What I Read in 2020

I wasn’t able to finish Mama’s Last Hug before 2020 ended. I blame Arthur Morgan. Oh, well! 2021 will have a head start.

–January–
1. A Warning, Anonymous
2. How Jesus Became God, Bart Ehrman
3. The Best Cook in the World, Rick Bragg
4. The Guardians, John Grisham
5.  Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy,  Trita Parsi
6. The Most They Ever Had, Rick Bragg
7.  Welcome to Your Brain, Sandra Aamodt
8. Why is Sex Fun?, Jared Diamond
9. Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, Frans de Waal
10. The Heart of the 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman
11. Men in Blue, W.E.B. Griffin
12. Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens
13.  Shiloh: A Novel, Shelby Foote
14.  The Secret Life of Cows, Rosamund Young
15. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning,  Margareta Magnusson

–February–
16. What Pastors Wish Their Church Members Knew, Denise George
17. The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman
18. The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis
19. The Pluto Files, Neil deGrasse Tyson20. The Four Noble Truths of Love: Buddhist Wisdom for Modern Relationships, Susan Piver21. The Fasting Cure, Upton Sinclair
22. The Slave Who Went to Congress, Frye Gaillard
23.  A Sand County Almanac; and Sketches Here and There, Aldo Leopold
24.  The Courageous Eight, William Waheed
25. The Complete Guide to Fasting, Jason Fung
26.  His Way: the Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra,  Kitty Kelley
27. The Planets: The Definitive Visual Guide to Our Solar System, Smithsonian Institute
28. Prague Fatale, Phillip Kerr
29. Braving the Elements: The Stormy History of American Weather, David Laskin
30. The Bodies in the Library, Marty Wingate
31. The Second Sleep, Robert Harris
32. The Ground Beneath Us,  Paul Bogard

–March–
33. The Body in the Library, Agatha Christie
34. American Dirt, Jeanine Cummins
35. The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis. (Reread)
36. Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel
37. Letters from an Astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson
38. Are We There Yet? The American Automobile, Past Present and Driverless, Dan Albert
39. The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great, Benjamin Merkle
40. The True Soldier, Paul Fraser Collard
41. Will My Cat  Eat my Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death, Caitlin Doughty
42. American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793,  Jim Murphy
43. This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor, Adam Kay
44. The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail, Oscar Martinez

–April–
45. Bonaparte’s Sons Richard Howard
46. Star Trek Discovery: Drastic Measures, Dayton Ward
47. Bilbo’s Last Song,  J.R.R. Tolkien (poem)
48. The Making of the British Army, Allan Mallinson
49.  The Warrior Queen: The Life and Legend of Aethelflaed, Joanna Arman
50. The Weather Machine:  A Journey Inside the Forecast, Andrew Blum
51.  The Bright Blue Sky, Max Hennessy
52. Cruel as the Grave,  Sharon Kay Penman
53.  A Brief History of Life in the Middle Ages, Martyn Whitlock

–May–
54. Sideways Stories from Wayside School,  Louis Sachar (reread)
55. 18 Miles: The Epic Drama of Our Atmosphere, Christopher Dewdney
56. Fasting: Spiritual Freedom Beyond our Appetites Lynn Baab,
57. The Body: A Guide for Occupants, Bill Bryson
58.  The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship between Violence and Virtue, Richard Wrangham
59. What the Robin Knows, Jon Young
60. The Mustering of the Hawks, Max Hennessy
61. The Science of Breaking Bad Donna Nelson
62. Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, Oliver Sacks
63. Never Home Alone: The Natural History of Where We Live, Rob Dunn
64. The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Life of Birds, Noah Strycker
65. The Lion at Sea, Max Hennessy
66. Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom, Louis Sachar

–June–
67.  Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel, Tom Wainwright
68. Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America,  Peter Andreas
69.  To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter, Vladimir Bukovsky
70. Scam Me If You Can: Simple Strategies to Outsmart Today’s Ripoff Artists, Frank Abanagle Jr
71.  Ruby Ridge:  The Truth and Tragedy of the Randy Weaver Family, Jess Walter
72. American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing,  Lou Michel
73. To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor, Jeff Shaara
74. The United States of Beer, Dane Huckelbridge,
75.  Star Trek Voyager: Seven of Nine, Christie Golden
76.  Goosebumps #4: Say Cheese and Die!R.L. Stine
77. The Founding Fathers Guide to the US Constitution, Brion McClanahan
78. Er Ist Wieder Da /  Look Who’s Back!,  Timur Vermes

— July–
79. Star Trek Picard: Last Best Hope, Una McCormack
80. Star Trek Enterprise:  Uncertain Logic, Christopher L. Bennett
81. Clutter Free, Kathi Lipp
82. Waco: A Survivor’s Story, David Thibodeau
83. Stoicism and Western Buddhism, Patrick  Ussher
84. By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission, Charles Murray
85. The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss, Jason Fung
86. Gandhi on Non-Violence, Thomas Merton & Mohandas Gandhi
87. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Jordan Peterson
88. Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist, Alston Chase
89. The Ethical Assassin, David Liss (Reread)
90. The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson
91. In the Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson
92. Star Wars: Darth Plagueis, James Luceno
93. Is Reality Optional? …and other Essays, Thomas Sowell
94. The End of October, Lawrence

