286/250

Let’s see, in 2019 I finally got around to reading Jane Austen’s six novels; I first read Pride and Prejudice and wasn’t a big fan, Sense and Sensibility was next and improved my dispensation somewhat, then Emma was very good and Mansfield Park was awesome, Northanger Abbey was weird but finally I decided I liked it, and lastly was Persuasion which is the most recent I read but the one I remember the least about.

I almost finished up reading my way through Nabokov’s novels - only his last one to go. None of them made my top 5 of the year but Pnin and Bend Sinister were both excellent, and Lolita not far off. Ada, or Ardor was enjoyable at first but became quite disagreeable; too long, it was.

I read most but failed to read all 18 novels that made up the 2019 Tournament of Books, still only done that once, a glorious achievement I hope, as ever, to finally repeat this year. As always I loved some of the picks (Milkman, The Overstory, My Sister the Serial Killer) and disliked some (So Lucky, The Dictionary of Animal Languages). The Tournament of Books is brilliant, I look forward to it every year, it gets me to read more contemporary fiction than I ever would otherwise.

I only read one Dickens last year, very early on, and then never returned to my favorite author. We’ll see how 2020 goes; David Copperfield is next up I believe, which will be a re-read but as I’d currently pick it as my favorite novel I’m interested to see if I’ll still think so after a second time through.

Top 5 reads of 2019, being tickled that my top 2 are by Irish authors:

1)Anna Burns - Milkman
2)Sally Rooney - Normal People
3)Charles Dickens - Dombey and Son
4)Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
5)Ada Limón - Bright Dead Things : poems

2019年讀完最有感的20本書

1. 惡血／約翰．凱瑞魯
2. 我有關聲譽、財富和權勢的簡單思索／唐諾
3. 我相信世界可以改變／李容馬
4. 大路／張贊波
5. 謊言／金琸桓
6. 給力／珮蒂．麥寇德
7. 快閃大對決／麥可．路易士
8. 旅行與讀書／詹宏志
9. 誰說人是誠實的！／丹．艾瑞利
10. 單車失竊記／吳明益
11. 13.67／陳浩基
12. 人生海海／麥家
13. 第五風暴／麥可．路易士
14. 師父／諾姆．布羅斯基
15. 富國的糖衣／張夏準
16. 推拿／畢飛宇
17. 真確／漢斯．羅斯林、奧拉．羅斯林、安娜．羅朗德
18. 小數據獵人／馬汀．林斯壯
19. 思考的藝術／魯爾夫．杜伯里
20. 推力／理查．塞勒、凱斯．桑思坦 ( )

It's that time of year again, so let's review!

I made an initial goal of 65 and blew past that mid-autumn, mostly due to the decision in summer to read and/or revisit juvenile literature, especially historical fiction with Asian American protagonists but also American Girl historical series that debuted after I aged out of the target demographic. I raised my goal to 100, keeping that in mind but still surpassed it! (left it at 65 on the GR challenge to remember where I initially expected to be though). This is also the first year I used Brock Roberts (LetsRead on youtube)' spreadsheet to keep track of statistics so now I have specific numbers for this- here is a link to the 2020 version!

Thanks to the American Girl reads, 38% of the titles read fell under Historical Fiction (but because they're short, historical fiction only made up 26% of my pages). I've said before on r/52books that we shouldn't feel obligated to only read adult books- if you read it, it counts, and read what you want. My 2019 reads backup those words- 38% read were aimed for adults, 27% were from the YA section, 14% were middle grade (juvenile lit, but chapter books typically >100 pages for tweens), and 22% for kids. Fantasy may have been my third highest category (as mentioned, 1 was historical fiction and 2 was non-fiction) but it took the crown for largest share of pages. This is unsurprising as I started a Wheel of Time reread in light of show casting announcements and read through all of [a:Sarah J Maas|18765682|Sarah J Maas|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]'s A Crown of Thorns and Roses series and most of the Throne of Glass books.

The more startling stat (and part of why I wanted to use Brock's spreadsheet) was tracking the costs and ratio of acquired books to read books. I acquired 208 books (104 were checked out from the library), but only read 95 of them (currently reading 3). I also spent more than I budgeted, and while I can pinpoint why (sometimes Prime has really good deals and also those Friends of the Library used book sales...) I need to read through what I buy instead of hoarding. I looked at my 2018 year in review and noted then that "only" 29 of my 70 books read were from my shelf. This year was a more abysmal stat- 20/109 were either purchased or already on the shelf (there are two that I read that aren't on GR because kickstarter etc., and I'm not bothered enough to make an entry for them). Spreadsheeting was a useful exercise though, and I plan on doing it again to see if I can change my trends.

