(no subject)

[skygiants]

This is, I think, the shortest my 'books read this year' post has ever been -- certainly since I've been keeping track of what I read, at least, and probably for the years before that, too. A big part of this was the impact of working from home and not leaving the house very much; in normal years, I do a lot of my reading a.) on hour lunch breaks at work, b.) while taking the bus and subway various places around town, and c.) on planes and trains while traveling. I do still technically have a lunch break and I do often use it to do some reading, but when I'm home it's much easier to get sucked into doing other things around the house rather than taking that whole hour to read as I generally would, and even on the two days a week I am actually in the office, I eat in the conference room sitting in front of my computer so I can close the door when I take my mask off, rather than physically removing myself from the workspace, so my lunch breaks tend to be short and distractable. Given all these givens, I'm honestly pretty happy I read as much as I did. (But I still miss traveling and taking public transit very much.)

Anyway, as usual, I aimed to write up everything I read and did not in fact come anywhere near achieving that -- books read closer to the end of the year are more likely to be written up eventually, but please feel free to drop a comment if there's anything you're curious about and I will either say whatever I remember about it or prioritize it for a near-future post!

Books Read, 2020:

1. The Wolf and the Girl, Aster Glenn Gray
2. Evolution's Captain: The Dark Fate of the Man Who Sailed Charles Darwin Around the World, Peter Nichols
3. The Yiddish Theater and Jacob P. Adler, Lalla Adler
4. Fire Logic, Laurie J. Marks*
5. Mennyms Alive, Sylvia Waugh
6. An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon*
7. The House at Tyneford, Natasha Solomons
8. Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey
9. Silver in the Wood, Emily Tesh
10. Died in the Wool, Ngaio Marsh
11. Earth Logic, Laurie J. Marks*
12. Water Logic, Laurie J. Marks*
13. Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo
14. Where I End & You Begin, Preston Norton
15. An Accident of Stars, Foz Meadows
16. The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho
17. Hexarchate Stories, Yoon Ha Lee
18. Sofia Khan is Not Obliged, Ayisha Malik
19. Gilded Cage, K.J. Charles
20. The Unspoken Name, A.K. Larkwood
21. We Are Totally Normal, Naomi Kanakia
22. Sorceress of Darshiva, David Eddings*
23. Slay, Brittney Morris
24. Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art, Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo
25. Rebirth of a Movie Star, J112233
26. Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All, Laura Ruby
27. The War That Saved My Life, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
28. Paladin's Grace, T. Kingfisher
29. Here I Stay, Barbara Michaels
30. The Threefold Tie, Aster Glenn Gray
31. Mythology 101, Jodi Lynn Nye
32. Fair Play, Tove Janssen
33. Evening Class, Maeve Binchy*
34. The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Nghi Vo
35. You Deserve Each Other, Sarah Hogle
36. A Duet for Invisible Strings, Llinos Cathryn Thomas
37. Goodnight, Mr. Holmes, Carole Nelson Douglas*
38. Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating, 网恋翻车指南
39. The Glass Magician, Caroline Stevermer
40. The Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red, Martha Wells*
41. The Murderbot Diaries: Artificial Condition, Martha Wells*
42. The Murderbot Diaries: Rogue Protocol, Martha Wells*
43. The Murderbot Diaries: Exit Strategy, Martha Wells
44. Witchmark, C.L. Polk
45. Technically, You Started It, Lana Wood Johnson
46. You Boys Play Games Very Well, Yi XiuLuo
47. Unnatural Magic, C.M. Waggoner
48. The Murderbot Diaries: Network Effect, Martha Wells
49. Eleventh Hour, Elin Gregory
50. The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark
51. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk
52. The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow
53. Once & Future, Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy
54. Avatar, The Last Airbender: The Rise of Kyoshi, F.C. Yee
55. Consolation Songs, ed. Iona Datt Sharma
56. A Dead Djinn in Cairo, P. Djèlí Clark
57. Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts, Kate Racculia
58. Amy's Eyes, Richard Kennedy
59. Operation Columba: The Secret Pigeon Service, Gordon Corera
60. Slippery Creatures, K.J. Charles
61. By the Book: A Novel of Prose and Cons, Amanda Sellet
62. Revolutionary Yiddishland, Alain Brossat and Sylvia Klingberg
63. Work For It, Talia Hibbert
64. Between Silk and Cyanide, Leo Marks
65. The Seeress of Kell, David Eddings*
66. The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin
67. The Time-Traveling Popcorn Ball, Aster Glenn Gray
68. The Widow of Rose House, Diana Biller
69. Lost in Translation, Margaret Ball*
70. White Eagles, Elizabeth Wein
71. Moonlight: A Queer Werewolf Anthology, Bones McKay and Ursula Gray
72. The House in the Cerulean Sea, T.J. Klune
73. Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir*
74. Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir
75. Honeytrap, Aster Glenn Gray
76. Drowned Country, Emily Tesh
77. Boyfriend Material, Alexis Hall
78. These Violent Delights, Micah Nemerever
79. The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner*
80. The Queen of Attolia, Megan Whalen Turner*
81. The King of Attolia, Megan Whalen Turner*
82. A Conspiracy of Kings, Megan Whalen Turner*
83. Thick as Thieves, Megan Whalen Turner*
84. Return of the Thief, Megan Whalen Turner
85. Division Bells, Iona Datt Sharma
86. Ivory Vikings: The Mystery of the Most Famous Chessmen in the World and the Woman Who Made Them, Nancy Marie Brown
87. Empire of Sand, Tasha Suri
88. Get a Life, Chloe Brown, Talia Hibberts
89. Piranesi, Susanna Clarke
90. A Winter's Promise, Christelle Dabos*
91. The Missing of Clairdelune, Christelle Dabos*
92. The Memory of Babel, Christelle Dabos
93. A Door Into Ocean, Joan Slonczewski
94. Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
95. Caught in the Revolution: Witnesses to the Fall of Imperial Russia, Helen Rappaport
96. Take a Hint, Dani Brown, Talia Hibberts