–August–
95.  The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton
96. Sex and the Unreal City: The Demolition of the Western Mind,  Anthony Esolen
97. How Dante Can Save Your Life, Rob Dreher
98. American Illiad: The Story of the Civil War, Charles Roland
99. The Left, The Right, and the State, Lew Rockwell100.  Reluctant Witnesses: Children’s Voices from the Civil War,  Emmy E. Werner
101.  Shiloh 1862, Winston Groom
102. The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Interviews, 2004-2019,  ed. Scott Horton
103. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, Drew Gilpin Faust
104. Hands of  Mercy:  The Story of Sister-Nurses in the Civil War,  Norah Smaridge
105. The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, Rod Dreher
106. To the Ends of the Universe, Isaac Asimov
107. Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of (Almost) Everything, ed. Gene Healy
108. An Elegant Defense:  The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System, Matt Richtel

–September–
109. Star Trek: Takedown, John Jackson Miller
110. Firefly: The Ghost Machine, James Lovegrove
111. The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt & Greg Lukianoff
112. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
113. Lives in Ruins: Archaeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble, Marilyn Johnson114.  One-Man Air Force, Don S. Gentile115. The Vanishing American Adult, Ben Sasse116.  The School Revolution, Ron Paul117. Resist Much, Obey Little: Remembering Ed Abbey, ed. James Hepworth
118. A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
119. Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace, Carl Safini 120. Star Trek Vanguard: What Judgments Come, Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore 121. American Contempt for Liberty, Walter Williams122. The Forest Unseen, David George Haskell123. The Enemy at the Gate: Hapsburgs, Ottomans, and the Battle for Europe, Andrew Wheatcroft
124.How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America, Brion McClanahan
125. And the Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini126. The Putin Interviews, Oliver Stone127. Lives of Famous Romans, Olivia Coolridge
128. Inside a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know, Alexandra Horowitz129.  Black Wave:  Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the 40-Year Rivalry that Unraveled Culture,  Religion,  and Collective Memory in the Middle East, Kim Gattas130. Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria in WW1, Alexander Watson
131.  The Secret Lives of Backyard Bugs, Judy Burris & Wayne Richards
132. The Demon’s Brood: A History of the Plantaganet Dynasty,  Desmond Seward

–October–
133. The Persian Puzzle, Kenneth Pollack
134.  Star Trek Enigma Tales, Una McCormack
135. The German War: A Nation Under Arms, Nicholas Stargardt136. Command and Control:  Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Incident, and the Illusion of Safety, Eric Schlosser
137. Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, Anna Funder
138. Any Approaching Enemy: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars, Jay Worrall
139. Navajo Weapon:  The Navajo Code Talkers, Sally McClain
140. Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe in Conspiracy Theories, Rob Brotherton
141. Star Trek Vanguard: Storming Heaven,  David Mack
142. Star Trek Vanguard: In Tempest’s Wake, Dayton Ward
143.  Who Killed the Constitution?,  Tom Woods & Kevin Gutzman
144. I Heard  You Paint Houses, Charles Brandt  & Frank Sheeran
145. A Bright Future, Joshua Goldstein & Staffan Qvist
146. Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator, Gary Noesner
147.  Napoleon: Life, Legacy, and Image, Alan Forrest
148. Star Trek DS9: The Long Mirage, David R George III
149. The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West, David McCullough
150. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling (Brit edition – reread)
151. Prelude to Foundation, Isaac Asimov (reread)

–November-
152. Unf– Yourself: How To Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life, Gary John Bishop
153. Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Approach, Steward Brandt
154. Palaces for the People:  How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic LifeEric Klinenberg
155. Firefly: Generations, Tim Lebben
156. The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics,  Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith
157. Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Mary Roach
158. Defeat in the West:  The German Collapse, Milton Shulman  & Ian Jacobs
159. V-2: A Novel of World War 2, Robert Harris
160. The Afghan Campaign, Steven Pressfield
161. A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis
162. Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic,  David Quammen
163. Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation, Jim Kunstler
164. Ready Player Two, Ernest Cline

–December–
165. War Lord, Bernard Cornwell
166. Count Those Buzzards! Stamp Those Grey Mules!Kathryn Tucker Windham
167. You Are Not So Smart: [48] Ways You Delude Yourself, David McRaney
168. Star Trek TNG: Headlong Flight, Dayton Ward
169. Silent Night:  The Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914, Stanley Weintraub
170. Go Ask Alice, Beatrice Sparks
171. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis (Reread)
172. The Hidden Life of Animals, Peter Wohlleben
173. Christmas Tales of Alabama,  Kelly Kazek
174. Life Under Compulsion:  How To Destroy the Humanity of Your Child, Anthony Esolen (reread)
175. Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays, C.S. Lewis
176. The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis (reread)
177. 1913: The Year Before the Storm, Florian Illies
178. Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife, Bart Ehrman
179. The Awakening of Miss Prim, Natalie Sanmartin Fenollera
180.  The Ends of the Earth: The Polar Regions of the World, Isaac Asimov 

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About smellincoffee

Citizen, librarian, reader with a boundless wonder for the world and a curiosity about all the beings inside it.
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5 Responses to What I Read in 2020

  1. Cyberkitten says:

    Impressive! I’m expecting in the high 80’s for 2020. Full year overview on Saturday. Interesting that, yet again, despite many interests in common we have very few intersections…. Here’s looking forward to reading our way through 2021.

  2. Mudpuddle says:

    my word!! did you have to type all those titles? don’t know how many i read; i kept track for several years but lost the capacity to do it somehow… probably around 200 or so…

    • It’s a list I keep up throughout the year. Every time I read a title I enter it into that list, log it on goodreads, and if it’s a science or TBR title I update those lists as well!

  3. Brian Joseph says:

    This is a very impressive list both in quantity and quality.

    I read only a fraction of this number of books.

    Though I have read a few on your list, there are many that i want to read. Hopefully I will get to several of these in the upcoming year.

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