2020 Book Roundup

I'm back, baby! I took a very extended leave of absence last year for reasons which I think need no real explaining. It was a stressful year for everyone and for me the added stress of trying to stay on top of all of the reviews I was meant to write became more burdensome than enjoyable so I took a break. 😊 So with that being said, I've decided that going forward I won't be trying to play catch up. I'll be reviewing in real-time which might mean more than one book per post or it might mean more than one post a week. I haven't decided if I'm going to stick with a Friday posting schedule or not because my work life is a bit chaotic at the moment and I don't want to commit too early and have to renege. You can either sign up to be notified when I post through Blogger or you can follow me on Twitter to know exactly when I've posted. 

Okay enough of this intro let's get on to the books I read in 2020! Spoiler alert: It was a LOT and all of the trackers I use had different final counts so I'm definitely missing a few titles. (They're most likely comics as I went on a bit of a spree and just enjoyed myself without noting anything down.) 😬 [A/N: I'm going to try to post separately about the books that I DNF'd (Did Not Finish) last year but that will most likely be up late this month as I like to write little paragraphs about why I didn't finish them which takes me ages to write up.]

1. Over the Top by Jonathan Van Ness
2. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
3. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: The Poetry of Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers & Luke Flowers
4. The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem (one of my faves of the year)
5. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
6. Memoirs Found in a Bathtub by Stanislaw Lem
7. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
8. And be a Villain by Rex Stout
9. Homicide Trinity by Rex Stout
10. The Black Mountain by Rex Stout
11. The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes (one of my faves of the year - I honestly can't believe I read this just last year)
12. The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa & translated from Japanese by Stephen Snyder
13. Book Love by Debbie Tung (one of my faves of the year - bought all of her other books)
14. And Four to Go by Rex Stout
15. Do You Mind if I Cancel by Gary Janetti
16. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (one of my faves of the year - bought the entire series)
17. Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks 
18. Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout
19. Quiet Girl in a Noisy World by Debbie Tung
20. Caging Skies by Christine Leunens
21. Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (one of my faves of the year)
22. Before Midnight by Rex Stout
23. Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire (loved it as much as the 1st in the series)
24. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion (one of my faves of the year - read the week before NYC went into lockdown)
25. The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge & illustrated by Chris Riddell
26. Dry Store Room No. 1 by Richard Fortey
27. Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads by Stephen T. Asma
28. In Real Life by Cory Doctorow & illustrated by Jen Wang
29. Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku
30. So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson (one of my faves of the year)
31. How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman (one of my faves of the year - ordered her other book about the Tudor period)
32. The Art of the English Murder by Lucy Worsley (one of my faves of the year)
33. Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert
34. The Complete Mapp and Lucia: Volume 1 by E.F. Benson 
35. Department of Mind-Blowing Theories by Tom Gauld
36. The Fragile Earth: Writing from The New Yorker on Climate Change edited by David Reminck & Henry Finder
37. Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth & Sara Lautman
38. The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
39. The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale
40. Sanctuary by V.V. James
41. The Last Stargazers by Emily M. Levesque
42. Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson
43. White Kids by Margaret A. Hagerman
44. Small Doses by Amanda Seales
45. Making Sense by Sam Harris
46. Fossil Men by Kermit Pattison
47. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (one of my faves of the year)
48. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
49. Stargazing by Jen Wang
50. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy
51. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
52. Vampires Never Get Old by multiple authors
53. The Shadows by Alex North (one of my faves of the year)
54. Trixie and Katya's Guide to Modern Womanhood by Trixie Mattel & Katya Zamolodchikova
55. Readers' Advisory Service in the Public Library by Joyce Saricks
56. The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz
57. The Witchfinder's Sister by Beth Underdown (one of my faves of the year)
58. The Helpline by Katherine Collette
59. Operation Frog Effect by Sarah Scheerger (one of my faves of the year)
60. Go With the Flow by Lily Williams & Karen Schneermann
61. The Evolution Man: Or, How I Ate my Father by Roy Lewis
62. Dog Man Unleashed by Dav Pilkey
63. Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea
64. The Class by Frances O'Roark Dowell
65. Hidden Universe Travel Guides: Vulcan by Dayton Ward (one of my faves of the year)
66. Dr. Mutter's Marvels by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz (one of my faves of the year)
67. Redshirts by John Scalzi
68. The Booktalker's Bible by Chappie Langemack
69. Watching the English by Kate Fox
70. Hidden Universe Travel Guides: The Klingon Empire by Dayton Ward (loved this one also)
71. The Power of Onlyness by Nilofer Merchant
72. Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King by William Joyce
73. The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry
74. The Okay Witch by Emma Steinkellner
75. E. Aster Bunnymund and the Warrior Eggs at the Earth's Core by William Joyce
76. Toothiana: Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies by William Joyce
77. The Sandman and the War of Dreams by William Joyce
78. Jack Frost: The End Becomes the Beginning by William Joyce
79. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (one of my faves of the year)
80. The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall-Smith (one of my faves of the year)
81. The Talented Mr. Varg by Alexander McCall-Smith
82. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (one of my faves of the year)
83. Librarian Tales by William Ottens
84. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (one of my faves of the year)
85. The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson (one of my fave series of the year)
86. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
87. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall-Smith
88. The Island by Ragnar Jonasson
89. The Strange Case of the Moderate Extremists by Alexander McCall-Smith
90. Bambert's Book of Missing Stories by Reinhardt Jung
91. The Mist by Ragnar Jonasson
92. Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones (one of my faves of the year)
93. Bowie's Bookshelf by John O'Connell
94. The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries: Volume One by Dorothy L. Sayers
95. The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
96. I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider (loved this so much I bought his other book)
97. The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
98. Daphne and Velma: The Vanishing Girl by Josephine Ruby (SO good that I ordered the other 2)
99. The Shape of Ideas by Grant Snider
100. Winter by Ali Smith
101. Daphne and Velma: The Dark Deception by Morgan Baden
102. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
103. Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom (one of my faves of the year)
104. Earthlings by Sayaka Murata & translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapely Takemori
105. Frontier Grit by Marianne Monson
106. Against Civility by Alex Zamalin
107. Fangs by Sarah Andersen (one of my faves of the year)
108. Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce (ended the year on a high with this one)
109. Archie Volumes 1-6
110. Afterlife with Archie Volume 1
111. Jughead Volumes 1-3
112. Jughead: The Hunger Volumes 1-3
113. Jughead: The Hunger vs. Vampironica Volume 1
114. Jughead's Time Police Volume 1
115. Vampironica Volume 1
116. Vampironica: New Blood Volume 1
117. Blossoms: 666 Volume 1
118. Star Trek: Year Five Volumes 1-2
119. Star Trek Volumes 1-13
120. Star Trek: TNG: Mirror Broken Issues 1-4
121. Star Trek: Boldly Go Volumes 1-3
122. Star Trek: Waypoint Volume 1
123. Star Trek: Alien Spotlight Volumes 1-2
124. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Volume 1
125. Star Trek: Countdown Issues 1-4
126. Star Trek: Manifest Destiny Volume 1
127. Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness Volume 1
128. Star Trek: Spock Reflections Volume 1
129. Castle Waiting Volume 1
130. Back to the Future Volumes 1-3

And the reread books:

1. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

That brings our total count to: 164 books. (I counted each individual issue and/or volume of the comics I read or at least the ones I can remember.) So there's the rundown of everything that I read over the course of last year. Happy New Year!!

**If you're interested in buying any of these books or any books really, you can click here. This will re-direct you to AbeBooks which is a site I use all of the time to find used books at an excellent price. A lot of the time I don't even pay for shipping! Full disclosure: I will receive a commission on all sales made through this link. You will not be charged anything additional for my commission. I wouldn't recommend a site that I didn't use and you are under no obligation to purchase anything. :-) **