Comics and graphic novels read, 2020
1. Delicious in Dungeon, Volume 6
2-12. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, Volumes 1-11

So: 95 books, and 12 volumes of manga; of those, 20 books were rereads, which is actually not that much higher than in previous years, and eight were nonfiction, which is lower than usual but not ... that much lower .... I did end last year's book post declaring that I wanted to read more nonfiction and more manga and clearly did not actually do either of these things, but, hey, 2020. Perhaps next year will be different!

Comments

[landofnowhere]

I'm curious what you thought of The Memory of Babel!

(I have now read the complete series in French -- I thought it didn't quite all pull together but had a lot of good bits as well as some bits I didn't like so much. One interesting thing about the French original is that the people of Babel speak with an English accent/drop English words in casual conversation, which seems like it would be hard to translate.)

[skygiants]

Oh, that's what she was working from! In the English version, it's the reverse -- everyone in Babel drops French words in conversation -- and I'd been wondering whether it was English in the original, or if that was her way of translating a particular accent or dialect shift.

For Memory of Babel, I think I'd agree with "a lot of good bits as well as bits I didn't like so much" -- I didn't connect quite as much with the new Babel supporting cast as I did with the characters in the Pole, whom I love and miss, and I also think Ophelia spent a bit too much time suffering grimly alone in silence for no particular reason. So right now my favorite in the series is still Missing of Clairdelune, but I continue to be really intrigued by the worldbuilding and weird metaphysics and the hints at revolutionary politics and am extremely looking forward to whenever the fourth one is translated into English! Excited to see everyone get a chance to punch God!

