I came into writing this post feeling mopey and down because I didn’t think I’d read that much in 2020. But I was surprised after counting these up to find that I’ve read 39 books this (last [since I’m writing this on January 2]) year, more than I would have guessed. I’m trying to resist the urge to type “but several of them were graphic novels\/comix” (guess I couldn’t resist after all, sigh). Definitely I had high reading and low reading times — summer obviously a high time, but also early spring, even though the semester was in full effect. And this fall was a low low time, probably lower than is usual during the fall semester, which is traditionally our busiest at work. We’d just gone back to a more onsite schedule at work, and even with the kid finally back at his own college (which made my work from home days easier) I was tired which made reading harder. Blame pandemic season 2 — wow it’s just so much more tiring than season 1. I also taught a graduate class in the fall so I had that reading to do, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking back at my fiction reading I feel like there was a bunch of meh in there, books that I kind of don’t remember much now, which makes me both glad that I keep a reading journal and a little bit wistful that I spent the reading time on meh when it could have been spent on awesome. Only one book was so meh that I ditched it halfway through: Homeland<\/em>, by Cory Doctorow, which I started reading when my co-teacher and I thought we might assign it to our students and ditched when we decided not to. I also read Feed<\/em> for that same reason, though I finished that one — zombies aren’t really my jam but this YA book was fun enough, extra bonus points for a pandemic causing the zombification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thankfully the meh fiction was in the minority compared to the awesome fiction. I reread Station Eleven<\/em> when I was feeling especially glum and like I needed to read about a worse pandemic than this pandemic, and it hit the spot — such a terrific book, and with the story fresh in my mind I’m ready to watch the TV show (bonus!). Early in the year the library was still closed to patrons (though I worked in my office once\/week or so) and I kept walking by The Need<\/em> on a book truck, admiring the cover, until finally I picked it up only to see that the author is a Brooklyn College prof. Read in a gulp and it was intense: about parenting and archaeology and time, all my jam. I borrowed some more challenging books from work too; both An Untamed State<\/em> and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous<\/em> were heartbreaking and incredible. Early in the year I was delighted to learn that Emma Newman had written additional books in the Planetfall universe (I loved that book, why did I forget to check for sequels for so long?), and I tore through Before Mars<\/em> and After Atlas<\/em>. I also tore through Disappearing Earth<\/em>, which was compelling and dreamy and had me looking at maps of the Kamchatka Peninsula<\/a> repeatedly. And The Vanishing Half<\/em> absolutely bowled me over with its gorgeous writing and gripping story, just amazing. I am so grateful for all of these authors during this hard hard year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the quieter times when I could find daytime hours to read I got through some academic books that I’d been meaning to read for ages. Finally finished Living a Feminist Life<\/em>, begun in 2017 (!), which was terrific of course, and my last book of the year was Gamer Trouble<\/em>, a fun read in a discipline (game studies) that I’m always feeling under-read in, so go me. In other nonfiction reads The Sum of Us<\/em> and Mediocre<\/em> were also both terrific and necessary — the former in particular is super comprehensive and approachable and I think will be a book about racism that I share with folx when they ask for reading suggestions. I ended up buying and rereading Burnout<\/em> because pandemic season 2. But the real standout was Laziness Does Not Exist<\/em>, reading this was so useful and comforting to me, thinking I might buy it, too. And my ever-present climate change anxiety was soothed somewhat by reading All We Can Save<\/em>, picked up after hearing Tressie McMillan Cottom and Roxane Gay interview the editor on their podcast Hear to Slay. It’s a huge book that took me two rounds of library borrowing to read, punctuated by a couple of months’ break when I had to wait for it to be available again after it expired from my phone. Realistic but hopeful, which is the energy I need to take me into 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My list below, as per usual in reverse chrono order and with these indicators: asterisk = ebook, tilde = books we own (which I seemingly forgot to indicate last year).<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~Gamer Trouble: Feminist Confrontations in Digital Culture, by Amanda Phillips Here’s the past, to help me keep track: 2020<\/a>, 2019<\/a>, 2018<\/a>, 2017<\/a>, 2016<\/a>, 2015<\/a>, 2014<\/a>, 2013<\/a>, 2012<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I came into writing this post feeling mopey and down because I didn’t think I’d read that much in 2020. But I was surprised after counting these up to find that I’ve read 39 books this (last [since I’m writing this on January 2]) year, more than I would have guessed. I’m trying to resist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38,117,33],"class_list":["post-3434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books","tag-covid19","tag-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3434"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3444,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3434\/revisions\/3444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
*Remote Control, by Nnedi Okorafor
*Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Secret to Superhuman Strength, by Alison Bechdel
~Menopause, A Comic Treatment, by MK Czerwiec
*No One Is Talking About This, by Patricia Lockwood
*All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Keeble Wilkinson
*We Have Always Been Here, by Lena Nguyen
*There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job, by Kikuko Tsumura
*Feed, by Mira Grant
*Yolk, by Mary H. K. Choi
~Living a Feminist Life, by Sara Ahmed
*Follow Me to Ground, by Sue Rainsford
*Pew, by Catherine Lacey
*You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience, by Tarana Burke and Bren\u00e9 Brown
Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado
*Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, by Ijeoma Oluo
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong
~Comics For a Strange World, by Reza Farazmand
*The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, by Heather McGhee
*The Memory Theater, by Karin Tidbeck
An Untamed State, by Roxane Gay
~Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel
The Need, by Helen Phillips
~Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward
~Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke
*Laziness Does Not Exist, By Devon Price
*Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid
~Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, By Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski
*Disappearing Earth, by Julia Phillips
*Luster, by Raven Leilani
*After Atlas, by Emma Newman
*Double Bind: Women on Ambition, by Robin Romm
*The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett
For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood\u2026 and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education, by Christopher Emdin
*Leave the World Behind, by Rumaan Alam
*Before Mars, by Emma Newman
*The Memory Police, by Yoko Ogawa
~New York Drawings, by Adrian Tomine<\/p>\n\n\n\n