2020 Books
| Title | Author | Date Finished | Rating | Publisher | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gyo | Junji Ito | 2020/12/31 | 4 | VIZ Media, 2015 | Initially the most conventional thing I’ve read by Ito, feeling almost like a science fiction action story, it gradually morphs into something much weirder and more thoughtful by the end. An environmental fable in wrapped in a putrid and disturbing cover. |
| The Devil and the Dark Water | Stuart Turton | 2020/12/24 | 4 | Sourcebooks Landmark, 2020 | Read My Notes |
| Mr. Shivers | Robert Jackson Bennett | 2020/12/09 | 4 | Orbit, 2010 | Read My Notes |
| Knights vs. Dinosaurs | Matt Phelan | 2020/12/09 | 3 | Greenwillow Books, 2018 | |
| Bitter Root, Vol. 1: Family Business | David F. Walker, Chuck Brown, Sanford Greene, Rico Renzi | 2020/12/04 | 4 | Image Comics, 2019 | “Come for the wild and exciting storyline (““Black family fights demons in 1930s Harlem”") stay for the fantastic essays at the end by scholars of race, literature, and comic books. " |
| Bone: Rose | Jeff Smith, Charles Vess | 2020/12/02 | 4 | Cartoon Books Digital, 2002 | Great prequel that enriches the original series. Plus, Charles Vess’s art remains unparalleled. |
| Thunder Run (Dactyl Hill Squad, #3) | Daniel José Older | 2020/11/29 | 4 | Scholastic Press, 2020 | Continues to get my kid to ask all kinds of provocative, interesting questions about race, history, slavery, and power. A really entertaining, honest and delightful series. |
| Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America | John Sides, Michael Tesler, Lynn Vavreck | 2020/11/26 | 3 | Princeton University Press, 2018 | |
| Dissolving Classroom | Junji Ito | 2020/11/12 | 3 | Vertical Comics, 2017 | Continues Ito’s streak of grotesque supernatural horror, characters who agonize over their situation, and subtle (or not-so-subtle) commentary on contemporary society and culture–in this case, the current trend of public apologies as media spectacle. The story focuses around a brother and sister named Yuuma and Chizumi, who are cursed with demonic power, though it’s never certain exactly how. Chizumi is an almost goblin-like figure, prancing around, making faces, and violating social norms, while Yuuma is subdued, quiet, and above all, apologetic. Unfortunately, his apologies lead to horrific consequences for the people he gives them. The art is, as usual for Ito, gorgeous and detailed. I still like Uzumaki the best, but this was definitely a great addition to Ito’s work, gruesome, funny, and thoughtful. |
| The Human Alchemy | Michael Griffin | 2020/11/11 | 3 | Word Horde, 2018 | Read My Notes |
| Horror Needs No Passport: 20th Century Horror Fiction Outside the U.S. and U.K. | Jess Nevins | 2020/11/01 | 4 | 2018 | Read My Notes |
| Freedom Fire (Dactyl Hill Squad, #2) | Daniel José Older | 2020/10/22 | 4 | Arthur A. Levine Books, 2019 | |
| The Broken Hours | Jacqueline Baker | 2020/10/22 | 5 | Harper Perennial, 2014 | Read My Notes |
| The Elementals | Michael McDowell | 2020/10/17 | 4 | Avon Books, 1981 | A genuinely creepy southern Gothic haunted house story that also happens to be extremely well written, intermittently funny and touching. |
| The Future of Another Timeline | Annalee Newitz | 2020/10/07 | 4 | Tor Books, 2019 | Weird and political, and fill amazing real and (beautifully) imagined history. Characters felt a little wooden and rote but the concept of a society of time travelling feminists editing the past to stop a partial authoritarian future is |
| House Of Cards: Baseball Card Collecting and Popular Culture | John Bloom | 2020/10/04 | 5 | Univ Of Minnesota Press, 1997 | Read My Notes |
| The Ministry of Nostalgia | Owen Hatherley | 2020/09/21 | 4 | Verso, 2016 | Read My Notes |
| Dactyl Hill Squad (Dactyl Hill Squad, #1) | Daniel José Older | 2020/09/15 | 3 | Arthur A. Levine Books, 2018 | |
| The Ocean at the End of the Lane | Neil Gaiman | 2020/09/12 | 4 | William Morrow Books, 2013 | |
| Cards of Grief | Jane Yolen | 2020/09/05 | 3 | Ace Fantasy Books, 1984 | |