[landofnowhere]

Yes, the worldbuilding is the best part, and continues to be through the fourth book. I've been recommending it to people who want more stuff like His Dark Materials but were disappointed with Philip Pullman's new books (which I have yet to read). I'm under the impression that HDM was popular in the Francophone world, and you can see the influences here.

I definitely felt like Ophelia spent too much time suffering alone, but wasn't sure how much of that was down to my reading the book more slowly because French.

There are ways in which Book 4 will be disappointing if you prefer the cast from the first half of the series -- mainly that it doesn't use them enough.

[skygiants]

Yeah, I love the stuff it does with the cosmology -- one can definitely see the HDM influences but everything is so much weirder in a truly delightful way. It doesn't feel like it's fighting with anything (at least, anything that I'm familiar with) as much as Pullman was fighting with Lewis, just wandering off into left field and developing its own cheerfully bizarre ways to Fight For Free Will.

I think I'd read somewhere that Book 4 doesn't return very much to the Pole so I am braced for it, but I'm hoping I'll at least become more attached to the Babel cast on the way ...

[landofnowhere]

Yes, and I think it's the better series for that -- I just finished an HDM reread, and it's preachy -- not that I really disagree with the message it's preaching, but it just doesn't make me care, I've heard this message before, and better. Whereas the Mirror Vistor books are never boring!

[sovay]

I just finished an HDM reread, and it's preachy -- not that I really disagree with the message it's preaching, but it just doesn't make me care, I've heard this message before, and better.

The last time I tried re-reading Pullman, which was admittedly six or seven years ago now, I was still able to enjoy The Golden Compass, but The Subtle Knife began the process of diminishing returns and The Amber Spyglass remains so didactic that he has no moral high ground on Lewis; it's like he just polarized that which he hates. I also turned out to have developed a real problem with his choice of Metatron as ultimate series antagonist, since the life-destroying religion of Pullman's universe is so very Christian and Metatron doesn't even really exist in Christianity; it didn't bug me in Dogma (1999), but in His Dark Materials it just reminded me that Pullman is the kind of atheist whose conception of "organized religion" is inseparable from Christianity, even when they're using the term to tear down Judaism. Ditto the use of names like "El" and "Adonai" and even the Tetragrammaton for the Authority. I am all in favor of fighting with God! I am not in favor of atheist supersessionist bullshit on top of the regular kind.

[landofnowhere]

Hm, so if we want to continue this conversation, maybe we should move it over to my most recent journal post -- I do have thoughts on the series just having read it, but this is getting off-topic.

I mostly got through the series by ignoring the religious stuff as much as I could, but the supersessionism did stick out to me this time! Also it didn't really feel like it was responding to Narnia particularly well, and had the same sense of "when you become a teenager, you're going to lose your awesome".

[sovay]

Hm, so if we want to continue this conversation, maybe we should move it over to my most recent journal post

I shall go check out your most recent post!

and had the same sense of "when you become a teenager, you're going to lose your awesome".

You know, that hadn't registered with me, but you're right and it's a stupid trope to reify.

[merit]

After skimming your list, I do think I need to read more Aster Glenn Gray!

And I've just finished reading Mexican Gothic and agree re: your review. It certainly lived up to the gothic name!

[skygiants]

I've loved every one of Aster Glenn Gray's books I've read so I would definitely encourage that as a 2021 resolution. :D

If you can't summarize the dramatic reveal of a Gothic in SCREAMING ALLCAPS it has failed as a Gothic, IMO, and Mexican Gothic MORE than nails it on this rubric!

[sovay]

please feel free to drop a comment if there's anything you're curious about and I will either say whatever I remember about it or prioritize it for a near-future post!

I am curious about the Christelle Dabos, because I do not recognize the name and I see there are three of them.

