So, that year was a whole thing unto itself, wasn’t it? Lots of time at home under lockdown meant lots of time to read. So, in the tradition of Sarah over at Dogs, Coffee, & Books, here’s my year in reading. 61 titles (63 if you count rereads I ended up doing within the year). Lots of classics this year as I buffed up on background reading for my World Lit courses. Also a lot of escapism because…well, 2020. (R) indicates a reread. Asterisks indicate titles I particularly enjoyed or found enlightening.

Happy New Year!

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2020 Reading

1. Crowley – Empires of the Sun*
2. Latour – Down to Earth (x2) (R)
3. Hudes – Water by the Spoonful (x2) (R)
4. Pynchon – Inherent Vice* (R)
5. Winchester – The Professor & the Madman
6. Munroe – How To
7. Muir – Gideon the Ninth*
8. Schweblin – Fever Dream
9. Simmons – Hyperion*
10. King – the Gunslinger
11. Aeschylus – Agamemnon (R)
12. Aeschylus – The Libation Bearers
13. Aeschylus – The Eumenides
14. Currey -Daily Rituals
15. Gibson – Neuromancer (R)
16. Wilkman – Floodpath
17. Collins – Sailing Alone Around the Room
18. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (R)
19. Pynchon – Bleeding Edge (R)
20. Chayka – The Longing for Less
21. Winters – Golden State
22. Wilson – Fences (R)
23. Tanizaki – In Praise of Shadows
24. Wilson – Seven Guitars
25. Heller – Catch-22 (R)
26. Gibson – The Peripheral
27. Wilson – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
28. Coates – Between the World and Me*
29. Roe – In Montemarte
30. Tokarezuk – Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
31. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (R)
32. Johnson – The Ghost Map*
33. Wilson – Joe Turner’s Come & Gone
34. Hudes – The Happiest Song Plays Last
35. Barry – The Great Influenza*
36. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (R)
37. Ibsen – A Dolls House*
38. DiAngelo – White Fragility
39. Sunjata
40. Epic of Gilgamesh (R)
41. Asbridge – The Crusades*
42. Muir – Harrow the Ninth*
43. Rose – Twelve Angry Men*
44. Homer – The Odyssey (R)
45. Virgil – The Aeneid (R)
46. Sophocles – Oedipus the King (R)
47. Euripedes – Medea (R)
48. Sexton – Live or Die: Poems
49. Oliver – New and Selected Poems vol. 2
50. Cervantes – Don Quijote*
51. Hansberry – A Raisin in the Sun (R)
52. Dante – The Inferno (R)
53. Sapkowski – Blood of Elves
54. Simmons – Fall of Hyperion
55. Corey – Leviathan Wakes*
56. Euripedes – The Bacchae
57. Holiday – The Obstacle is the Way
58. Aeschylus – Prometheus Bound
59. Schumacher – Dear Committee Members
60. Oliver – Blue Horses*
61. Molière – Tartuffe

I’ve kept this space on the back burner for the better part of the last decade. Given that we’re on the cusp of a new one, it seems like a fitting time for me to start using it for something. So, thanks to the inspiration of Sarah at Dogs, Coffee, & Books, here’s a look back at my reading for 2019 to kickstart me into a new decade that’ll hopefully be filled with more words – both those I write and read.

The year was above average in terms of the number of books I made it through – but perhaps not pages. I didn’t have many of the massive tomes that I tend to be drawn to this year. Still, the total is still below what I set out to read 365 days ago. The list is incomplete due to the fact that I don’t feel like typing up a list of the 69 some odd graphic novels I worked through over the course of the year. It felt like there was a lot of…meh this year. I feel good for reading a number of books, but I didn’t spend much of my time enthralled either (looking at you Dostoyevsky).

Highlights of the year are noted by a * below. Rereads with a (R).

2019 – Reading

1. Urrea – House of Broken Angels*
2. Wilson – Fences
3. Loomis – History of America in 10 Strikes
4. Ondaatje – Warlight
5. Gaiman – Coraline (R)
6. Obren – Six Days of War*
7. Adams – The Viking Wars
8. Christie – ABC Murders
9. Tucker – City of Light, City of Poison
10. Savage – Every Tool is a Hammer
11. Gleick – The Information*
12. Payne – The Broken Ladder
13. Murakami – Wind up Bird Chronicle*
14. Sobel – Longitude
15. Ghosh – The Great Derangement*
16. Odell – How to do Nothing
17. Higginbotham – Midnight in Chernobyl*
18. Sebald – Rings of Saturn* (R)
19. Caro – Working
20. Humes – Garbology
21. Epic of Gilgamesh (R)
22. Okorafor – Binti Trilogy*
23. Pynchon – Against the Day* (R)
24. Homer – The Odyssey (R)
25. Euripedes – Medea (R)
26. Sophocles – Oedipus Rex (R)
27. Wu – The Curse of Bigness
28. Dante – The Inferno (R)
29. Dostoyevsky – The Brothers Karamazov
30. Yamashita – Tropic of Orange (R)
31. Orange – There There*
32. Wedgewood – The Thirty Years War*
33. Oliver – New and Selected Poems vol. 1
34. Norris – Clybourne Park
35. Joyce – Dubliners
36. Vuong – On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous*

Onward to 2020!

Justin Davidson on the history and the future of the New York waterfront.

Two stories from Ars Technica on the struggle to avoid junk when flying in space: One of Fermi and another of the ISS.

A gallery of computing machines at io9.

Jayson Greene examines the samples on Kanye West’s Yeezus at Pitchfork.

Why Miami is doomed by Jeff Goodell from Rolling Stone.

Also from Rolling Stone: 20 songs that are 20 years old. (I am so very very old…)

Finally, because I’m old, I’m going to include the following clip from Teen Titans Go! due to its thorough explanation of VCRs, VHS tapes and Betamax.