| You Should Come With Me Now: Stories of Ghosts | M. John Harrison | 2020/08/27 | 4 | Comma Press, 2018 | Read My Notes |
| A History of America in Ten Strikes | Erik Loomis | 2020/08/17 | 5 | The New Press, 2018 | Read My Notes |
| I am Providence | Nick Mamatas | 2020/08/02 | 4 | Night Shade, 2016 | Read My Notes |
| The Wild Girls | Ursula K. Le Guin | 2020/07/28 | 3 | PM Press, 2011 | “A dark and rich short story, about the evil that men do, and the suffering that women endure, along with a few other loosely related essays and poems. ““Wild Girls”” clearly draws on Le Guin’s deep reading of anthropology and archaeology, set in a city-state where warrior ““gods”” raid the ““dirt”” nomads in the hills for wives to enslave. It’s also a ghost story in multiple ways. This collection also contains Le Guin’s essay ““staying awake while we read”” which begins as an exploration of current reading habits and ends with a critical reflection on whether capitalism can deliver human happiness (Le Guin says no). There is an essay on modesty, which is thoughtful and fun, several short poems, and a lively but not particularly enlightening interview with the author. There isn’t much here but the story, imho, which is good in itself. So, five stars for the story and one star for the rest. Three stars? " |
| The Murders of Molly Southbourne (Molly Southbourne, #1) | Tade Thompson | 2020/07/25 | 4 | Tor.com, 2017 | A dark tale of clones and murder and what it means to be human in an inhuman world. The book opens with an unnamed narrator chained to a floor and speaking to the eponymous Molly, who recounts her life story, which makes up the remainder of the novel. The story begins with Molly as a young girl becoming aware that versions of her will occasionally appear in her life and that they will eventually try and kill her. This basic set-up propels the story of Molly’s life as she grows up having to live with the arrival other mollys who form from her blood. There is an explanation for this grotesque strangess, late in the book, but the real meat of this story is Molly’s attempts to understand herself and understand other people in her life–her family, friends, co-workers, and mentors. It’s ultimately a thoughtful piece of body horror that ruminates on how family and biology do or do not determine one’s life and happiness. |
| Lost Dogs | Jeff Lemire | 2020/07/24 | 3 | Top Shelf Productions, 2012 | |
| The Last Tsar’s Dragons | Jane Yolen, Adam Stemple | 2020/07/23 | 4 | Tachyon Publications, 2019 | The Russian revolution of 1917, but with dragons.The ridiculous premise would feel hackneyed but is saved from that by some exceptional prose and a genuine thoughtfulness about the characters (the Romanovs, Rasputin the Mad Monk, an unnamed government bureaucrat, and a Jewish communist whose identity remains cloudy until near the end, respectively). The inevitability of the historical events depicted make opportunities to sit with these characters and the authors make them genuinely sympathetic, even when they are murderers, lotharios or bigots. |
| Black Science, Vol. 1: How to Fall Forever | Rick Remender, Matteo Scalera, Dean White, Moreno Dinisio | 2020/07/22 | 3 | Image Comics, 2014 | “A grittier ““Sliders””. If that’s your thing, give it a swing. " |
| This Book Is Full of Spiders (John Dies at the End, #2) | David Wong, Jason Pargin | 2020/07/20 | 4 | St. Martin’s Press, 2012 | Zombie spider monsters! Conspiracies! More crazy soy sauce powers! More toilet humor! Genuinely fun, heartfelt, gross, silly, and scary. |
| Black Hammer, Vol. 1: Secret Origins | Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston | 2020/07/16 | 5 | Dark Horse, 2017 | |
