Reading List 2020
Five Stars
The Book of the Damned, Tanith Lee
1Q84, Haruki Murakami
Goblin Moon, Teresa Edgerton
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
In Search of Stupidity, Rick Merrick
Unrestricted Warfare, Qiao Lang and Wang Xiangsui
The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper
Four Stars
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Book of the Beast, Tanith Lee
The Book of the Dead, Tanith Lee
The Book of the Mad, Tanith Lee
Night's Master, Tanith Lee
Death's Master, Tanith Lee
Delusion's Master, Tanith Lee
Red as Blood, Tanith Lee
The History of Florence, Niccolo Machiavelli
In Search of Stupidity, 3rd Edition, Rick Chapman
Karafuru, Eto Mori
From the Fatherland, With Love, Ryu Murakami
Popular Hits of the Showa Era, Ryu Murakami
Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
Three Stars
Numero Zero, Umberto Eco
Starswarm, Jerry Pournelle
Red Dragon, Jerry Pournelle
Red Heroin, Jerry Pournelle
Hobgoblin Night, Teresa Edgerton
After Dark, Haruki Murakami
Digital Antiquarian 1966-1979
Digital Antiquarian 1980
Digital Antiquarian 1981
Digital Antiquarian 1982
Digital Antiquarian 1983
Digital Antiquarian 1984
Digital Antiquarian 1985
Digital Antiquarian 1986
Digital Antiquarian 1987
Digital Antiquarian 1988
Digital Antiquarian 1989
Digital Antiquarian 1990
Digital Antiquarian 1991
Digital Antiquarian 1992
Digital Antiquarian 1993
Semishigure, Fujisawa Shuhei
The Little House, Kyoko Nakajima
Tokyo Decadence, Ryu Murakami
Audition, Ryu Murakami
In the Miso Soup, Ryu Murakami
Prince of Shadows, Kai Wai Cheah
Coin Locker Babies, Ryu Murakami
Two Stars
In the Kings Service, Katherine Kurtz
Childe Morgan, Katherine Kurtz
One Star
Vampire Forensics, Mark Collins Jenkins
Blindsight, Peter Watts
Aku no Kyoten, Yusuke Kishi
Labels: Book Review, books
40 Comments:
Time to get some books by Tanith Lee
Patreon Terms Of Service: 82 Stars
I have been off and on following your top ten from this link for a little while:
https://voxday.blogspot.com/2013/10/top-10-novels-list.html
This year I read The Tale of Genji and If on a winter's night a traveler...
I only have The Code of the Woosters and The Glass Bead Game to go though I have read at least one Wodehouse short story collection.
The Tale of Genji was truly amazing. So much so that I want to source a different translation and read it again to see the differences. I started with the Waley translation. I even bought a reading guide to go with it and have since grabbed The Tale of Heike.
I wanted to ask since you read a lot of Japanese literature if you have read any Shusaku Endo or Ayako Sono? The latter only has three translated but I believe all Endo's major works have been.
You really have great taste!
There is a sci-fi book called Blindsight written by Peter Watts. Is that the one you read, Vox? You listed the author as Peter Hamilton.
Reading The Dark is Rising with the kids at the moment in between Junior Classics stories. Amazing series. Susan Cooper is a fantastic writer.
You've been reading some Katherine Kurtz?
I went through a bit of a Kurtz phase when I was about 15. I liked her well enough at the time, but I suspect I'd now agree with your assessment of her. Sentimental, Mills & Boon-style romantic fantasy with some mildly diverting church and state politics thrown in to keep things interesting.
I really need to read more Murakami and Tanith Lee, though. Not for the first time, I find myself reproached by your yearly reading list. Must do better.
Dark is rising. Hat tip to Big Bear interviewing his mother for me to read that...very good, happy to see it on here. The connection to Tolkien in those books is strong.
I had a feeling we'd be seeing Unrestricted Warfare up top! Still hoping to get that in Castalia Library Hard cover edition
Thanks Vox!
I discovered Tanith Lee thanks to Vox. What a talented writer.
Night's Master and Book of the Beast are my favorites so far.
"In Search of Stupidity"? Shouldn't be too hard to find some of that in today's society.
One star for Blindsight, oof! Didn't enjoy listening in on a neuro-fatalist's despair?
I read Blindsight a while back and didn't care for it either. Glad to see it wasn't just me. It had some interesting ideas, but as executed it was a were pretty incoherent "throw them at the wall and see what sticks". None of them did.
Thanks Vox!
What, no Scalzi?
