{"id":153,"date":"2021-12-25T08:02:04","date_gmt":"2021-12-25T13:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wayneprecht.org\/blogs\/readings\/?p=153"},"modified":"2022-01-09T07:30:29","modified_gmt":"2022-01-09T12:30:29","slug":"test-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wayneprecht.org\/blogs\/readings\/?p=153","title":{"rendered":"Books Read 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Goodreads (Amazon affiliated book review website) has gamified book reading with a &#8220;contest&#8221; the last several years. At the beginning of the year, you set yourself a goal of reading X books. In theory, you then Tweet or whatever all about it and race your friends. Or followers, since you probably don&#8217;t have many if you Tweet a lot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have been participating for several years. Not because I have no friends, I do and I have posted not one single tweet, ever. I use it as a way to track what I have read. Out of a morbid sense of, &#8220;gee where did all the time go?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In January 2020, I picked the number 52 as my goal. I had picked that in 2019 and missed it by 3 books. I feel I could squeeze in a couple more and make it to 52. Of course, we all know what happened next. That gave me some unexpected, but welcome free time and I hit 80 books instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What kind of books? A lot of fiction, history, woodworking. roughly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Woodworking, furniture making, or historical furniture &#8211; 9 books<\/li><li>Alternate History &#8211; 11<\/li><li>British Naval Thrillers &#8211; 5<\/li><li>Sci-Fi &#8211; 47<\/li><li>Non-fiction, history, science, biography &#8211; 13<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nothing too shocking there I suppose. The year started off with the tail end of binging a new genre (for me), British Naval Thrillers. Lately republished from the 40s and 50s I guess, mostly written by veterans, these are pretty good brain candy even if the characters are a little wooden and tropish. The action is good because these guys were there. Recommended. Look for Alan Evans and Antony Melville-Ross. You can find more riffing off their Amazon pages for similar authors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>And here&#8217;s the list:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-8f761849 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>One Week to Woodturning by Rex Krueger<\/li><li>The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan<\/li><li>Seek Out and Destroy by Alan Evans<\/li><li>Dauntless by Alan Evans<\/li><li>Ship of Force by Alan Evans<\/li><li>Thunder at Dawn by Alan Evans<\/li><li>Shadow by Antony Melville Ross<\/li><li>With Saw, Plane and Chisel by Zachary Dillinger<\/li><li>Talon by Antony Melville-Ross<\/li><li>Trigger by Antony Melville-Ross<\/li><li>Command by Antony Melville-Ross<\/li><li>Forbidden the Stars by Valmore Daniels<\/li><li>The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin<\/li><li>The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin<\/li><li>The Art of War by Martin van Creveld<\/li><li>1862 by Robert Conroy<\/li><li>The Day After Gettysburg by Robert Conroy<\/li><li>Catastrophe 1914 by Max Hastings<\/li><li>Attack Surface Sneak Peek by Cory Doctorow<\/li><li>Germanica by Robert Conroy<\/li><li>To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers<\/li><li>1920 by Robert Conroy<\/li><li>Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian<\/li><li>North Reich by Robert Conroy<\/li><li>Paddle Your Own Canoe by Nick Offerman<\/li><li>Making Things Work by Nancy R. Hiller<\/li><li>Castro&#8217;s Bomb by Robert Conroy<\/li><li>Red Inferno by Robert Conroy<\/li><li>The End of Everything by Katie Mack<\/li><li>Himmler&#8217;s War by Robert Conroy<\/li><li>The Cruel Stars by John Birmingham<\/li><li>Moonfall by Jack McDevitt<\/li><li>Welsh Stick Chairs by John Brown<\/li><li>Things Fall Apart by Harry Turtledove<\/li><li>All Fall Down by Harry Turtledove<\/li><li>Eruption by Harry Turtledove<\/li><li>Where Oceans Hide Their Dead by John Yunker<\/li><li>Make Me No Grave by Hayley Stone<\/li><li>False Alarm by Bj\u00c3\u00b8rn Lomborg<\/li><li>The Rift Frequency by Amy S. Foster<\/li><li>The Welsh Stick Chair by Tim Bowen<\/li><li>The Anarchist&#8217;s Design Book by Christopher Schwarz<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The Anarchist&#8217;s Workbench by Christopher Schwarz<\/li><li>The Rift Uprising by Amy S. Foster<\/li><li>What Is Real? by Adam Becker<\/li><li>The Richest Man Who Ever Lived by Greg Steinmetz<\/li><li>The Last Monument by Michael C. Grumley<\/li><li>The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes by Albert Wendland<\/li><li>13.8 by John Gribbin<\/li><li>1942 by Robert Conroy<\/li><li>Starborn and Godsons by Larry Niven<\/li><li>The Bomb by Fred Kaplan<\/li><li>Beowulf&#8217;s Children by Larry Niven<\/li><li>The Legacy of Heorot by Larry Niven<\/li><li>Rare Earth by Kurt Allan<\/li><li>Striking the Balance by Harry Turtledove<\/li><li>Upsetting the Balance by Harry Turtledove<\/li><li>God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens<\/li><li>Tilting the Balance by Harry Turtledove<\/li><li>In the Balance by Harry Turtledove<\/li><li>Ammonite by Nicola Griffith<\/li><li>Legend by Eric Blehm<\/li><li>Human by Choice by Travis S. Taylor<\/li><li>Interstellar Mission by J.J. Green<\/li><li>The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal<\/li><li>Phobos Rising by Gavin E. Parker<\/li><li>The Ephialtes Shorts Collection by Gavin E. Parker<\/li><li>Finding the Elsewhere by Gregory Allen Mendell<\/li><li>The Bond of Absolution by Stan C. Smith<\/li><li>The Scythian Crisis by J.J. Green<\/li><li>The Fila Epiphany by J.J. Green<\/li><li>Trees, Chests and Boxes of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Cent\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 by A.J. Conybeare<\/li><li>The Tourist Trail by John Yunker<\/li><li>Every Tool&#8217;s a Hammer by Adam Savage<\/li><li>The Concordia Deception by J.J. Green<\/li><li>The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal<\/li><li>Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir<\/li><li>Arguably by Christopher Hitchens<\/li><li>Octavia Gone by Jack McDevitt<\/li><li>A Voice in the Night by Jack McDevitt<\/li><\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-8f761849 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:100%\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Goodreads (Amazon affiliated book review website) has gamified book reading with a &#8220;contest&#8221; the last several years. At the beginning of the year, you set yourself a goal of reading <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wayneprecht.org\/blogs\/readings\/?p=153\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[67],"class_list":["post-153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books_read","tag-goodreads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wayneprecht.org\/blogs\/readings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wayneprecht.org\/blogs\/readings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wayneprecht.org\/blogs\/readings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wayneprecht.org\/blogs\/readings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wayneprecht.org\/blogs\/readings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.wayneprecht.org\/blogs\/readings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":313,"href":"https:\/\/www.wayneprecht.org\/blogs\/readings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions\/313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wayneprecht.org\/blogs\/readings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wayneprecht.org\/blogs\/readings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wayneprecht.org\/blogs\/readings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}