2020: A Bookish Year in Review

 

 

Reading-wise, it has been a delightful year.

• I played bookish games that forced me to read things I might not have otherwise chosen to read. 
• I joined a group that is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Agatha Christie first mystery novel by reading all of her mysteries -- one a month over the next five years along with other Golden Age mystery writers. 
• I found a new mystery series -- Inspector Ian Rutledge -- that I want to devour over the next few years. 
• I have added a few more Terry Pratchett stories to my bookshelf (but alas, apparently not enough of them because now most of his titles are no longer available on AudibleUS).  
• I challenged myself with some longer, more involved tomes and enjoyed every moment I spent immersed in them. I re-read first volume of Mark Twain's autobiography and look forward to reading the remaining two volumes. I indulged in yet another edition of Don Quixote simply because it was read by George Guidall and lucked into a fabulous translation by Edith Grossman.
• In September, Audible introduced its Plus Catalog of free reads, which ostensibly turned Audible into a subscription lending library -- and made so many more books available to me. They might not be the best Audible has to offer but they are free and they are available without waiting and they will fill the hours of the days without me having to buy books that I might read only once. 
• And, I have read at least a dozen new-to-me authors as I challenge myself to expand my reading horizon.
  

Yes, yes, it has been a fulfilling and delightfully bookish year.

 

The Stats

 

Books Read: 209

New titles: a record 97, due in part to Audible's new catalog of free titles

Audible Plus Catalog: 28 books

Books DNF: 5

Hours logged: 1977

Book Read in Bookish Games: 74

Top Five Reads of the Year

1. The Years of Lyndon B. Johnson: The Passage of  Power by Robert Caro (read by George Guidal) Part of the multi-volume biography that Caro is still working.  As far as I am concerned this is one of the best biographies of the 20th century -- and I still have not read the entire thing; I still have to read the 3 volumes of Master of the Senate.
2. Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes (translated by Edith Grossman and read by George Guidall) perfect confluence of translator and reader. This is not the first time I have read DQ but it is the first time I have listened to the entire thing.
3. The Inspector Ian Rutledge series by Charles Todd. I can't choose one over the other because I have enjoyed then all. Finding this series has been one of the highlights of my bookish year.
4. The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency  by John Dickerson. Recommended by my son. Who got it right, who got it wrong and why. I think this one will go on the re-read pile for 2021.
5. How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England by Ruth Goodman. What a delightful romp. This book has it all: unacceptable language obscene, blasphemous and slanderous, telling gestures, social climbing, bad table manners, how to walk in period dress, cross-dressing, body parts and noises, STDs.

The Bottom of the Pile

1. The Deep Blue Good-bye  by John D. MacDonald-- misogynistic, crass and outdated
2. The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton -- just didn't do it for me
3. Summer Lightning by P.G. Wodehouse -- not the book, the narrator -- unintelligible
4. Nordic Tales -- the narrator completely sucked out any life this book might have had
5. The Wars of the Roses  by Dan Jones -- it is not that Jones did a lousy job but more that I just don't have a enough grounding in English history to keep up with so many people who all have the same names.

Life's Too Short: The DNFs

1. How to Hide an Empire --I got the point in the first chapter and wasn't interested in reading the supporting details
2. War of the Roses -- I threw myself into the deep end; my lack of basics left confused and bored
3. Summer Lightning by P.G. Wodehouse, but only because the narrator was unintelligible
4. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius -- another one killed by the narrator
5. Howards End by E.M. Forster -- I don't know what I was expecting but I just got bored with it.

The 20 for '20 Challenge

The idea here was to listen to 20 books over 20 hours each in 2020. I managed to complete 7 (3 of which were over 30 hours). I loved what I read but the problem was finding enough books that I was willing to invest that much time in reading. However, I will continue to look for investment-worthy titles in the future, such as finishing the Mark Twain and the LBJ stories.

1. The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
2. Don Quixote by Cervantes, translated by Edith Grossman and read by George Guidall
3. The Last Tribe by Brad Emanuel
4. The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
5. The Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1 (of 3)
6. The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
7. The Passage of Power by Robert Caro

The Agatha Christie Centenary Celebration

 

Read in 2020:

Agatha Christie: Poirot Investigates, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Secret Adversary, Murder on the Links

Side-reads: The Girl in Blue (Wodehouse), The Circular Staircase (Roberts), The Chinese Orange Mystery (Queen), Thirteen Guests (Farjeon), Tied Up in Tinsel, An English Murder

New Authors in 2020

 

Some of whom I will return to and other of whom I won't...

Ngaio Marsh

Charles Todd (Inspector Ian Rutledge series),

Karen Menuhin (Heathcliff Lennox series)

John Dickerson

Ann Cleeves

Salman Rushdie

Ruth Goodman

Brad Manuel

Sofia Segovia

Cyril Hare

Jeffrey Farjeon

Kate Morton