This was the first year that I really took time to read in a very long time, and hit my goodreads modest goal of 12 books (though some of these could've been multiple books!). 1. Recursion - Blake Crouch (5/5) 2. Dark Matter - Blake Crouch (3/5) 3. Dark Age - Pierce Brown (5/5) 4. The Institute - Stephen King (4/5) 5. Leviathan Wakes - James S.A. Corey (5/5) 6. Caliban's War - James S.A. Corey (4/5) 7. Abaddon's Gate - James S.A. Corey (4/5) 8. Wanderers - Chuck Wendig (5/5) 9. Cry Pilot - Joel Dane (5/5) *This one was the biggest surprise of the year for me. 10. Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising - Timothy Zahn (3/5) 11. Summer Frost - Blake Crouch (3/5) 12. Lovecraft Country - Matt Ruff (4/5) 13. Ring Shout - P. Djèlí Clark (4/5) As you can see, lots of Sci-fi, but I found it the most appetizing with the weird year that 2020 was. Made it easier to "escape." I'm probably pretty generous with my rankings but I tend to do way too much research before committing to a book, so usually I pick things I know I will like. *Edited with rankings.
Joining the fun. What I’ve read this year and my rankings. Only two re-reads, marked with an asterisk. Near to the Wild Heart - Clarice Lispector (5/5) Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver (3/5) Life and Adventures of Jack Engle: The Lost Novel by Walt Whitman - Walt Whitman (2/5) The House on Mango Street* - Sandra Cisneros (4/5) The Moviegoer - Walker Percy (4/5) The Book of X - Sarah Rose Etter (4/5) To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf (5/5) The Cider House Rules - John Irving (5/5) Passing - Nella Larsen (3/5) The Passion According to G.H. - Clarice Lispector (5/5) The Sound of Waves - Yukio Mishima (3.5/5) The Gangster We Are All Looking For - lê thi diem thúy (4/5) Autobiography of Red - Anne Carson (3/5) The Member of the Wedding - Carson McCullers (4.5/5) Another Country - James Baldwin (5/5) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man* - James Joyce (5/5) Palm Lines - Jonathan Koven (10/5)
Cat's Cradle is probably my favorite of his, but agreed that Slaughterhouse 5 is probably the best place to start
Can't go wrong with Slaughterhouse Five, but I also love Welcome to the Monkey House which is a collection of Vonnegut's short stories.
Oh yeah and Fear and Loathing which got me to try bourbon for the first time and I drank so much I threw up which has NEVER happened to me before but that's another story
I figured I'd go ahead and post my TBR list for 2021. This includes books I've already purchased that I haven't gotten to yet, books in a series that I want to finish (the Expanse series and Cry Pilot series), and a couple of one-offs I'm highly interested in. 1. The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson (currently going through audiobook since the mass paperback version is impossible to read comfortably) 2. Words of Radiance - Brandon Sanderson 3. Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson 4. Rhythm of War - Brandon Sanderson 5. Dune - Frank Herbert 6. The Shadow of What Was Lost - James Islington 7. A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E. Schwab (half way, need to finish) 8. A Promised Land - Barack Obama 9. The Midnight Library - Matt Haig 10. Kill Orbit - Joel Dane 11. Burn Cycle - Joel Dane 12. A Little Hatred - Joe Abercrombie 13. Black Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse 14. Nemesis Games - James S.A. Corey 15. Babylon's Ashes - James S.A. Corey 16. Persepolis Rising - James S.A. Corey 17. Tiamat's Wrath - James S.A. Corey
I rediscovered my love of reading during quarantine, so I read more this year than I normally would. Got around to some classics I'd never read, and the many many recommendations by friends and family. 1. Gates of Eden - Ethan Coen (4/5) 2. A Simple Plan - Scott B. Smith (3/5) 3. The Devil All The Time - Donald Ray Pollack (4/5) 4. Pop. 1280 - Jim Thompson (4/5) 5. Kafka On The Shore - Haruki Murakami (5/5) 6. After Dark - Haruki Murakami (5/5) 7. Sputnik Sweetheart - Haruki Murakami (4/5) 8. Hard-Boiled Wonderland & The End of the World - Haruki Murakami (3/5) 9. A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami (3/5) 10. Dance Dance Dance - Haruki Murakami (5/5) 11. South of the Border, West of the Sun - Haruki Murakami (4/5) 12. Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami (3/5) 13. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage - Haruki Murakami (2/5) 14. 1Q84 - Haruki Murakami (5/5) 15. The Elephant Vanishes - Haruki Murakami (3/5) 16. The Vegetarian - Han Kang (5/5) 17. Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West - Cormac McCarthy (2/5) 18. Dune - Frank Herbert (3/5) 19. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami (5/5) 20. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (4/5) 21. