Wednesday, January 6, 2021

2020's Reading

 It’s time for my annual reading report card.

My goal for 2020 was to read 50 books. I read 55. I am so awesome.

This year saw certain themes arise in my reading. A new love of Ursula K. Le Guin is a late one as is a fascination with Indian holy books and Eastern philosophy. There are the usual classics I’m catching up on, a few books I read for work—books on craft, theory, and editing,  including my own. All in all it was a fascinating year in pages. Almost made up for hellish year that just passed. Here’s the list:


The Professional Thief, Edwin Hardin Sutherland

An Appointment with God, Mark Kirkbride

Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield

The Uninhabitable Earth, David Wallace-Wells

The Time Machine, H. G. Wells

5


Inspirational Poetry, William Blake

Naked Came the Florida Man, Tim Dorsey

An Appointment with God, Mark Kirkbride

High Magick, Damien Echols

The Successful Author Mindset, Joanna Penn

10


Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

Consider This, Chuck Palahniuk

The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Revelation, Poppet Cycle Book 1, Donna J. Munro

Changing Wax, Jared Quan

15


LUW 85th Anniversary Anthology 

The Lottery and Other Stories, Shirley Jackson

The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson

1619 Project, New York Times 

Take Off Your Pants, Libbie Hawker

20


Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro.

Art & Fear, David Bales & Ted Orland

True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey

The Waves, Virginia Woolf 

Under the Black Flag, David Cordingly

25


Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett

Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert 

Nausea, Jean Paul Sartre

Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert

Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert (again)

30


Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald

After Progress, John Michael Greer

The Virginian, Owen Wister

Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon

The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath Easwaran

35


The Practice of Poetry, Robin Behn & Chase Twichell

The Mormon War,  Brandon G. Kinney

Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie

Taking the Path of Zen, Robert Aitken

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Laurence Sterne

40


The Invisible Man, H.G. Wells

Writing in the Dark, Tim Waggoner

Jaws, Peter Benchley

How to be Good, Nick Hornby

Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh

45


Intimations: Six Essays, Zadie Smith

The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin

The Invention of Sound, Chuck Palahniuk

How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method, Randy Ingermanson

Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin

50


Solutions and Other Problems, by Allie Brosh

The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin

South of the Border, West of the Sun, Haruki Murakami

Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang

The Dhammapada, Eknath Easwaran

55



For 2021 I'm trying for another 50. 

Read on, my friends. Read on.