My 2020 in Books

Posted on January 23, 2021 by chadwickginther

One of my goals for 2020, and really the only one I wholly succeeded in, was to read more than I had in 2019. I thought it would help to keep track of what I knocked off Mount Tsundoku (and it did!).

Being a little more systematic about my reading plans certainly helped. Now I’m pulling out an actual to-read pile to stack on the nightstand. I’m limiting the stack to five books (usually), which seems doable for the month, even though odds are I won’t get through them all each month. Occasionally comics and graphic novels or roleplaying games jump the queue, but I’m trying to get through the pile in the order I stack them. For my first reading stack, I grabbed the first five shinys to catch my eye, but since then I’ve added criteria to diversify my reading a bit. My intention is for each to-read pile to contain at least one book by a BIPOC or LGBTQ2S+ author, one book by a woman, one non-fiction book, and one book by an author I know personally (I’ve accumulated a lot of these over the years, and I’ve been a bit slower to get to many of them than I’d like. Sorry, friends!).

Since I had success with my 2020 reading plan, I made a spreadsheet to track my reading more in depth, and see if there’s anything I can do to tweak it and make even more out of my 2021 reading year. I might add a new-to-me category to my tracking this year as well.

Here’s how 2020 went:

I cracked open 90 books, and finished 89 of them. I honestly thought I would’ve abandoned more books than that, but I’m still pretty stubborn about finishing what I start, book-wise. 30 of my books were rereads, and 36 were graphic novels, which inflates the number a bit, but I’m still totally counting them (especially during the trashfire that was 2020).

I read 10 books by BIPOC authors and 7 by authors I know to be LGBTQ2S+. I’d like to improve both of those numbers in 2021, but am still pretty happy that everything I read came off of my shelves and I spent most of a year hitting my to-read stack goals without having to order a new book or visit the library to make my stacks. I will likely have to prop up the home shelves with some new additions by the end of 2021 to keep this category going.

Only 29 of my books were by women, which doesn’t surprise me given the amount of old graphic novel rereads that were on the list. The ratio is a bit better when compared to my new reads for the year, but I’d hoped for closer to 50-50 parity, and will be aiming for an equal mix again in 2021.

I caught up on 8 books written by friends. Sorry it took me so long!

Only 5 non-fiction books were finished in 2020. I tend to read non-fiction much more slowly than fiction, as I often make notes to myself of things I’d like to remember, or things that give me story ideas, but I’d still hoped for more. At least this should be an easy goal to beat this year.

I read 12 roleplaying game handbooks in 2020, which means I probably read more RPGs than I played in game sessions. It was not a good year for gaming for me. What games I played were fun, but pandemic brain definitely caused me to step back from actual game sessions (and as good as Roll20 is at what it does, I vastly prefer to have my gaming take place in person).

Of the 90 books I cracked open in 2020, I liked 70 of them enough to recommend to others, and there were no real stinkers. Even the book I set down had some pretty admirable qualities, it just wasn’t for me.

Top Fiction Reads

Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
The Bone Mother by David Demchuk
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Revenge by Yoko Ogawa
Armed in Her Fashion by Kate Heartfield

Top Non-Fiction Reads:

Story Genius by Lisa Cron
The Skeleton Crew by Deborah Halber

Top Graphic Novel Reads:

Heathen Vol. 1 by Natasha Alterici
Criminal: Bad Weekend by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Criminal: Cruel Summer by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

Top RPG Reads:

Spectaculars by Scratchpad Publishing
Vaesen by Free League

Everything I read in 2020:

Here’s what I read in January.

Here’s what I read in February.

Here’s what I read in March.

Here’s what I read in April.

Here’s what I read in May.

Here’s what I read in June.

Here’s what I read in July.

Here’s what I read in August.

Here’s what I read in September.

Here’s what I read in October.

Here’s what I read in November.

Here’s what I read in December.

And my first to-read stack of 2021:

The January 2021 to-read pile: Hungover by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty, The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler, Mahu Surfer by Neil S. Plakcy, The Prairie Bridesmaid by Daria Salamon, and Savage Legion by Matt Wallace.