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami (3/5) 22. The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka (4/5) 23. The Stranger - Albert Camus (3/5) 24. The Trial - Franz Kafka (4/5) 25. The Shimmer - Carsten Stroud (1/5) 26. Killing Commedatore - Haruki Murakami (4/5) 27. Koko - Peter Straub (3/5) 28. Franny and Zooey - J.D. Salinger (3/5) 29. A Time To Kill - John Grisham (3/5) 30. After The Quake - Haruki Murakami (4/5) 31. The White Book - Han Kang (5/5) 32. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger (4/5) 33. Hurricane Season - Fernanda Melchor (3/5) 34. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (5/5) 35. Human Acts - Han Kang (5/5) 36. Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (3/5) 37. Memories of my Melancholy Whores - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (4/5) 38. Please Look After Mom - Shin Kyoung-Sook (4/5) 39. Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (4/5) 40. Lolita - Vladimir Nobokov (3/5) 41. Death In Her Hands - Ottessa Moshfegh (3/5) 42. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (4/5) 43. Of Love and Other Demons - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (2/5) 44. Swann's Way - Marcel Proust (5/5)
What a killer list. Love to see all that Murakami, you've reminded me I've got a few of his to catch up on
Achieved my goal was to read 1 book a month which is most ive ever read in a year. Was happy with my mix of non-fiction and fiction and hoping to continue my slow (in comparison to all yall) pace. If i had to choose Chaos was without a doubt my fav thing i read, one of the most engaging novels ive read before. 1. Dead Astronaughts - Jeff Vandermeer 2. Hitchcock / Truffeut - Francois Truffeut 3. Senlin Ascends - Josiah Bancroft 4. Dune - Frank Herbert 5. Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the secret history of the sixties - Tom O'Neill 6. Can't Stop, Wont Stop - Jeff Chang 7. The Paper Menagerie - Ken Liu 8. Empire of their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood - Neal Gabler 9. Arm of the Sphynx - Josiah Bancroft 10. The Hod King - Josiah Bancroft 11. Supergods - Grant Morrison 12. Warbreaker - Brandon Sanderson
Love Murakami. I lost my copy of Kafka on the Shore awhile back while I was reading it and bought a new one but never finished. I need to return to it. I also tried Marquez this year with One Hundred Years of Solitude. Got about a third in and realized it was getting a bit challenging for me (was fantasizing about my next book while reading it lol). I should return to that someday too, especially since I think/hope I’ve grown as a reader this year.
I've read Solitude and Love in the Time and they were both tough, especially the latter, but I loved them both. Wonderful writer.
This is my 2020 book list in order read: The Chain - Adrian McKinty The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek - Rhett McLaughlin The Flight Attendant - Chris Bohjalian Dark Matter - Blake Crouch The Talisman - Stephen King Black House - Stephen King Tranny - Laura Jane Grace Wanderers - Chuck Wendig She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Needful Things - Stephen King Hollywood Park - Mikel Jollett The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix There She Was Gone - Lisa Jewell The Silent Companions - Laura Purcell My Best Friends Exorcism - Grady Hendrix Bag of Bones - Stephen King Touch the Night - Max Booth III Dracul - J.D. Barker/Dacre Stoker Home Before Dark - Riley Sager The Coast to Coast Murders - James Patterson/J.D. Barker The Dead Zone - Stephen King
I don't think we talked about you reading these. What did you think of them? I'm working on finding the time to read The Chain; listened to the audiobooks of Flight Attendant and Then She Was Gone; my wife read Coast to Coast and I plan to start it soon.
I actually read Coast to Coast Murders after you mentioning it here! The Chain - It reads super quick and I remember loving it. It has a crazy yet very intriguing plot. The Flight Attendant - I honestly don’t remember a whole bunch of this since I read it back in January. I gave it 3 stars so there must be something there I didn’t love. I just went and read a summary to remember it and I don’t know, wasn’t one I felt too strongly on lol. There She Was Gone - I read this in like 2 sittings haha. Super easy, fast read. My first book by Lisa Jewell. Definitely an author I’ll turn to for a very easy thriller. Despite it being a bit predictable, I found it pretty depressing. Which I’m into. Coast to Coast Murders - This thing reads so fast, and so much happens to the point it gets a bit muffled at the end. I feel like it’s a very fun thriller with tons of stuff happening on the surface level but never dives deep and makes me feel a connection with any characters. It keeps you intrigued mostly because you are constantly guessing “what the hell is happening?” I recommend it!
Gonna try and make The Chain a higher priority now that you and @Vivatoto rec it! Yeah I expected to like Flight Attendant more, kinda hated all the spy and espionage stuff plan to watch the show still but leery now. I don't remember Then She Was Gone like at all haha. My wife had pretty similar thoughts on Coast-To-Coast. Basically said it was crazy and ended very weird lol