one monkey typing

What I read in 2019, in roughly chronological order.
Some of these are quite short but some are long, In the end I had 112 books and 35922 pages, both an all-time high for me.
These are all on my goodreads "read" list in more detail with ratings and an occasional note.

• Lies Sleeping (Ben Aaronovich, Peter Grant, #7)
  
• How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems (Randall Monroe)
  
• The Book of the Year 2017 (QI elves)
  
• Randomize (Andy Weir)
  
• A Plague of Giants (Kevin Hearne Seven Kennings, #1)
  
• All Systems Red (Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries, #1)
  
• Wyrd Sisters (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #6; Witches #2)
  
• Artificial Condition (Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries, #2)
  
• Rogue Protocol (Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries, #3)
  
• Guards! Guards! (Terry Pratchett)
  
• Early Riser (Jasper Fforde)
  
• Exit Strategy (Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries, #4)
  
• Valence (Jennifer Foehner Wells, Confluence, #4)
  
• Eric (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #9)
  
• Pyramids (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #7)
  
• Witches Abroad (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #12)
  
• Equal Rites (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #3)
  
• Reaper Man (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #11)
  
• Moving Pictures (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #10)
  
• Men at Arms (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #15; City Watch #2)
  
• Lords And Ladies (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #14)
  
• Small Gods (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #13)
  
• Soul Music (Terry Pratchett, Discworld #16)
  
• Children of Time (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
  
• Feet of Clay (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #19)
  
• Interesting Times (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #17)
  
• Maskerade (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #18)
  
• Record of a Spaceborn Few (Becky Chambers, Wayfarers, #3)
  
• Hogfather (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #20)
  
• The Consuming Fire (John Scalzi, The Interdependency, #2)
  
• Jingo (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #21)
  
• The Labyrinth Index (Charles Stross, Laundry Files, #9)
  
• Carpe Jugulum (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #23)
  
• The Last Continent (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #22)
  
• Pinpoint: How GPS Is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds (Greg Milner)
  
• The Truth (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #25)
  
• The Fifth Elephant (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #24)
  
• The Last Hero (Terry Pratchett)
  
• Thief of Time (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #26)
  
• The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #28)
  
• Night Watch (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #29)
  
• The Wee Free Men (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #30)
  
• Monstrous Regiment (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #31)
  
• Home (Nnedi Okorafor, Binti, #2)
  
• The Night Masquerade (Nnedi Okorafor, Binti #3)
  
• Going Postal (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #33)
  
• A Hat Full of Sky (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #32)
  
• Thud! (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #34)
  
• Wintersmith (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #35)
  
• Making Money (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #36)
  
• Tiamat's Wrath (James Corey, The Expanse, #8)
  
• Ancestral Night (Elizabeth Bear, White Space, #1)
  
• Right Ho, Jeeves (PG Wodehouse, Jeeves, #6)
  
• Unseen Academicals (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #37)
  
• A Rare Book of Cunning Device (Ben Aaronovich, Peter Grant, #6.5)
  
• Terminal Uprising (Jim C. Hines, Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse #2)
  
• Vanguard (Jack Campbell, The Genesis Fleet, #1)
  
• I Shall Wear Midnight (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #38)
  
• The Last Dragonslayer (Jasper Fforde, The Last Dragonslayer, #1)
  
• Snuff (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #39)
  
• Backpacker The Complete Guide to Backpacking: Field-Tested Gear, Advice, and Know-How for the Trail
  
• Raising Steam (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #40)
  
• The Shepherd's Crown (Terry Pratchett, Discworld, #41; Tiffany Aching, #5)
  
• The Science of Discworld (Terry Pratchett, The Science of Discworld, #1)
  
• Darwin's Watch (Terry Pratchett, The Science of Discworld, #3)
  
• The Globe (Terry Pratchett, The Science of Discworld, #2)
  
• Ascendant (Jack Campbell, The Genesis Fleet, #2)
  
• Atmosphæra Incognita (Neal Stephenson)
  
• Triumphant (Jack Campbell, The Genesis Fleet, #3)
  
