Books Read, 2020
Changing jobs and world events kept me from reading as much as last year. It wasn’t that I didn’t have time to read, it was that, for whatever reason, I didn’t have much of an urge to read much during the middle part of the year.
Fiction (18)
- The Odyssey by Homer
The Emily Wilson translation, which I thought was much more readable, but didn’t inspire me the way Fagles did. Looking forward to reading her Iliad when it is released. - Favorite Father Brown Stories by G. K. Chesterton
The first fiction by Chesterton that I really liked, though I didn’t like every story in the book. Will probably read more Father Brown. - Night Soldiers by Alan Furst
- Dark Star by Alan Furst
- The Polish Officer by Alan Furst
- The World at Night by Alan Furst
- A Hero of France by Alan Furst
- Red Gold by Alan Furst
These Alan Furst novels, all about spies in WWII Europe, constituted all of what I read between about June and October. In the future, when I think back on the quarantine, I imagine - From Hell by Alan Moore
A reread, but it’s been about 20 years. I liked it a little less this time, but not by much, and I still think it’s a masterpiece. I appreciated different things about it this time: the art, research, and logistics more than the fireworks. - The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers
- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
- Castleview by Gene Wolfe
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- The Plague by Albert Camus
- Foundation by Isaac Asimov
A reread, but I didn’t remember much about it. - One Step from Earth by Harry Harrison
- Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
I hated this book. I didn’t actually finish it, but got most of the way through, and I was certainly finished with it. I don’t hate it because it’s obscene, what I hate was that it was sloppy and self-indulgent. - Down and Out in Purgatory by Tim Powers
Non-Fiction (16)
- Sahara Unveiled by William Langewiesche
- The Architecture of Happiness by Alain De Botton
- Moral Mazes by Robert Jackall
- Atlas of a Lost World by Craig Childs
- Discussing Design by Adam Connor
- The Tiger by John Vaillant
- Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
- Cultural Amnesia by Clive James (Essays)
- Harmonium by Wallace Stevens (Poetry)
- The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane
- In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki
- Take Ivy by Shosuke Ishizu
- Design Is Storytelling by Ellen Lupton
- ‘Broadsword Calling Danny Boy’ by Geoff Dyer
- Super Thinking by Gabriel Weinberg
- Farnsworth’s Classical English Style by Ward Farnsworth