Books I Read in 2020

[Kyle]

This will be the list of books I've read this year, in order of how much I enjoyed them.

Books I Finished Reading in 2020

This is How You Lose the Time War- Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Dreadnought- April Daniels
Devolution- Max Brooks
The Hate U Give- Angie Thomas
Between the World and Me- Ta-Nehisi Coates
Sovereign- April Daniels
If it Bleeds- Stephen King
Aliens: Phalanx- Scott Sigler
The Devil Crept In- Ania Ahlborn
House of Purple Cedar- Tim Tingle
The Demon Next Door- Bryan Burrough
Stop With Your Purple Precociousness- Ken Marteney
Humanimal- Adam Rutherford
Console Wars- Blake Harris
Full Throttle- Joe Hill
The Pocket History of Human Evolution- Silvana Condemi

Unranked, but still great: How Not to Diet- Michael Greger

[Kyle]

Yeah- so I've started writing my book again, so I'm listening to more music and less books. So this is going to be an off year.

[Mike]

I'm proud of you, though. This is so cool. I mean, I was super-proud after books 1 and 2, but to get back to it and finish the trilogy after a long break? That's impressive as hell. You go, girl!

[Kyle]

I updated this list today and realized I haven't been putting up reviews. I'll keep them short.

This is How You Lose the Time War- Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: Loved it! See my comments

Humanimal- Adam Rutherford. A casual examination of modern evolutionary evidence and what we know so far about how and why we evolved the way we did- and some other species did not. I enjoyed it a lot with its lighter writing style that didn't get caught up in the minutia- it was really well written and "dumbed down" (for lack of a better term) for non-experts.

Console Wars- Blake Harris. This was a fascinating examination of the rise and eventual fall of Sega as a console producer. It's told in a weird, sometimes distracting style of fictionalizing key conversations between key players. But it's extremely well researched and well told. Watching Sega, and its CEO Tom Kalinske, take on the beheamoth of Nintendo and-- eventually-- besting them, is so compelling. Even though I know the outcome. But reader beware. The dialogue makes all the Sony people sound like the same "laissez faire" boiler-room types who speak with withering sarcasm at all times. I could look past that, though, because the story that's being told is so fascinating.

The Devil Crept In- Ania Ahlborn. Is this the second or third book I've read by Ahlborn? I like her. She writes these books that I think of as "low key, personal" horror. They're always small stories where the main characters are broken- often from abusive upbringings. And it kind of doesn't matter what the plot is, because she's so good at getting into the head of flawed, vulnerable characters. This is one of those books. Nominally about a young boy whose best friend is being possessed... maybe... by a spirit or witch? The book answers the questions, but I don't want to spoil the truth. This is like comfort food for me with rural horror. Ahlborn is always good.

The Pocket History of Human Evolution- Silvana Condemi. This short book on human evolution was pretty dissatisfying and what made me decide to read Humanimal (above). It's not that it's not well-written: it is. The problem is it's too brief. It's really more of a "10,000 foot view" of the subject with frustratingly little detail. Which means it raises questions for the reader without providing any sense of the answer. It's nice to whet the appetite for a subject, but you can't do that and just make a dissatisfied reader turn to another source. Disappointing.

[Kyle]

Full Throttle- Joe Hill. I've read a bunch of Joe Hill's stuff- you might know him from his other books (e.g., Horns) or graphic novels (Locke & Key). It's real hit or miss for me and I can't figure out why. Because when you read Joe Hill you get that sense of his father's (Stephen King) early works. Its raw, high impact, and well plotted. And the writing is good. Say what you want about the King family- but they're freaking great writers. But with this book, I finally put my finger on it.

So this book is a collection of novellas and short stories, and they have a general theme of "high octane"? Maybe? But not really. And that's not important. As I'm reading these stories, all of which have great ideas and interesting characters, I realized what my problem is: they lack humanity. And then I realized that's the same problem with Hill's books that I didn't like as much (NOS4A2 and Strange Weather)- they don't have characters that you care about. They characters are unique and interesting in theory, but they lack heart. You kind of just don't give a shit one way or the other. Especially in this book, a lot of the stories main characters seem to sacrifice any kind of heart for just being "tough as shit." And while that's kind of cool, it also seems immature in retrospect. On the other hand, Hills books that I really liked (Locke & Key and The Fireman) have that element that's missing from here.

I don't know, maybe it's just me. But these stories just didn't affect me.