• Judgement Day (Terry Pratchett, The Science of Discworld, #4)
  
• Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It (Adam Savage)
  
• Where the Hell is Tesla? (Rob Dircks)
  
• Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery (Scott Kelly)
  
• The Calculating Stars (Mary Robinette Kowal, Lady Astronaut, #1)
  
• The Book of the Year 2018: Your Definitive Guide to the World’s Weirdest News (QI elves)
  
• The Fated Sky (Mary Robinette Kowal, Lady Astronaut, #2)
  
• Spinning Silver (Naomi Novik)
  
• The Management Style of the Supreme Beings (Tom Holt)
  
• Leave it to Jeeves (PG Wodehouse)
  
• Heroes: Mortals and Monsters, Quests and Adventures (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #2)
  
• Trail of Lightning (Rebecca Roanhorse, The Sixth World, #1)
  
• Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest (PG Wodehouse)
  
• Just One Damned Thing After Another (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St Mary's, #1)
  
• A Symphony of Echoes (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #2)
  
• Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms (Hannah Fry)
  
• The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America (Bill Bryson)
  
• Aftershocks (Marko Kloos, The Palladium Wars, #1)
  
• A Second Chance (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #3)
  
• Notes from a Small Island (Bill Bryson)
  
• No Country for Old Gnomes (Delilah S Dawson, The Tales of Pell, #2)
  
• To Be Taught, If Fortunate (Becky Chambers)
  
• A Trail Through Time (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #4)
  
• No Time Like the Past (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #5)
  
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St Mary's, #6)
  
• Lies, Damned Lies, and History (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St Mary's, #7)
  
• And the Rest is History (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St Mary’s, #8)
  
• Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (David W. Blight)
  
• Roman Holiday (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St Mary's #3.5)
  
• Ships and Stings and Wedding Rings (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #6.5)
  
• The Very First Damned Thing (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St Mary's, #0.5)
  
• When a Child is Born (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St Mary's #2.5)
  
• My Name is Markham (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St Mary's, #7.6)
  
• Christmas Present (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St Mary's #4.5)
  
• The Great St Mary's Day Out (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St Mary's, #7.5)
  
• A Perfect Storm (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St Mary's, #8.5)
  
• Christmas Past (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #8.6)
  
• The Callahan Touch (Spider Robinson, Mary's Place #1, Callahan's #6)
  
• The Gateway Trip (Frederik Pohl, Heechee Saga, #5)
  
• An Argumentation of Historians (Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St Mary's, #9)
  
• Brief Cases (Jim Butcher, The Dresden Files, #15.1)

I started typing this as a response on FB but it got out of hand so I thought I'd move it here.

I've been an ebook fan for going on 20 years. My first ebooks were purchased from Peanut Press for the Palm III



This was an important lesson because those books are now completely inaccessible to me. They were DRM locked and only worked on a specific device. As a result of this lesson I have since had a rule that media and reader must be kept separate. I won't buy media that isn't portable to any device I care to use it on, and likewise I won't buy a reader that I can't put any media on that I like.

Thankfully, Calibre exists. Anyone who is an avid reader using eBooks should be running Calibre. It's as perfect a solution for library management and media portability as anything out there. And there are plug-ins that allow a lot of flexibility.

My first proper, eInk reader was a Sony PRS-505. It was very good at the time but by today's standards is slow and heavy.

After that I moved to a Nook Simple Touch Reader. It is actually a perfectly good reader platform. The flaw is that it's not lit. When the Kindle Paperwhite came out, I jumped. For my money for the last few years, the Paperwhite has been pretty much the ultimate reading machine.

I should say at this point that there is a Nook GlowLight, and Kobo Aura, both of which seem to be excellent devices but I have not tried them.

Luckily even though theoretically the Amazon platform is locked in, there are tools available to circumvent this.

The Kindle Paperwhite has been flawless in operation, and works perfectly with side-loaded content from any source. I actually side-load everything - the wifi on my Paperwhite has only ever been turned on to set the device up the first time.

