2020 Book List

Time for an end-of-the-year post!  I'm only looking back on the books I read.  We don't have to talk about anything else from 2020.  At all.

 I re-read a lot of books this year--sometimes to blog about them, sometimes to read through a series in order, and mostly just for the comfort of reading something I already know I'll enjoy.  I'm going alphabetically by author and setting out multiple titles in series order.  Library books are marked with asterisks.

Barrows, Annie and Mary Ann Shaffer. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Brown, Janelle. Pretty Things.*

Carr, Robyn. Virgin River.

--. Shelter Mountain.

--. Whispering Rock.*

Clark, Mary Higgins. I've Got You Under My Skin.

Cleeves, Ann. The Crow Trap.*

--. Telling Tales.*

--. Hidden Depths.*

Dannemiller, Scott. The Year Without a Purchase.*

Francis, Dick.  Odds Against.

--. Whip Hand.

--. Under Orders.

Grafton, Sue. A is for Alibi.*

--. B is for Burglar.*

--. R is for Ricochet.*

--. S is for Silence.*

--. T is for Trespass.*

Grames, Juliet. The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna.*

Griffiths, Elly. The Crossing Places.*

--. The Janus Stone.*

--. The House at Sea's End.*

--. A Room Full of Bones.*

--. A Dying Fall.*

--. The Outcast Dead.*

--. The Ghost Fields.*

--. The Stone Circle.*

Grisham, John. The Litigator.*

Harris, Charlene. Midnight Crossroad.*

--. Day Shift.*

--. Night Shift.*

Hillerman, Tony. The Blessing Way.*

--. Dance Hall of the Dead.*

--. Listening Woman.*

--. First Eagle.

Mankell, Henning. Faceless Killers.*

--. The Dogs of Riga.*

--. The White Lioness.* 

McColl, Sarah. Joy Enough.*

Thompson, Ken. Compost.*

I'm not sure I had a favorite book from this year, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the Sid Halley books by Dick Francis.  The Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths has been tons of fun.  And the Vera Stanhope mysteries have been so good they make me want to read another Ann Cleeves series when I finish this one.  

I think one of the reasons I started the Kinsey Milhone books (by Sue Grafton) all over again is because I enjoy them less as the series progresses.  A blurb on the jacket for T is for Trespass said it was the most disturbing book in the series so far, and I know it was probably the book I most disliked for the entire year.  I like to read about Kinsey getting meeting weird people and getting into dangerous situations--not elder abuse and identity theft with lots of chapters written entirely from the bad guy's point of view.  

Wait, no.  It was The Year Without a Purchase.  It's been nearly a whole year since I read it, but I still remember feeling irritated and appalled at this awful, soft man who can somehow be histrionic and glib at the same time.  I would love to read about his family's year-long experiment from his wife's perspective, but she's apparently very busy doing the majority of the child rearing while working her own job and not murdering her husband when he eats so much ice cream he vomits.  That is an actual thing I mentioned about himself, more than once.  I enjoy a good book about people restricting their purchases so they can examine their lives.  This was not that.

Also! Typing this up made me realize I'm probably only reading every other book in the online book club I'm in. Next month's pick is a Grisham novel, which is nice because I usually read one of his books per year and that's enough to enjoy myself.

I didn't actually enjoy the Virgin River books, but I will almost definitely read 3 or 4 more next year.  I wish there were more Midnight, Texas books.  I had no idea how out of order I had read the Leaphorn and Chee books, or the Wallander books, until I started reading them in order.  It's almost like starting something new.

I don't have any specific knitting goals for the new year, other than to use yarn I like and to pass on the yarn I don't.  I hope I make a lot of hats and socks for people I love, and get to try out some new baby sweaters.  That's about it!

It feels like enough.