Revisiting goals from last year:

GOALS FOR 2019:
- actually try recipes in the cookbooks I read
- continue to explore the diversity of the Asian diaspora
- read more books by LGBTQ authors, particularly trans and enby writers
- read and finish at least two 'book club' selections in the designated month

Quantitatively, 70 books is *a lot*. Even going with YA and novellas. There's some self-selection in that goodreads power users tend to be ambitious readers, so there's no reason to feel inadequate seeing some people go 100-200 in a year. Given I have a wedding to plan, probably going to dial it back down to 65, which is still a book and a half a week.

Broadly, I don't think I hit most of these. I did not succeed in the first one and will add that to my 2020 goals because it still seems like something I should try. I did not go as widely in the Asian America diaspora, though I did revisit childhood favorites like Laurence Yep and considered what historical fiction is available for people like me and my ancestors- where are we main characters, or do we serve supporting roles in someone else's narrative? Unfortunately, I also only read two trans authors ([a:Daniel Mallory Ortberg|18433804|Daniel Mallory Ortberg|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and [a:Samantha Allen|18062237|Samantha Allen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1527448971p2/18062237.jpg]), though I do have some TBR on hand to get to. Re: book club- I read [b:The City of Brass|32718027|The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy, #1)|S.A. Chakraborty|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1491417547l/32718027._SX50_.jpg|53299478] when r/Fantasy was doing it, and started [b:Steel Crow Saga|43264755|Steel Crow Saga|Paul Krueger|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553259306l/43264755._SY75_.jpg|67144258] when Books & Boba had it but am still working on it. I followed along with r/Fantasy's Wheel of Time read but did not keep up with them either. I never got around to my Little House reread that I wanted to do after reading [b:Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder|33911349|Prairie Fires The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder|Caroline Fraser|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1499741011l/33911349._SY75_.jpg|54876814] and [b:Pioneer Girl|18114054|Pioneer Girl|Bich Minh Nguyen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1375060389l/18114054._SY75_.jpg|25441284] in 2018.

Like my library habits, I'm just going to hit renew on all of these goals for 2020. Per my spreadsheet records, 82% of what I read in 2019 came from the library, and while I feel great about supporting a local service (and honestly saving $$ for books I want to read but not necessarily own), I have so many books on my shelves at home I haven't read. I'm going to add a goal of 1 shelf book per month because that seems doable- I usually have one I'm actively reading anyway ever since I realized it's bad citizenship to take publicly owned library books with me in the bathroom- and I need to actually read what I buy instead of hoarding. We're now within wedding year and I'm only slightly further along in planning than I was then, so I don't expect to hit 100 books again but if I continue pursuing YA/JV books alongside grownup stuff, putting my goal at 80. I only read one wedding planning book last year, but there's a stack from a friend that I should attempt to get through, so those should also be 2020 reads. ( )

Oh, 2019: you kicked my ass on all levels. Teaching a quadruple load of courses, with over 400 students (just in the wake of my father dying in the last days of 2018 as well as losing a very good friend of mine, both of which hit me harder than I expected), I barely had any time for much leisure reading—let alone for sleep. And this will continue…

So I had better get used to not having much time for fun reading, less time for reviewing, but still perusing my Goodreads timeline for reading suggestions, friends’ reviews, and just keeping up with the one corner of the internet that I haven’t given up on due to the folks here.


And yet, thanks to Goodreads, I see that I somehow managed to read 19,930 pages in 2019, albeit across a meagre 66 books. At least that’s something, right?

My one reading regret of 2019 was beginning Trollope’s The Last Chronicle of Barset in November, thinking that I’d be able to finish it before the year’s end; but I’m happy to bring Trollope along with me into 2020, even if I can only manage a chapter here, a chapter there.
Still, I had hoped to finish re-reading the Barsetshire novels and move on to re-reading the Pallisers in 2020. Best laid plans...

The most massive book I read was Lucy Ellmann’s much-talked-about and divisive Ducks, Newburyport, and it was probably one of the best books I read in 2019. Here’s a list of a few others that I really dug or that I think others should have or need to be reading; this does not include many wonderful books I re-read this year, including one my perennial favorites, Virginia Woolf’s The Waves. Some are links to my reviews, when I did have time to review them; others are just links to the book pages here on Goodreads:

Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage

Anthony Trollope’s The Small House at Allington
Alan Hollinghurst’s The Sparsholt Affair
Elizabeth Taylor’s At Mrs. Lippincote’s
Gore Vidal’s Messiah
Daša Drndić’s Belladonna

Barry Unsworth’s The Hide
Anita Brookner’s Fraud

Rose Tremain’s Trespass

Deborah Levy’s The Man Who Saw Everything

Edna O’Brien’s Girl

Here’s to a wonderful 2020, book friends; and also, here’s to tackling all of our to-read piles, with many wonderful new releases on their way to add more titles to them—I’m thinking especially of Garth Greenwell’s latest, Cleanness (due out next week), and also my favorite queer poet Aaron Shurin, whose new collection, The Blue Absolute, is out next month. ( )