[Kyle]

The Hate U Give- Angie Thomas
My wife is running a book club for some homeschool kids and their focusing on diverse authors and stories. So I'm reading along. I wasn't sure how I felt about this book for about the first two thirds of my reading of it. It's a YA book about a black girl that lives in a poor section of town but goes to school at a rich white kids school across town. Stuff happens and there's a bunch of racially-based tension related to the black community and their treatment by the cops. So while I was reading this, I was uncomfortable with it- not because of the subject matter- but because of the intended audience for it. Let me say that it was well-written (without all the flowery language I abhore) and the story was extremely compelling. But I kept feeling like this was a book written by a black woman for an audience of white people. I was mixed on whether I felt like a voyeur, enjoying a compelling story with a peek into black culture. In the end I think I was right. It is a book intended primarily for white people (although I'm sure people of all backgrounds will enjoy it), but that's okay. The point of the book is to give you a background on why Black Lives Matters is important and to show the context in how mass protests arise. And there is a lot of lecturing and exposition about black communities and relationships. But even if the book is intended to serve as an education for privileged white people, it does a good job of it (and tells a great story) and those people need that education. So I ended up deciding I liked it a lot.

[Kyle]

Between the World and Me- Ta-Nehisi Coates
Written as a letter to his teen aged son, this is essentially an essay addressing the systemic oppression and cultural legacy that continues to oppress black and brown people. It's quite short and beautifully written, so I recommend it to anyone. My only issue with it is that I read this immediately after finishing The Hate U Give, and the core issues are the same- and very heavy. In retrospect, I wished I read them in the opposite order. All the same, this is a very thought provoking piece and a must read for anyone contemplating the issues surrounding the current BLM protests.

[Phoebe]

I gave this as a present to someone but didn't read it myself so I need to line up as a borrower!

[Kyle]

Stop With Your Purple Precociousness- Ken Martenay. This is a biographical short novella about a personal friend of mine, who grew up bouncing between foster homes after his father, who was in a drug smuggling operation, disappeared. It's experimentally structured in a way more akin to a movie script, but I found it fascinating.

If it Bleeds- Stephen King. Like Full Throttle by his son (Joe Hill), this is a book of novellas. Four stories. Two of them were beautiful and touching. One of them was great. And one of them was not good. But overall, that's a pretty good track record and it was still a great experience. The first two stories are great character pieces that tell small stories in a beautiful way. I really loved them. The last story was a more traditional Stephen King story of regret, pain and flawed characters. The titular story, however, was a Holly Gibney story, who is a character in his detective noir stories (Outsider, Mr. Mercedes, etc.). I personally hated this story because the protagonist, Holly Gibney, is a "magical autistic" person. And I love Stephen King- I really do. I think he's a masterful writer. But he's had this fascination with "magical" people on the spectrum throughout his history. And while this was more acceptable twenty years ago, it's EXTREMELY tone deaf now, especially to a parent of an autistic son. It was very off-putting and just rubbed me the wrong way. That said, the other three stories are so good, that I still highly recommend this book.

[Kyle]

Devolution- Max Brooks. You know, there may come a time where I get tired of Max Brooks' style of "oral history reduced to writing." But that time isn't here yet. Zombie Survival Guide was great, but World War Z was a masterpiece. This is almost as enjoyable as Z. Devolution is the story of an isolated green community that gets cut off from the world when Mount Rainier erupts, and then they encounter Bigfoot. I've already said too much. This is a cinematic story, which isn't surprising when I found out that this was actually a movie script first. The star of this, though is the voice acting in the audiobook. Judy Greer as the main character. Nathan Fillion as her brother. The production quality is just stellar. It was a great story, even if you think Bigfoot is a goofy subject, and has some deeper, heavy themes involving our struggle to escape our animal origins. Highly recommend.

[Kyle]

House of Purple Cedar- Tim Tingle. This is a different read from my normal choice. It's a fictional coming of age story of an 11 year old Choctaw girl in 1897. The entire book is steeped in native american perspective in a way that is refreshing and fascinating. It tells an unblinking story of the prejudices native americans were subject to and the themes are very relevant to current discussions going on in our country. While the book was extremely well written, the only thing that threw me off was the author's shift of perspective in the same scene- you'd be in one person's head in one paragraph and another person's in another. It didn't happen often, but when it did it always took me way out of the book. But that's a real minor criticism. A great book and a high recommend.

