. Lilith ^,  George MacDonald

24. Sticky Finger, The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and

Rolling Stone Magazine, Joe Hagan

25. The Mirror & The Light, Hilary Mantel


April

26. Eight Perfect Murders, Peter Swanson. Mystery

27. The Man Who Walked Through Time, Colin Fletcher

28. The Last Voyage of the Emir, David Riley

29. Hi Five, Joe Ide

30. Encounters with the Archdruid, John McPhee

31. Leopoldstadt, Tom Stoppard.

32. No Cheering in the Press Box, ed. Jerome Holtzman

33. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon

34. Redhead by the Side of the Road, Anne Tyler

35. The Boy From The Woods, Harlan Coben

36. Harvey Kurtzman, The Man Who Created Mad and 

Revolutionized Humor in America, Bill Schelly

37. Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell

38. Broken, Don Winslow

39. Writers on Comics Scriptwriting, ed. Mark  Salisbury

40. A Silent Death, Peter May


May

41. Surface Detail, Iain M. Banks

42. Trouble Is What I Do, Walter Mosley

43. Do No Harm, Max Allan Collins

44. The Sandman Companion, Hy Bender

45. Catch 22,^ Joseph Heller

46. King of the Comics, ed. Dean Mullaney

47. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest^, Ken Kesey

48. In The Tennessee Country, Peter Taylor

49. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin

50. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison

51. Fair Warning, Michael Connelly


June

52. Slaughterhouse Five^, Kurt Vonnegut

53. Simon the Fiddler, Paulette Jiles

54. The Legend of Sigurd & GudrĂșn, J.R.R. Tolkien

55. Wilson, A. Scott Berg

56. The Telling, Ursula K. Le Guin

57. The Book of Eels, Patrik Svensson

58. Lullaby Town, Robert Crais

59. Orsinian Tales, Ursula K. Le Guin

60. Glorious Boy, Aimee Liu

61. The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin

62. The Magicians, Lev Grossman

63. Dirt, Bill Buford


July

64. Rocannon’s World, Ursula K. LeGuin

65. The Long and Faraway Gone, Lou Berney

66. Best SF: 1971, ed. Harry Harrison & Brian Aldiss

67. Dandelion Wine^, Ray Bradbury

68. Caniff, A Visual Biography, ed. Dean Mullaney

69. The Boys On The Bus, Timothy Crouse

70. The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin

71. Fool Me Once, Harlan Coben

72. The Magician King, Lev Grossman

73. The Revelators, Ace Atkins

74. Tehanu, Ursula K. Le Guin

75. The Death and Life of Bobby Z, Don Winslow


August

76. City^, Clifford  Simak

77. The Things They Carried^, Tim O’Brien

78. The Beginning Place, Ursula K. Le Guin

79. Anything You Can Imagine, Peter Jackson & the Making of

Middle-Earth, Ian Nathan

80. In the Memory of the Forest, Charles  T. Powers

81. Utopia Avenue, David Mitchell

82. The SFWA Grandmasters, Vol. 3, ed. Frederik Pohl

83. Sharpe’s Devil, Bernard Cornwell

84. The Other Wind, Ursula K. LeGuin

85. Yellow Bird, Sierra Crane Murdoch


September

86. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley

87. Bone Coda, Jeff Smith

88. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, 

        John Steinbeck

89. My Life As A Villainess, Laura Lipman

90. The Once and Future King, T.H. White

91. Superman, The Unauthorized Biography, Glen Weldon

92. Slaughterhouse-Five, Ryan North & Albert Monteys

based on the novel by Kurt Vonnegut

93. The Less Dead, Denise Mina

94. Squeezeme, Carl Hiaasen

95. Monogamy, Sue Miller


October

96. His Truth Is Marching On, John Lewis and the Power 

        of Hope, Jon Meacham

97. The Soul of Kindness, Elizabeth Taylor

98. Next to Last Stand, Craig Johnson

99. Jack, Marilynne Robinson

100. All In Color For A Dime, ed. Dick Lupoff & Don Thompson

101. H.M.S. Surprise, Patrick O’Brian

102. A Song for the Dark Times, Ian Rankin

103. Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald

104. All The Devils Are Here, Louise Penny

105. The Bookseller’s Tale, Martin Latham

106. Treason’s Harbour, Patrick O’Brian


November

107. War Lord, Bernard Cornwell

108. The Searcher, Tana French

109. Gifts, Ursula K. LeGuin

110. You Have Arrived At Your Destination, Amor Towles

111. Piranesi, Susanna Clarke

112. Surfacing, Kathleen Jamie

113. Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart

114. The Sentinel, Lee & Andrew Child

115. Astral Weeks, A Secret History of 1968, Ryan H. Walsh

116. The Law of Innocence, Michael Connelly

117. Don’t Let Go, Harlan Coben


December

118. The Tin Can Tree, Anne Tyler

119. Pappyland, Wright Thompson

120. From Elvis In Memphis, Eric Wolfson

121. The Long Ships^, Frans G. Bengtsson

122. Deryni Rising^, Katherine Kurtz

123. Interior Chinatown, Charles Yu

124. Murder Ballads, Santi Elijah Holley

125. The Puppet Masters^, Robert A. Heinlein

126. She Come By It Natural, Sarah Smarsh

130. The Neil Gaiman Reader, Neil Gaiman

131. No  Time Like The Future, Michael J. Fox

132. Barnaby Rudge, Charles Dickens


  • Books 1 & 2 in the Bliven Putnam Naval Series

^ Re-read


“But the direction you are moving in is what matters, not the place you happen to be.”

— Colin Fletcher, The Man Who Walked Through Time


“ . . . she was not so naive as to think there was any necessary relation between religion and morality, or that if there was a relation it was likely to be a benevolent one.”


“ . . . if the Telling was a religion it was very different from Terran religions, since it entirely lacked dogmatic belief, emotional frenzy, deferral of reward to a future life, and sanctioned bigotry.”

— Ursula Le Guin, The Telling


The best thing for being sad . . . is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails.”

— T.H. White, That Once and Future King


“Vodka is for the skinny and scotch is for the strivers and bourbon is for the homesick.”

—Wright Thompson, Pappyland, 

A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, 

and the Things That Last