I’ve already broken my five books rule! After choosing my first five for 2021, I remembered that I’d planned to kick off the year reading Hungover, and didn’t want to bounce anything off the list.

Here’s to a great year of reading in 2021! What’s on your nightstand, friends?

The 2020 Reading List: September

Posted on September 26, 2020 by chadwickginther

Since one of my writing goals for 2020 was also to read more, I thought it would help to keep track of what I knocked off Mount Tsundoku. Here’s as good a place as any to post what I’ve read in 2020 to keep me honest, and what I thought of each book immediately after finishing.

I’ve decided to be a little more systematic about my reading plans. Now I’m pulling out an actual to-read pile to stack on the nightstand. I’m limiting the stack to five books, which seems doable for the month, even though odds are I won’t get through them all each month. Occasionally comics and graphic novels or roleplaying games might jump the queue, but I’m trying to get through the pile in the order I stack them. The first time I did this, I basically grabbed the first five shinys to catch my eye, but for my next stack, I plan on adding some criteria to diversify my reading a bit. My intention is for each to-read pile to contain at least one book by a BIPOC or LGBTQ2S+ author, one book by a woman, one non-fiction book, and one book by an author I know personally (I’ve accumulated a lot of these over the years, and I’ve been a bit slower to get to many of them than I’d like. Sorry, friends!).

Here’s the to-read stack for September!

I’m hoping to make it through all of these due to Halloween-related reasons. I want to curate a spoopy reading list for October.

September:

Vaesen: A Wicked Secret by Free League: A companion book of four mysteries for use with the Vaesen Nordic Horror Roleplaying Game, also from Kickstarter. I really enjoyed reading each of the four mysteries. I think they’d all bring something interesting to the table. I typically don’t run modules when I run games, and because of that I think the book’s layout might cause me some consternation when I try to run these, but with a bit of extra prep, that’ll be a small issue. The mysteries cover a number of different locales and seasons, which is great. They’re all rural though, and I kind of wish there was at least one in the city where the players are supposed to be based.

Snakes and Earrings by Hitomi Kanehara (translated by David Karashima): A short little crime adjacent book full of kind of shitty people who were very compelling to read about. Body modification is a big theme, the book’s title gets its Snakes from a character who split his tongue, and its narrator who’s obsessed with getting larger and larger plugs for her earrings, and later decides to pursue forking her own tongue. Pain and pleasure bleed together in this twisted story. If any of Kanehara’s other works are translate into English, I’d check them out.

Kraken Bake by Karen Dudley: The second book in Dudley’s Epikurean Epic novels. This one was sort of a reread, as I read the book back when it was in manuscript format. It was even funnier than I remembered! Anachronistic and punny in delicious way. While I’m sad there don’t seem to be any more books in her series, Dudley gives the beleaguered Pelops a good send off here, and it makes for a satisfying ending for the character.

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice: I first encountered Waubgeshig Rice when he read from his story collection Midnight Sweatlodge at Winnipeg’s THIN AIR festival. I’ve been meaning to read this one for a while, ever since I saw Rice on a panel about the Indigenous post-apocalypse at a convention in Ottawa. This was a tough read at times, but worth it, I think. It hit home reading about a mysterious apocalypse during the COVID-19 pandemic, and while maybe not my smartest choice of reading material for these anxious days, I also found I couldn’t put it down. Really looking forward to reading more of Rice’s work.

We Don’t Need Another Hero by Sierra Dean: I’m most familiar with Dean’s Secret McQueen series, but this was a fun little one off. I burned through this one, and sorry-not-sorry for the pun considering the protagonist Rebecca “Bex” Beckett has fire control powers. This is a superhero story, and I’d like to see Dean play in this genre playground again even if she doesn’t return to these particular characters.