[skygiants]

There are! They're the first three books in a French fantasy quartet called The Mirror Visitor that I started reading last year -- I'd describe them as sort of halfway between Frances Hardinge (quirky and irreverent prose, weird and inventive worldbuilding) and Philip Pullman (the existing cosmology is constraining the human condition, attack and dethrone God). The third book came out this year, so I reread the first two in order to remember who anyone was and have a chance of understanding what was going on; I didn't like it quite as much as the second, which so far is the high-water-mark of the series for me, but I'm still very sad that as of yet there's no way of knowing when the fourth will be translated and available in English.

[sovay]

a French fantasy quartet called The Mirror Visitor that I started reading last year

Which I see I commented on at the time, without retaining the name of either the author or the first two books. How does the relationship between the heroine and the social justice accountant progress, or is that not the point of getting closer to punching God?

[skygiants]

It does progress! I liked the development very much in some ways but not in others ... the short and only vaguely spoilery answer is she spends the first half the book attempting to find him after they were married for plot reasons and then immediately separated for more plot reasons at the end of book 2, then realizes when she DOES find him that chasing after an absent romantic figure is very different than actually opening up honest communication channels with a present husband-on-a-technicality who has if anything only gotten more dour and awkward in two years of absence, especially when one still feels very awkward and uncertain about Romance as an entire concept. All of this I liked a lot, actually. On the other hand, I thought the resolution to this was much too quick and that the narrative as a whole puts too much blame this time around on the heroine for her failure to Commit and Communicate when it's still very much a both sides problem, but I'm glad they ended the book on the same page!

[sovay]

then realizes when she DOES find him that chasing after an absent romantic figure is very different than actually opening up honest communication channels with a present husband-on-a-technicality who has if anything only gotten more dour and awkward in two years of absence, especially when one still feels very awkward and uncertain about Romance as an entire concept.

That is very likeable! And does feel like it could legitimately occupy at least the A-plot of an entire novel in sorting out.

[landofnowhere]

Hm, it sounds like you like the romance arc in this book a bit better than I did! (I did kind of this "you slapped him when he tried to kiss you in book 2, it's on you to communicate that further romantic interest is welcome." Though he also wasn't helping the whole thing.)

[sperrywink]

Interesting- I didn't know about the Darwin/Beagle captain book. I'll maybe check it out, although with your caveats in mind. Slavery is a big no for me, for obvious reasons.

[skygiants]

Yeah, it's. You know. It's trying to handle it respectfully. I don't think it's succeeding, but it's trying! And it's definitely an interesting book, and I did learn a lot from it.

[aella_irene]

I'd really like to hear your thoughts on Boyfriend Material!

[skygiants]

That's one of the books that I really wanted to write up and just never got around to -- I really enjoyed it! Like, some quibbles, but overall I felt like it successfully nailed the comedy and was genuinely funny in a way that's not always true for rom-com style romances. I'm meaning to seek out more Alexis Hall stuff in the new year, but he's written SO much that it's a bit difficult to know where to start.

[aella_irene]

I absolutely fucking love his Kate Kane books. Kate Kane is, at the start, a lesbian supernatural PI who recently got her partner killed, and regularly wakes up to portraits of her face from the vampire she fell for when she was sixteen and thought she was straight. Then a member of the werewolf community (being a werewolf is linked to the X-chromosome, so he is werewolf-adjacent) is killed outside a night club belonging to Julian St Germain, a vampire Prince, and Kate is hired to investigate.

Shit gets wild.

Also I just re-read The Widow of Rose House and would like your thoughts on that!

[skygiants]

Widow of Rose House was a bit of a mixed bag for me -- I loved everything to do with the ghost, but the romance fell a bit too much into the trap of "he ignores her requests to leave her alone but it's okay because WE know he's well-meant" for me to buy into it fully in the first half.

[raven]

My favourite Alexis Hall if you haven't read it is Waiting For the Flood. It's an extremely gentle m/m novella about a reclusive academic living in South Oxford in 2007 as the river starts to rise, and he falls very quietly in love with the man from the Environment Agency who comes to advise the locals. I was also living in South Oxford in 2007 when the river flooded which may explain why I love it quite so much but it's a really lovely book.