I do buy all my content from Amazon, but it only hits the reader after DRM removal and going through Calibre. I won't buy any content that locks me into an ecosystem - the reader should be a commodity, not a lock-in device and I only bought it after confirming that I could shoehorn that device into that role despite its design.

It is nice buying a very popular device, because of the number of accessories available for it.

I'm on my second Paperwhite - the first one had a couple of dings on the screen that eventually bugged me enough to swap. Then of course about 2 months after I bought a new one, they released the latest generation that's whaterproof.

Books read Jan-June 2018
Books read July-Dec 2018

Summary:
Total 2018
ebooks: 13
audiobooks: 31
total: 44

I reduced my goal significantly in 2018, down to 30, and finished 44.
For 2019 I've set my goal at 70. Might as well make it something I actually have to work for.

Last year I set a goal of 70 books and achieved 90. I've set the same goal this year, since last year I feel like I spent a little TOO much time reading.

• 2018-01-07 • ★★★★★ All These Worlds by Dennis E. Taylor [1]
  
• 2018-01-14 • ★★★★☆ In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson [2]
  
• 2018-02-26 • ★★★☆☆ The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkein [2]
  
• 2018-02-28 • ★★★★☆ Neither Here Nor There (Travels in Europe) by Bill Bryson [2]
  
• 2018-03-10 • ★★★★☆ First Family: Abigail and John by Joseph J. Ellis [2]
  
• 2018-03-11 • ★★★★☆ Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut [2]
  
• 2018-03-16 • ★★★★☆ The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde [2]
  
• 2018-03-25 • ★★★★☆ At Home by Bill Bryson [2]
  
• 2018-03-28 • ★★★★☆ The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke [1]
  
• 2018-04-23 • ★★★☆☆ At The Sign of Triumph by David Weber [1]
  
• 2018-04-24 • ★★★★☆ A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson [2]
  
• 2018-04-29 • ★★★★☆ Points of Impact by Marco Kloos [1]
  
• 2018-05-03 • ★★★★★ Head On by John Scalzi [2]
  
• 2018-05-06 • ★★★★☆ The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross [1]
  
• 2018-05-13 • ★★★★☆ The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer [2]
  
• 2018-05-15 • ★★★★☆ All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai [1]
  
• 2018-05-18 • ★★★☆☆ The Hangman's Revolution by Eoin Colfer [2]
  
• 2018-05-19 • ★★★★☆ Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty [1]
  
• 2018-05-22 • ★★★★☆ The Forever Man by Eoin Colfer [2]
  
• 2018-05-28 • ★★★★☆ The Boy on the Bridge by M.R. Carey [1]
  
• 2018-05-29 • Axis by Robert Charles Wilson [1]
  
• 2018-06-02 • ★★★★★ Mythos by Stephen Fry [2]
  
• 2018-06-05 • ★★★★☆ Into The Fire by Elizabeth Moon [1]
  
• 2018-06-10 • ★★★★☆ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson [2]
  
• 2018-06-27 • ★★★★☆ The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson [2]
  

Total to date July-Dec 2018:
ebooks: 10
audio: 15
total: 25

[1] eBook
[2] Audiobook

Oh heck I almost put the book I just finished in Jan-June. Oddly enough I managed exactly 50 books, 25 text and 25 audio, in the first half of the year. I'd set my challenge to 70 books, which would be a record for me. I doubt I'll be able to maintain the pace in the 2nd half of the year but it's a goal.

