2019 in Books

Calibre as of Jan 2020

While I continued to read lots of cookbooks in 2019, this was the year of Sequels, Sanderson, and Science Fiction Magazines. On the sequels front, I finished The Cosmere (except for White Sands Vol 3), continued The Expanse, The Asylum Tales, Red Rising, The Dresden Files, The Mogoliad, Wild Cards, and the Illumination Paradox. For Sanderson, I not only finished the Cosmere, but I also started The Reckoners and read from his mentor (Robert Jordan – Wheel of Time) and his protege (Brian McClellan – Powder Mage Trilogy). As for magazines, it was all Clarkesworld, but I wanted to keep the alliteration in that sentence.

I read lots of books on robotics and embedded programming (which I started messing around with in 2019), taking note of projects I’d like to try in my “copious free time.” I read one book along with the Sword and Laser book club: The Calculating Stars. I also started a few series that I’m looking forward to continuing in 2020: Thesaly, Temeraire, Imperial Radch, and the Powder Mage Trilogy. My biggest surprise was how freakin’ weird Skipped Parts was, and surprise that it was made into a movie.

At the time I write this (5 Jan), I have 1454 books and magazines, an increase of 469 books and magazines. Of course, remember that I get ~12 free books from Amazon (of their choosing) and ~12 free books from Tor.com (of their choosing). In addition to that, this year I discovered the magazines that are published by the same company that makes the Raspberry Pi, and added their entire back catalogue (it was free) so that makes up for maybe close to 100 of those. The rest…well, that’s why I’m trying to reign in my Humble Bundle / Storybundle spending. Of those books and magazines, 1112 are unread.

Some Goodreads stats:

  • 19,942 pages across 74 books
  • Shortest book: 4 pages – The Eyes have it
  • Longest book: 814 pages – The Eye of the World (funny they both have “eye” in the title!)
  • Most popular: my re-read of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. (read by >6 million people)
  • Least popular: Cook’s Country 2018 (read by 3 people)
  • My average rating was 3.8 (last year 3.7)

My favorite book was: Clarkesworld Issue 130

In 2019 I read:

  1. What is Obscenity?
  2. Arcanum Unbounded
  3. Python3 Object-Oriented Programming
  4. South’s Best Butts (a cookbook)
  5. The Eye With Which the Universe Beholds Itself
  6. White Sands Vol 2
  7. Then Will the great ocean Wash Deep Above
  8. Churrasco
  9. Riley Parra Season 1
  10. Skipped Parts
  11. All That Outer Space Allows
  12. Strange Dogs
  13. Cook’s Country 2018
  14. Project Fire
  15. Vegetables on Fire
  16. Deadly Class book 1
  17. bowls!
  18. Bread Illustrated
  19. Perseopolis Rising
  20. The Just City
  21. Rachel Khoo’s Kitchen Notebook
  22. Grilled Cheese
  23. The Calculating Stars
  24. Huckleberry
  25. His Majesty’s Dragon
  26. Wild Cards: Aces High
  27. Kingdom Hearts II
  28. Dead Man’s Deal
  29. Sirena
  30. Ancillary Justice
  31. The Eyes Have It
  32. Mr. Spaceship
  33. Childhood’s End
  34. The Mongoliad Book 2
  35. Promise of Blood
  36. Terris
  37. One Night in Sixes
  38. A Mind Forever Voyaging
  39. Clarkesworld 125
  40. Astrophysics for people in a Hurry
  41. Drive
  42. Clarkesworld 126
  43. Deadly Class Book 2
  44. The Circlet Treasury of Erotic Steampunk
  45. Geekomancy
  46. Double Life
  47. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
  48. Love, Fishie
  49. Korean Home Cooking
  50. Getting Started with Arduino
  51. Getting Started with Adafruit Flora
  52. Qt5 Python GUI Programming
  53. Getting Started with Raspberry Pi
  54. The Eye of the World
  55. A Raspberry Pi controlled Robot
  56. Morning Star
  57. Working Stiff
  58. Fool Moon
  59. Make: Bluetooth
  60. Clarkesworld 127
  61. Breasts
  62. Clarkesworld 128
  63. Clarkesworld 129
  64. Cook it in Your Dutch Oven
  65. NBA Jam
  66. Noir
  67. Clarkesworld 130
  68. Grave Peril
  69. Clarkesworld 131
  70. Make: Lego and Arduino Projects
  71. Clarkesworld 132
  72. breakfast: the most important meal of the day
  73. Steelheart
  74. Getting Started with Adafruit Trinket

A reminder that you can find reviews for these books by searching here on this blog.