Hellboy Volume 2: Wake the Devil by Mike Mignola: This was a reread. I finished We Don’t Need Another Hero but wasn’t ready to start a new book right before going to sleep, but also wasn’t ready to go to sleep, so I grabbed one of the nearest graphic novels I could reach. This has long been one of my favourite arcs in the Hellboy series, and I’m pretty stoked about the upcoming Hellboy RPG, so this whim may have spurred a full series reread.

Hellboy Volume 1: Seed of Destruction by Mike Mignola and John Byrne: Another reread. “May have” indeed. Rereading the first Hellboy collection reminds me how much I loved Guillermo del Toro’s take on the character, how badly I wanted to see a third movie starring Ron Perlman, and how disappointed I was in the most recent cinematic outing. The story and Mignola’s art is definitely holding up better than my old paperback, which is starting to show its use!

Hellboy Volume 3: The Chained Coffin and Other Stories by Mike Mignola: Another reread. I think this is one of my favourite collections in the Hellboy series. I love the anthology style for a character like Hellboy, lots of short bursts of weirdness from various points in the character’s career. I also appreciate the little asides Mignola offers before each story about its origin.

Hellboy Volume 4: The Right Hand of Doom by Mike Mignola: Continuing my Hellboy reread. I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the previous collection, but it does include what is probably my favourite three panel sequence in comics. Also, Hellboy falls through a lot more floors than I remembered.

Hellboy Volume 5: The Conqueror Worm by Mike Mignola: Lobster Johnson! This volume was my first introduction to Mignola’s pulp-inspired hero. Characters like Lobster Johnson, the Shadow, and the Phantom are definitely my jam. One of the reasons I created my Midnight Man character for short stories was to dip my toes in that pool. A big turning point for Hellboy in this volume, which I really enjoyed revisiting.

Hellboy Volume 6: Strange Places by Mike Mignola: Another anthology of shorter tales, and one that also contains another of my favourite Hellboy panels. I think some of the stories in this one came out around the same time as the Hellboy movie, so Mignola wanted to get out ahead of it with some of the origin of his cosmic horror side of the ‘verse.

Hellboy Volume 7: The Troll Witch and Other Stories by Mike Mignola, P. Craig Russell, and Richard Corben: Another anthology of shorter tales, and the last one in my personal collection. Not my favourite Hellboy volume, even if I loved the titular story. I’ve found over the years I don’t enjoy reading Hellboy when it isn’t also illustrated by Mignola. Artist Duncan Fegredo comes closest for me, but this was the point where I stopped buying the book. Might have to check out further volumes again from the library down the road and get caught up.

The Science of Monsters: The Origins of the Creatures We Love to Fear by Matt Kaplan: I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting with this one, but it somehow didn’t fulfill those nebulous expectations. Kaplan organized it in a sort of chronological run through the human-monster experience, which led to a bit of my disappointment, as I didn’t particularly enjoy ending the book with a chapter on aliens. I understand the why, it just wasn’t what I wanted. Despite that issue, The Science of Monsters was an entertaining read (I particularly enjoyed the salty footnotes) but it didn’t make me wish to rush out to try Kaplan’s follow up, Science of the Magical. Maybe someday.

Atomic Robo Volume 1: Atomic Robo and the Fightin’ Scientists of Tesladyne by Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener, Ronda Pattison, and Jeff Powell: Another reread started because I finished a book before I was ready to go to sleep. I can clearly see the line from my Hellboy reread to the start of my Atomic Robo reread. They share a lot of similar bones, and I think both heroes would get along, and enjoy using their violence on giant monsters, extradimensional threats, and undying Nazi scientists. Atomic Robo has a more science fiction feeling compared to the folklore and cosmic horror of Hellboy, and the humour is a little more in your face, but I love it.

Here’s what I’ve got on deck for October!

You may notice there’s six books instead of my usual five, but I’ve reread A Night in the Lonesome October a chapter a night in October for the last several years, and 2020 isn’t taking that away from me. You may also notice a CZP title in there, and while I’ve severed ties with them, I purchased this before that went down and I don’t want to punish the author. David Demchuck got the rights back to the book, and I believe there’s a new edition pending, so check that one out if it intrigues and support another author who was taken advantage of by their publisher.