Books I read in 2019
1. Rest
This one took me a couple months to get through because I only read it on vacations 😎
I’m already a pretty big proponent of relaxing living, but I really enjoyed the amount of research and citation that went into this. The chapter about hobbies and deep play was my favourite. Also this quote:
By Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
2. The Advantage
Mandatory work reading. Definitely falls into the category of ‘management books that could be blog posts’.
By Patrick Lencioni
3. Ambiguity Machine and Other Stories
Enjoyed the title story about a chronoscope and ancient Indian poet, but found things less interesting as I went through.
By Vandana Singh
4. Amberlough
Very enjoyable gay political spy thriller set in a fantasy world based on the 1920s. Not a book to read in short bursts.
By Lara Elena Donnelly
5. Black Helicopters
So good. Cthulhu mythos themed spy story where almost all the characters are women. Lovecraft would have hated that :)
By Caitlin R. Kiernan
6. The Napoleon of Crime
Great non-fiction about Adam Worth, arguably the most successful thief in history and inspiration for Sherlock Holmes character Moriarty. Also includes a lot of excellent descriptions of Victorian society (they were all bonkers) and early New York history (everyone was a criminal).
By Ben Macintyre
7. Articulating Design Decisions
Work book. Good if you’re a designer and need to talk about design with people who aren’t.
By Tom Greever
8. The Making of a Manager
Another work book. Not bad, but worth keeping in mind it’s written by someone who has only worked at Facebook - a horrible company.
By Julie Zhou
9. The City in the Middle of the Night
Wow kind of disappointing second book by Anders. Extremely cool world building, extremely idiotic characters.
By Charlie Jane Anders
10. How To Do Nothing
Really great book about resisting the attention economy and just like, enjoying the birds for a bit.
By Jenny Odell
11. The Golden Compass
Saw HBO is remaking this so I reread it to prepare. Still a great book.
By Philip Pullman
12. The Night Tiger
Loved her first book, loved the second also. This one was a little less blatantly fantastic, more about Confucius lore and humans, but some solid were tiger action.
By Yangze Choo
13. The Past
Not my normal sort of book (family drama) but the writing was very very nice.
By Tessa Hadley
14. The Demon Lord of California
Wtf did I just read?
By Jeanne Marcella
15. Worlds Enough & Time
Collection of speculative fiction short stories that were all really great! Good pacing and complex world building stuffed so successfully into short format. Author knows what he’s doing.
My favourite was the story about climbing K2 with an alien preying mantis.
By Dan Simmons
16. Revolutions
Pretty good! The pacing was a bit weird but it seems like the author just really wanted the characters to wander around on mars for several chapters doing nothing and I respect that.
By Felix Gilman
17. Dune
I want a cone of silence.
By Frank Herbert
18. River of Teeth
Wild ride. Kind of violent western but with hippos instead of horses and super lgbt+ positive.
By Sarah Gailey
19. Magic For Liars
Author double feature for book club. I’m not usually into murder mysteries but I only managed to figure out half of it by the end so good job.
By Sarah Gailey
20. The Subtle Knife
Continuing on.
By Philip Pullman
21. Gods of Jade and Shadow
Yess loved this. Jazz time Mexico, lots of Aztec death gods. Satisfying slow burn romance.
Will def read again.
By Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
22. The Amber Spyglass
Done. Still good as an adult.
By Philip Pullman
23. Hollow Kingdom
Cool premise - zombie apocalypse from the POV of a domesticated crow. Not great execution. There was a good part where a cat decides an orangutan escaped from the zoo is now his pet.
24. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
Maybe not completely accurate and missing some vital stuff, but really enjoyable overview of the Mongol empire in the 1200s and the lasting effects.
25. Carry On
Cute.
By Rainbow Rowell
26. Gideon the Ninth
Can’t go wrong with lesbian necromancers in space.
By Tamsyn Muir
27. Strange Practice
Cool premise but really not good. Main character is a doctor to the supernatural (cool) but spends most of the book holed up and hiding with a bunch of old vampires (boring).
By Vivian Shaw
28. This is How You Lose the Time War
Awesome. So good. Loved it.
By Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
29 + 30. Meg: Hell’s Aquaruim & Nightstalkers
Some relaxing holiday reading.
By Steve Alten
31. Over Sea, Under Stone
I didn’t read these as a kid, but I think I would have liked them then.
By Susan Cooper
32. The Fear Institute
Kinda messy plot wise but great characters so whatever.
By Johnathan L Howard
33. The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza
Not bad but I think I was not the intended audience. Something I did really like was the high amount of queer characters where that wasn’t a plot point. They just were 👍🏼
By Shaun David Hutchinson
34. The Brothers Cabal
Went downhill once the main character got his soul back imo.
By Johnathan L Howard
35. The Guest Cat
Book club pick. Very beautifuly written and just generally relaxing and nice to read.
By Takashi Hiraide
36. Childgrave
Pretty creepy but enjoyable.
My first book from Valencourt because I’ve been too scared to give them a try up until now.
By Ken Greenhall
37. Authority
Been sitting on this one for a bit waiting for the right vibes. Plane ride in a snowstorm was perfect.
Good. Weird. Purchased the 3rd.
By Jeff Vandermeer
38. The Starless Sea
A book to really luxuriate in.
By Erin Morgenstern