[melita66]

I second the rec for Waiting for the Flood. I rated several other Hall books as 5 stars but that one has stuck with more than the rest.

Amongst the zillion other contemporary romances I read this year--Throwing Hearts by N.R. Walker. Leo is buddies with Clyde, an older gay man, and takes Clyde out to talk and to classes. They sign up for a pottery class. Merrick has been too busy to date while getting his pottery + cafe business up and running. Merrick and Leo notice each other immediately. As a bonus, so do Merrick's uncle and Clyde later.

And, maybe, Galaxies and Oceans also by Walker. Ethan walks away from everything when a wildfire threatens the cabin he's staying in. He ends up on an island doing odd jobs. Aubrey's the local lighthouse keeper and who's struggling to move on after his partner died a few years earlier.

[shadaras]

I notice that Air Logic doesn't seem to be in your list, despite the rest of that quartet being in there! That's a bit surprising to me!

[skygiants]

lol it's surprising to me too 😭 I reread the first three specifically in preparation FOR reading Air Logic and then ... March hit .... and I wasn't going to the library any more ....... anyway in the new year I am going to try to start using library curbside pickup a bit more so hopefully I will finally get around to it!

[shadaras]

I figured that was why you'd reread them. :) <3 I hope that you get a chance to read it this year; I'd love to hear your thoughts on the full quartet once you read it!

[kate_nepveu]

just thumbs-up'ing Talia Hibberts' Brown sisters series!

[skygiants]

Yeah, they were very charming reads! Will probably try and write up all three together once the third one comes out.

[kate_nepveu]

I also liked her Ravenswood series, which is available in an ebook boxed set, though I read the whole thing at speed in a burst of procrastination energy so I don't remember details!

[obopolsk]

Weirdly, Take a Hint, Dani Brown was also one of the last books I read in 2020. What did you think of it?

[skygiants]

I enjoyed it! A quick & easy read to zip through in the last few days of 2020. :D WHat about you?

[obopolsk]

Agreed! I didn't like it quite as much as the first one (because I really enjoyed the family cameos and appreciated the chronic pain depiction in that one), but it was a delightful way to wrap up the reading year.

[aquamirage]

I would just like to know what book(s) you'd rec the most for me

[skygiants]

Hmmmmmmm books for Mer in specific I think: Aster Glenn Gray's The Wolf and the Girl, the surprisingly good Kyoshibook, maaaaaaybe Piranesi? I think you will either really love or really hate We Are Totally Normal but either way you will have a strong feeling about it. (Good wine pairing with Where I End & You Begin actually.)

Also I think you still owe me an Expert Opinion on The War That Saved My Life!

[chestnut_pod]

I really enjoyed going back and reading some of your reviews from earlier in the year that I skipped at the time on the basis of not having read the book yet!

Do you have thoughts on The Ten Thousand Doors of January?

[skygiants]

I can definitely see why people liked Ten Thousand Doors of January, but personally I pretty much agree with Kate about the flaw in the central concept -- I don't love the idea that revolutionary/creative spirit essentially has to be imported from external locations. Also it felt a bit too much like it was written to appeal to Bookish Youths such that I felt pandered to in a way that sometimes works for me but in this case I disliked. >.>

[chestnut_pod]

Thank you! Yes, having now read both her books, both external fomentation and Book Person Stylings seem to be ongoing themes for her.

I still hold out hope for her third book, whatever it ends up being.

[ladyherenya]

Last year there were several books that I read after seeing your review of them (A Duet for Invisible Strings, Technically You Started It, Unnatural Magic, Between Silk and Cyanide, and Empire of Sand) and I liked them all very much. So thank you for bringing them to my attention!

[plinythemammaler]

Your book reviews bring me consistent joy and I am now about to start on Deeplight,as well as many dramatic pandemic era readings of the British carrier pigeon service manual.