| White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism | Robin DiAngelo, Michael Eric Dyson, Manon Smits, Rob Kuitenbrouwer, Amy Landon | 2020/07/10 | 4 | Beacon Press, 2018 | “““I know many souls that toss and whirl and pass, but none there are that intrigue me more than the Souls of White Folk.Of them I am singularly clairvoyant. I see in and through them. I view them from unusual points of vantage. Not as a foreigner do I come, for I am native, not foreign, bone of their thought and flesh of their language. Mine is not the knowledge of the traveler or the colonial composite of dear memories, words and wonder. Nor yet is my knowledge that which servants have of masters, or mass of class, or capitalist of artisan. Rather I see these souls undressed and from the back and side. I see the working of their entrails. I know their thoughts and they know that I know. This knowledge makes them now embarrassed, now furious. They deny my right to live and be and call me misbirth! My word is to them mere bitterness and my soul, pessimism. And yet as they preach and strut and shout and threaten, crouching as they clutch at rags of facts and fancies to hide their nakedness, they go twisting, flying by my tired eyes and I see them ever stripped,—ugly, human.”” W.E.B. Did Bois ““Dark Water”” (1920)” |
| A Darkling Sea | James L. Cambias | 2020/07/07 | 4 | Tor Books, 2014 | Fun and strange First-Contact story with a bizarre and rich setting and interesting characters. |
| Mister Miracle | Tom King, Mitch Gerads | 2020/06/28 | 5 | DC Comics, 2019 | |
| Storm of Locusts (The Sixth World, #2) | Rebecca Roanhorse | 2020/06/21 | 3 | Saga Press, 2019 | Deepens the mythology of the world outside of Dinetah and heightens the stakes of the supernatural conflict. |
| The End of Policing | Alex S. Vitale | 2020/06/12 | 5 | Verso, 2017 | This book is only a couple years old, and yet, given all that’s happened in the last month, it almost feels obsolete. In some ways, many of its prescriptions might now be classed as reforms rather than abolition, though Vitale has consistently supported the calls for police abolition. It has a great discussion of the origins of policing, in the attempts to control non-white, immigrant, and laboring populations of the 19th century. It also makes clear just how many aspects of American social interaction policing touches, and shows how, in each domain (homelessness, drug policy, immigration, etc…) policing has done little to address the problems therein and has in many cases exacerbated them. Makes a great primer for people new to the idea of police abolition and looking for historical and social context. |
| An Evil Guest | Gene Wolfe | 2020/05/30 | 4 | Tor, 2008 | A strange, genre-hopping book about acting, love, interplanetary travel, and underwater gods. Definitely picks up in the second half. |
| The Origins of Unhappiness: A New Understanding of Personal Distress | David Smail | 2020/05/22 | 4 | Routledge, 2015 | Read My Notes |
| Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach | Kelly Robson | 2020/05/08 | 3 | Tor.com, 2018 | A weird, delightful novel about trans-humanism, time travel, and environmental reclamation. |
| Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3) | Martha Wells | 2020/05/03 | 3 | Tor.com, 2018 | |
| The Black God’s Drums | P. Djèlí Clark | 2020/04/28 | 4 | Tor.com, 2018 | “A wild and inventive mash-up of alternative history, steampunk, and the vibrant and lively culture of the African diaspora. ““Creeper”” is an orphan living in an alternate version of New Orleans in the 1880s, in a timeline where Haiti wasn’t crushed with debt by France, the Civil War ended in an stalemate, and New Orleans declared itself an independent city from both sides. The Gods that west Africans brought over with them in the holds of slave ships are a part of the fabric of this world, and through her mother Creeper is tied to Oya, the goddess of winds and storms. The story centers around Creeper’s discovery of a plot involving a powerful weapon of mass destruction falling into the hands of some Confederates who mean to use it to destroy her home city. But the plot, though exciting, provides a wonderful excuse to wander around in the rich and complex world Clark has imagined–an alternate history of the Americas in which African-descended people and concepts are foregrounded, celebrated, and improvised with in delightful ways. ” |
