I did a lot of comfort reading this year. I re-read a lot of old favorites like the Dresden Files and Terry Pratchett, a lot of easy books I hadn’t read in years and years like the Little House books and a few of the Star Trek books, and a lot of new but similarly easy books like the rest of the Star Trek books. I read a couple of current events books, and a couple of other new books, too.
Wanderers, by Chuck Wendig, was one of the new books I read, and it was a pretty decent read. It’s about a plague that ends the world, so it got a lot of help from current events, being topical, that kind of thing. I also read Red Shirts, by John Scalzi, which has been out for a few years but it was new to me. I thoroughly enjoyed that one. It’s basically a Star Trek parody, but the names have been changed to protect the innocent, that sort of thing. It was a lot of fun, and pretty funny.
I re-read most of the Little House books a couple of months ago, which I hadn’t read since I was a kid. They’re kids’ books so I chewed through them over a weekend, and walked away mostly amused by the fact that apparently you couldn’t turn your back on Pa Ingalls for a single hot second without him tossing up a house and plowing a field on any spare bit of land he stumbled over. Also, holy hell, there’s a lot of racism in those books I’d completely forgotten. At one point Pa Ingalls helps put on a minstrel show in black face. Like, okay, it was a long time ago, but damn.
2020 Reading List
- A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America, Philip Rucker & Carol Leonnig (Got about a third of the way through it and gave up. Super dry. Might try it again in a few years.)
- STP: The Last Best Hope, Una McCormack
- World War Z, Max Brooks
- ST: Uhura’s Song, Janet Kagan
- ST: The IDIC Epidemic, Jean Lorrah
- ST: The Vulcan Academy Murders, Jean Lorrah
- Raising Steam, Terry Pratchett
- ST: Ishmael, Barbara Hamby
- Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett
- The Truth, Terry Pratchett
- Wanderers, Chuck Wendig
- Thud!, Terry Pratchett
- Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
- Snuff, Terry Pratchett
- Jingo, Terry Pratchett
- The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
- Feet of Clay, Terry Pratchett
- I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara
- Red Shirts, John Scalzi
- Peace Talks, Jim Butcher
- Too Much and Never Enough, Mary Trump
- The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle
- Battle Ground, Jim Butcher
- Side Jobs, Jim Butcher
- Brief Cases, Jim Butcher
- Cold Days, Jim Butcher
- Skin Game, Jim Butcher
- ST: Spock’s World, Diane Duane
- The Stand, Stephen King
- ST: The Three-Minute Universe, Barbara Paul
- ST: The Pandora Principle, Carolyn Clowes
- ST: Doctor’s Orders, Diane Duane
- ST: Federation, Garfield Reeves-Stevens & Judith Reeves-Stevens
- Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
- On the Banks of Plum Creek, Laura Ingalls Wilder
- By the Shores of Silver Lake, Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Little Town on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
- The Long Winter, Laura Ingalls Wilder
- These Happy Golden Years, Laura Ingalls Wilder
- STTNG: Debtor’s Planet, WR Thompson
- ST: Killing Time, Della Van Hise
- ST: The Tears of the Singers, Melinda Snodgrass
- STTNG: Infiltrator, WR Thompson
- The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus, L. Frank Baum
- STTNG: Spartacus, TL Mancour
- STTNG: The Peacekeepers, Gene DeWeese