Thanks for the list, hoping to get through all the 5 stars and some of the 4 stars.
Thank you. I look forward to this column every year. It's very useful. I discovered most of my favorite authors from the VD Reading List over the years.
Is there any chance we will see a Castalia house printing of the dark is rising sequence?
Dammit VD!! Stop this shit; My wife already bitches at finding places to store all my books. On the other hand...she loves to show em off when visitors ask about the overabundance. Never understand the fairer sex but they can be predictable.
You owe me a keyboard!!
A couple of random suggestions from my readings...5 stars--Desolation Island by Patrick O'Brien, 4 stars-Passage by Connie Willis...
Beyond halfway on Unrestricted. Glad I got the hardback as well.
Tanith Lee. Sounds like a full year of reading just there. I always save the yearly reading list to documents for reference thru the year.
Also, right now, enjoying Pratchett and Gaiman's Good Omens for something light and funny. At least so far its light. May get evil later in the book. One way to find out.
@13 the single idea really is "the despair of the neuro-materialist". Everything else is just window-dressing. The prequel-and-sequel, Firefall, underlines it.
1Q84 is fantastic. The rat series by the same author is wonderful as well. No deep knowledge of Japan is necessary, as the author provides the cultural context in a very entertaining and edifying way.
1Q84 five stars?
I would give it max 4-
Susan Cooper's great, but she's not higher than Dostoevsky. Especially not Brothers Karamazov.
>1 star for Blindsight
Y tho, dear SDL?
Susan Cooper's great, but she's not higher than Dostoevsky.
Yes, she is. You clearly don't understand the point of the reading list.
I cannot find that book by Rick Merrick ...
1Q84 is on my 2020 list. I like to jump in with minimal research and just let a novel work on me. As an e-book, I didn't realize what a lengthy commitment 1Q84 was. Had I known it was 1100+ pages in paperback, I would not have started it.
So clean and graceful, even in translation, I never felt like I was reading such a heavy book.
Slightly off topic...received the
First 3 Jr Classics today. They are very very nice. Big thank you to the team that produced them.
1Q84 was fantastic. Thanks for putting Murakami on the list; I had never heard of the guy until looking at your list for stuff to read. I’m working through Killing Commendatore now with Kafka on the Shore next.
1.3X on Audible helps immensely.
My 11 year son loves science fiction. Are any of these sci-fi/fantasy recommendations suitable for a boy that age?
Just as Susan Cooper is underappreciated, so too is Joy Chant. She's another great writer
VD wrote:Yes, she is. You clearly don't understand the point of the reading list.
You're right. I don't understand. Maybe her outspoken opposition to the GE is clouding my judgment.
Either way, it's your list.
Brideshead Revisited was a fascinating and well-written book about a world I know very little about - I loved the end - but Sebastian... I don't know, were we supposed to despise him? Be utterly disappointed in him? Feel bad for him? The blinding gayness of the Sebastian half of the story tempted me to put the book down on a few occasions... I guess I'm no intellectual reader. Either way, I'm glad I didn't put it down, though I'm a bit surprised to see it at 5 stars. I'm sure that certain books have much more layers and subtleties for a SD+5 to appreciate than a SD+2...
Once again, thank you for taking the time to do this! Always fascinating and interesting!
@32 Susan Cooper, Jot Chant, Tolkien, no Tanith Lee.
Tanith Lee, Susan Cooper, et al just got a great start on their royalties in 2021. Looking forward to checking out those as well as 1q84 (which is in my growing queue).
My favorite book read this year was The Management of Savagery by Max Blumenthal. He is a rabid leftist but the book was good. I liked Forgive them their debts and Killing the host, both by Michael Hudson.
I will order Unrestricted Warfare.
I came across some videos kinda related to unrestricted warfare, especially the second one below. I had not heard of Joshua Philipp.
https://youtu.be/YwPScbShR_0
#31 The Origins of Communism and Its Tactics | China Unscripted
https://youtu.be/pjBUPB009Qo
#55 How Communism Destroys a Society | Joshua Philipp
OT about the covid "science." Some NYU prof Mark Crispin Miller is the victim of a witch hunt after he included mask mandates in his 2020 spring course on propaganda.
https://youtu.be/X-FDHTptx08?t=1640
Below is a link to a large set of mask studies and news.
https://markcrispinmiller.com/?s=mask
Looking forward to reading a few of these. If anyone is interested in reading a philosophy / physics book that challenges theory of relativity then my book philosophical critique of perception and motion was released for free in December. Link on Kepler400 blog.
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