January-June is here

• 2017-07-01 • ★★★★☆ The Story of the Stone by Barry Hughart [1]
  
• 2017-07-01 • ★★★★☆ The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde [2]
  
• 2017-07-02 • ★★★★☆ Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde [2]
  
• 2017-07-06 • ★★★☆☆ First Among Sequels [2]
  
• 2017-07-07 • ★★★★☆ Remanence by Jennifer Foehner Wells [1]
  
• 2017-07-11 • ★★★☆☆ One Of Our Thursdays Is Missing by Jasper Fforde [2]
  
• 2017-07-13 • ★★★★★ Cold Welcome by Elizabeth Moon [1]
  
• 2017-07-15 • ★★★★☆ The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde [2]
  
• 2017-07-20 • ★★★★☆ Across the Universe by Beth Revis [2]
  
• 2017-07-23 • ★★★☆☆ A Million Suns by Beth Revis [2]
  
• 2017-07-24 • ★★★☆☆ Eight Skilled Gentlemen by Barry Hughart [1]
  
• 2017-07-28 • ★★★★☆ The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester [2]
  
• 2017-08-07 • ★★☆☆☆ Privateers by Ben Bova [1]
  
• 2017-08-09 • ★★★★★ The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland [2]
  
• 2017-08-13 • ★★★★☆ The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey [1]
  
• 2017-08-15 • ★★★★☆ The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin [2]
  
• 2017-08-20 • ★★★☆☆ Waylaid by Kim Harrison [1]
  
• 2017-08-25 • ★★★★☆ The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin [2]
  
• 2017-08-30 • ★★☆☆☆ The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter [2]
  
• 2017-09-11 • ★★★★☆ The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde [1]
  
• 2017-09-12 • ★★★★☆ The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson [1]
  
• 2017-09-15 • ★★★★☆ The Furthest Station by Ben Aaronovich [1]
  
• 2017-09-19 • ★★★★☆ Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde [2]
  
• 2017-09-23 • ★★★★★ Dark Matter by Blake Crouch [2]
  
• 2017-10-08 • ★★★★★ I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou [2]
  
• 2017-10-10 • ★★★★☆ Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire [2]
  
• 2017-10-24 • ★★★★☆ The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card [2]
  
• 2017-10-28 • ★★★☆☆ Software by Rudy Rucker [1]
  
• 2017-11-05 • ★★★★☆ The Gate Thief by Orson Scott Card [2]
  
• 2017-11-15 • ★★★☆☆ Gatefather by Orson Scott Card [2]
  

Total to date July-Dec 2017:
ebooks: 11
audio: 19
total: 30

[1] eBook
[2] Audiobook

Shadow of Victory by David Weber

★★★☆☆

Meh. Sure wish this was better, I'd hoped that after a little while off of new books in the series a worthy addition was in the works, but this was pretty mediocre. Nearly 2 stars really, I guess I nudged to 3 just out of general love of the old series. I'm probably done with this series, these books are too long to waste time on them if they're not going to be any good.

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

★★★★☆

Five stars for insight into how easily fascism can take hold in a democracy. 3 for writing (this is a bit hackneyed). Overall very worthwhile. As the afterward indicates though, this piece is not terribly original in its time. Some of the passages are insightful and some in 2017 a bit worrying.

I think probably more people in 2017 believe that fascism is possible in the US than did in the 30s when this was written.

"Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on."

"it becomes clear that the installation of a fascist government will not be a revolution or a coup d'etat; rather, the groundwork for fascism has already been constructed in the ideological worldviews of the majority of Americans."

The Revolution Business by Charles Stross

★★★☆☆

Well, the storytelling is definitely getting better. I recently found out that this was supposed to be 3 books (author's intentions) and it was chopped to 6 due to the publisher's idea of "where the genre is right now." This explains why some of these endings are horrible. The odd numbered books just look like someone axed a book in the middle, because that's basically what happened.

Could have MAYBE gone to 4 stars on this one. Some parts merit it. 3.5 I guess, rounded down (3.4999?)

★★★☆☆

This one was A LOT better than the last book. Good stuff happening. The story is moving along well. On to the next book. ALMOST 4 stars, but let's leave room for the next one to get even better. I doubt this series will get to 5, though 4 is just fine.

Kudos for my library for having this entire series available in audiobook!

The Clan Corporate by Charles Stross
(The Merchant Princes #3)

★★☆☆☆

Interesting developments. Pretty grim turns in places, but I guess that's what makes it not a trivial story. This is kind of a pivot book in the series I guess, a lot happened but mainly just unravelling previous arcs to serve to set the stage for the next book.