Books in 2020

[sub_divided]

I haven't done this since 2011, but why not?

This probably isn't all of them, but all the ones I remembered to log:

Fiction:
Douglas Copeland, Microserfs (Review)
Lucia Berlin, A Manual For Cleaning Women (Review)
Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Review)
Mark Lindquist, Never Mind Nirvana (Review)
Liu Cixin, The Dark Forrest
Liu Cixin, Death's End (Review)
Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow
Paul La Farge, The Night Ocean (Review)
Ken Liu, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
Ken Liu, The Grace of Kings
Yoon Ha Lee, Ninefox Gambit (Review)
Yoon Ha Lee, Raven Strategem (Review)
Yoon Ha Lee, Revenant Gun (Review)
Yoon Ha Lee, Glass Canon and Other Stories
Neal Stephenson, Anathem (no review, but I did steal from it for this fic)
Tamsyn Muir, Giddeon the Ninth (Review)

Nonfiction:
Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (Review)
Jacob Silverman, Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection (Review)
Daiyun Yue, To The Storm: The Odyssey of a Revolutionary Chinese Woman
Jeffrey Rosen, The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America (Review)
David Harvey, Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason
Isiah Lavender III (Editor), Black and Brown Planets: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction
Robert Roberts, A Ragged Schooling: Growing Up in the Classic Slum (Review)
Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (Review)
Jacob S. Hacker & Paul Pierson, Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality
Masha Gessen, Surving Autocracy (Review)
Alex S. Vitale, The End of Policing
Jessica Bruder, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century

Plus two books about Frederick The Great for yuletide: this one and this one (mainly just the first volume).

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I posted on tumblr about the fic I wrote this year. My official ao3 wordcount (though it's not accurate) was over 100k, far and away the most words I've ever written in a year. File under: things you can do when you don't leave your house.

Comments

[yifu]

What do you think of Ken Liu's shorter works compared to his longer one? I find his worldbuilding excellent in both cases, and the plot directions generally compelling.

[sub_divided]

Hi yifu!!!!

I liked the short stories more because they were more sci fi, and I'm more of a science fiction than a fantasy reader these days ^^ It's just a genre preference though, I did like The Grace of Kings, especially the characters.

It kinda reminded me of... The Lionness Quartet? Aha. With gods choosing mortals to act through. I know this is just a general mythic trope though. Also the focus on tactics, in I guess that Chinese classic lit way, was pretty cool, and it was cool that a character could be a hero in one part of the story, but a villain in another.

I also really like Ken Liu's writing style, a friend pointed out that he's the translator on Three Body Problem and Death's End, which I loved, but not on The Dark Forrest, which I got stuck on for three years and still haven't finished??? XD.

What about you?

[yifu]

I enjoyed the short stories so much that I read The Paper Menagerie twice (am considering to read it again, even). For me, most genres in spec fic are welcome, so I enjoy the collection as a whole.

As for The Grace of Kings, when I first read the blurb, it immediately reminded me of the Chu-Han contention, so I wasn't at all surprised the story turns out that way. It's still wonderful to see how the themes are handled/re-imagined, though! Looking forward to books 3 and 4 of the series.

[sub_divided]

Oh that's really cool... I didn't realize it might be inspired by actual historical events. I've only read the first book, does the second book follow that history too?

And yeah man... Spec fic all the way!!!

[yifu]

The second book is a next-generation story, and takes a different direction plot-wise. More screentime for women, too.

[sub_divided]

Oh nice! Yeah, I did start the story, but then I got... distracted... XD. Sounds like it's not so historically inspired, though.