Reading in 2020

[luzula]

I didn't have a reading goal for the year, which was good, since it would have fallen by the wayside anyway, because new fandom.

Total number of books read (including novel-length fic): 52
Down from 86, 95, and 114 the previous years before. So that's not much, for me, but of course I wrote a lot instead.

Book authors by gender (judged by name, so there could be mistakes)
Female authors: 35
Male authors: 17

By language read in:
English: 49
Swedish: 2 (wow, last year about 25% of what I read was in Swedish)
Danish: 1

By author's country of origin:
UK: 38
USA: 5
Sweden: 2
And one each from Barbados, Greece, Denmark and Canada.
Ha ha, wow, I guess that's what comes of getting into a British fandom! Usually I have trouble getting the amount of American books below 50%. All but one of the American books were for book club and wouldn't have been read otherwise.

Genre (roughly; some were hard to categorize):
non-fiction: 18
SF: 3
fantasy: 11
historical: 19
YA: 3
romance: 7 (ha ha, I note that I labeled FotH as romance)
Fifteen of the non-fiction books were fic research about 18th century Britain. Lots of historical fiction, too.

Only two of the books were audiobooks (not counting the ones I made, heh).
23 books by new-to-me authors.
Five of them were rereads.
Two of the books were poetry.
22 out of the 34 fiction books passed the Bechdel test.

Most read author: D. K. Broster, obviously, with seven books. Second most read author is a tie between the historian Jeremy Black with three books, and three books in the Comfortable Courtesan series by A L Hall (which I much recommend!).

Least favorite books: Several of my book club books (Witchmark by C L Polk, The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor, Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, Oath of Dogs by Wendy Wagner), including one that I chose because it was standing unread in my bookcase. It is possible that since I was reading so much historical fiction, especially older such, I was not as much in the mood for modern SF&F? Or maybe I wouldn't have been into them regardless--I mean, I was into the Murderbot book.

Favorite new-to-me books in 2020. Links go to my book posts.
Many of D. K. Broster's historical novels!
Fight for a Throne: the Jacobite '45 Reconsidered (2015) by Christopher Duffy (This is so ridiculously detailed and niche that it's not like I'm recommending it for the casual reader. But I have appreciated it extremely as a fic reference, and it's very well written.)
Men of War Lou Falkner (2019) (An enemies-to-friends-to-lovers Age of Sail m/m romance with lovely writing.)
Flemington (1921) by Violet Jacob (The other slashy historical book set in 1745.)
Bruce Lenman's non-fiction about 18th century Jacobites. (Snarky and well-written, with a social perspective.)
The Bull Calves (1947) by Naomi Mitchison (This is a reread, but I just had to include it anyway--it is brilliant! Set in 18th century Scotland, in the aftermath of war and with a female main character. I also really liked The Big House by the same author.)
Bonnie Dundee (1985) by Rosemary Sutcliff (Er, more Scottish history.)
If Not, Winter (2002) by Sappho, trans. Anne Carson (Enjoyed very much despite its fragmentary nature.)
Alfabet (1981) by Inger Christensen (Poetry about humanity and nature. Apricot trees exist!)
Piranesi (2020) by Susanna Clarke (...everyone knows about this.)

Comments

[regshoe]

What a nice detailed analysis—and it sounds like a very interesting and happy year's worth of reading!

Oh, I'm very glad to see Piranesi turn up again. Everyone may know about it, but it makes me very happy to see it on so many 'best of 2020' lists—having loved Susanna Clarke's writing for years I'm delighted her new book is so well-liked already :)

And, ooh, my copy of The Bull Calves arrived today—I'm very excited about it! (although, unless Mitchison has added time travel to her already extensive list of talents, I think it was published in 1947...)

I note that I labeled FotH as romance

But of course! :D

[luzula]

Ha ha, oops, I have corrected the year. Would be delighted to see Naomi Mitchison in the future, though.

By the way, I have a completely unrelated book rec for you! I'm just putting it here: Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac from 1949. It has gorgeous nature writing and interesting thoughts on nature conservation. Have you read it?

A sample: A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges.

[regshoe]

Aww, yes, I have read A Sand County Almanac, several years ago (it was recommended as background reading for the Conservation Science module I did at uni). I loved it—absolutely beautiful descriptions and good and interesting conservation arguments—I thought his view of 'the land ethic' as part of a sort of progressive moral development was especially interesting. Thank you for reminding me of it—I should read it again sometime!

[luzula]

Oh, I'm glad you've read it! I feel satisfied that I correctly predicted it was something you would enjoy. : )

[jesse_the_k]

He's a local hero -- many places and buildings bear his name in Wisconsin.

https://www.aldoleopold.org/

And yet I've never read it. Is there an audio edition you'd recommend?

I'd heard that Danish and Swedish were mutually intelligible in speech, but that Danish's spelling rules are so idiosyncratic that a written version was an uphill climb. Should I retire this as "myth" or do you have particular skill in this regard?

[luzula]

I've never listened to it, so I can't say. But it's very readable in book form, I would say--I've probably read it three times. Actually it's out of copyright for me here in Sweden, though won't be in the US for many years! I could theoretically record it for the European version of Librivox. But since audiobooks of it already exist, I don't feel it's a high priority.

Re: Swedish and Danish, it's the other way round! Easy to read, hard to understand spoken. Well, at least for Swedes.

(I think D K Broster has permanently trained me to replace "around" with "round".)

[seascribble]

Oh, I haven't read Bonnie Dundee. Bit out of my period, but I like Sutcliff.

[luzula]

If you like Sutcliff in general, you'll likely enjoy it!

[starshipfox]

This is such an interesting set of books and statistics! I don't usually analyse my reading patterns, but I would imagine I read a disproportionately high amount by America women. I'm very curious about all the Scottish history ones, and will definitely add some of those to my list... What a coincidence that we both recently read Alphabet!

[luzula]

I got the rec for Alfabet from naraht, maybe you did too?

If you click on my book tag, there's a lot of Scottish history books especially in the first half of 2020, if you want to see in greater detail what they're about and what I thought of them. : )

[starshipfox]

I was given Alphabet as a present which was why I read it! :)

I'll definitely check out your tags.