| The Cabin at the End of the World | Paul Tremblay | 2020/04/26 | 5 | William Morrow, 2018 | Read My Notes |
| Starve Better: Surviving the Endless Horror of the Writing Life | Nick Mamatas | 2020/04/22 | 4 | Apex Book Company, 2011 | Great essays on (making a ) living as a writer, and written in a funny, accessible style. I particularly liked the essays on freelancing in the various dark corners of the writing world (third tier publications, term paper Mills, etc…) |
| Epidemics and Enslavement: Biological Catastrophe in the Native Southeast, 1492-1715 (Indians of the Southeast) | Paul Kelton | 2020/04/17 | 5 | University of Nebraska Press, 2007 | Read My Notes |
| Rad Dad: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Fatherhood | Tomas Moniz, Steve Almond, Jeff Chang, Cory Doctorow, Paul Kivel, Raj Patel, Matt Meyer, Ian Mackaye, Jeremy Adam Smith | 2020/03/29 | 4 | PM Press, 2011 | Read My Notes |
| The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories | Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer, Celina Wieniewska, David Goldfarb | 2020/03/28 | 4 | Penguin Classics, 2008 | Read My Notes |
| We Who Are About To… | Joanna Russ | 2020/02/28 | 5 | Wesleyan University Press, 2005 | Read My Notes |
| A Haunt of Fears: The Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign (Studies in Popular Culture Series) | Martin Barker | 2020/02/27 | 4 | University Press of Mississippi, 1992 | Read My Notes |
| Black Panther by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection, Vol. 1 | Christopher J. Priest, Joe Quesada, Mark Texeira, Vince Evans, Joe Jusko, Mike Manley, M.D. Bright, Sal Velluto, Amanda Conner | 2020/02/18 | 4 | Marvel Comics, 2015 | |
| SCUM Manifesto | Valerie Solanas, Avital Ronell | 2020/02/10 | 4 | Verso, 2004 | |
| Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction | Jeff VanderMeer, Jeremy Zerfoss, John Coulthart | 2020/02/08 | 5 | Harry N. Abrams, 2013 | |
| Lovecraft Country (Lovecraft Country, #1) | Matt Ruff | 2020/02/06 | 5 | Harper, 2016 | Read My Notes |
| FXXK WRITING: A Guide for Frustrated Artists | Jason S. Ridler, Yuki Saeki, Anna Yeatts, Ann Randolph | 2020/02/03 | 4 | Flash Fiction Online LLC, 2017 | Less a writing guide than an enthusiasm guide, Ridler’s book collects his blogposts and other assorted writings on what it’s like to be a writer who doesn’t take off in publishing. It’s a funny and acerbic collection, with a central theme that you should just keep writing, not because you’ll succeed, but because you love it, and to use that love to power through, or to come back to writing after a break, even if it feels useless. The best advice, imho, is diversifying what you write–don’t try and do just one thing, but use every opportunity to write something different (blog posts, flash fiction, lectures, poems, etc…) to teach yourself something about how to write. |
| The Broken Vow (Spill Zone, #2) | Scott Westerfeld, Alex Puvilland, Hilary Sycamore | 2020/01/22 | 4 | First Second, 2018 | |
| Doctor Strange, Vol. 1: The Way of the Weird | Jason Aaron, Chris Bachalo | 2020/01/12 | 4 | Marvel Comics, 2016 | |
| Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch, #1) | Ann Leckie | 2020/01/03 | 5 | Orbit, 2013 | |
| Aliens: Dead Orbit | James Stokoe | 2020/11/22 | 3 | Dark Horse Books, 2018 | |
| March: Book One (March, #1) | John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell | 2020/09/12 | 4 | Top Shelf Productions, 2013 | |
| Spill Zone (Spill Zone, #1) | Scott Westerfeld, Alex Puvilland, Hilary Sycamore | 2020/01/11 | 4 | First Second, 2017 | |
| When I Arrived at the Castle | Emily Carroll | 2020/01/10 | 5 | Koyama Press, 2019 | A richly written and illustrated dark fairy tale that, though short, contains some legitimately scary and shocking moments. |
| Through the Woods | Emily Carroll | 2020/01/07 | 5 | Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2014 |
Previous years' lists:
currently reading, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2000s, 1990s
