Goodreads, where I do my book logging, has a nifty little widget to show what reading I logged over the year. It shows I read 138 books, for a total of 33,007 pages. Which sounds much more impressive than it actually is, since it (a) includes the page count for audiobooks, and (b) includes graphic novels which, while potentially literary, read much faster. Indeed, of those 138, a little over half (76) were graphic novels.
The audiobook count was down this year. I only listen to those in the car and, working for home and not vacationing at all, my driving time has been pretty limited.
But besides audiobooks, my overall reading this year was higher than last year. Yay, pandemic!
The most popular book I read in 2020 was The Fellowship of the Ring (3.1 million other people on Goodreads have logged that one). The least popular was Nice Guys Finish Seventh by Ralph Keyes, an interesting book on misquotations (only 45 other people have logged it).
I tend to rate things high — Goodreads says my average rating is 4. Some books I gave 5-star ratings I gave to this year:
- Jim Butcher, Battle Ground (Dresden Files #17)
- Charles Stross, The Labyrinth Index (Laundry Files #9)
- Ben Aaronovitch, Tales from the Folly (Rivers of London series)
- Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Saves the World (Kitty Norville series #14)
- J R R Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings trilogy
- Maria Dahvana Headley, Beowulf: A New Translation
- Mary Beard, The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found [audiobook]
- Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome [audiobook]
- Mary Beard, The Parthenon [audiobook]
- J Michael Straczynski, Becoming Superman
So installments in some favorite genre series, but also some fine non-fiction.
From the graphic novel side, some 5-star recommendations I can offer from this year’s reading (focusing on newer stuff):
- Rich Berlew’s Order of the Stick series (e.g.) – surprisingly sophisticated D&D fun
- Kirkman and Samnee’s Fire Power – martial arts goodness
- Kieron Gillen, Once & Future – contemporary Arthurian horror
- Warren Ellis, The Wild Storm – richly revamped comic universe making.
- Jill Thompson, Wonder Woman: The True Amazon – a fresh, fairy-tale look at WW’s origin story
- Phil Foglio, Queens and Pirates (Girl Genius, Second Journey #5) – mad science hilarity
In older stuff, series I (re)read and offer top marks to include Ed Brubaker’s Gotham Central, Joe Straczynski’s run on Thor, Jason Aaron’s Thor run, Judd Winick’s Hilo, Brian Bendis’ Jessica Jones books, and Garth Ennis’ Preacher series.
None of the above counts some fine 4-star books (of all sorts) I enjoyed this year.