[DMDarcs]

[Kyle]

[Ronster]

The Five Dysfunctions of A Team - Patrick Lencioni

[Kyle]

Dreadnought- April Daniels. What a blast this book was. Maybe I'm biased because it's superhero fiction, and I'm a sucker for that (seriously, I know comics exist, but why is there not more great superhero fiction?), but I really, really enjoyed this book. Here's the killer premise (which you learn in the first chapter, so not really a spoiler): a transgender girl, who is so far in the closet it is painful- no one knows she's transgender, is in an alley when this world's version of Superman (the titular Dreadnought) is mortally struck in battle and falls next to her, dying. As he dies, he transfers his powers to her and- BAM- the transformation causes her body to alter to her own vision of her "ideal self"- someone appearing to be a biological woman. Oh, and flight, and invulnerability, and super strength. Then the superhero story ensues. I don't want to get into the details of it, but it's a true superhero story, and a very satisfying one. The author, April Daniels (also a trans woman), is clearly a fan of supers and it shows in the loving attention she gives to the plot and details. But wrapped in this superhero story is also the pain, anguish, prejudice and sorrow that transgender people experience, even when they're made into the most powerful person on the planet. It was a great blend of both of those elements (the transgender empowerment and the superhero) that make a remarkable story. This is the first book in a duology, and I can't wait to get to the second part. Great book.

[Kyle]

How Not to Diet- Michael Greger. I don't like self-help or diet books. But this was assigned to me by my doctor as homework. So I read it and it was actually pretty great. It's hard to "rank" this book with the others because I didn't read this book for enjoyment, but for education. That said, I've taken it out of the rankings. Here's the thing- the doctor that wrote this book goes to great lengths to document EVERYTHING in it. There's just under 5,000 footnotes which cite to the various studies that he discusses through the book. Moreover, he also explains how he donates all the profits from his books, his speaking engagements and his website to charity, so the reader understands that he's not personally profiting from the information. And while I'm sure there is some nondirect ways he's making money from this- I believe that financial gain isn't his motivation. He's not selling a diet. He's not selling supplements. He basically walks through an enormous amount of science to explain why going to a plant-based diet will: (1) make you lose weight; and (2) make you live longer. His point is that diet books and foods are selling a product, when in reality the most healthy diet is to eat whole food plants. There's no money to be made in selling carrots, cabbage and mushrooms as a "diet." So I really liked this book and learned a lot from it. A couple of criticisms: (1) it gets repetitive- there's several examples of going over the same studies of the same ideas for different points; (2) there's some stuff he recommends that the science hasn't concluded is beneficial- but to his credit, he confesses that the science doesn't support it, explains why he thinks it's good advice, but then warns the reader that it could be wrong. But 95% of the book are solid recommendations based on solid science. I learned a lot from this and highly recommend it.

[Kyle]

Aliens: Phalanx- Scott Sigler. I don't normally like "extended universe" books- Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. No interest at all. But a friend recommended this book to me and said, "Look- it's just damn good and progressively feminist." So I gave it a chance, and I'm so glad I did. First of all- it WAS progressively feminist, and not in a preachy way. Secondly- it's a great Alien book that is very true to the feel and spirit of the Alien movie. The premise: how would civilization evolve if Aliens showed up and basically killed almost everyone? The civilization on this world is approximately equivalent to medieval technology. I really don't want to give anything away because it was so clever and smart- and you should really experience that for yourself.

[Kyle]

The Demon Next Door- Bryan Burrough. This was a true-crime story examining the crimes of Daniel Corwin, a serial killer from Temple Texas who raped, mutilated and murdered six women. The odd part of the story is that He was caught twice before his first conviction, and then got out after eight years to kill four more. The writing is fine, if a little too casual. My big problem with it is that it's just kind of murder porn. The acts this monster took are horrendous. But the author doesn't really examine anything past that. There's no insight into why this killer killed. More importantly, there's no real insight, other than the most superficial, as to why his first horrible acts were covered up by the community. It was just a disappointing examination of horrible murders. Like I said- murder porn.

[Kyle]

Sovereign- April Daniels- This is the sequel (and conclusion to the duology) to Daniels' book Dreadnought, which I reviewed just above. Love this book. Love this character. Love this world. The only thing that marks it lower than the first book is that it's a lot more action and superhero fights- which were still really good- but I'm a boring sap that wants way more character dialogue then the Bam-Slam action. It's hardly a knock. The plot is great and unique- all while still being a true supers story. Great read.