Here’s this year’s list with bold for my particular favorites. This was the most books I’ve read in one year in a while. I did join a book club this year, which expanded the things I read. I read several climate change related books, and some mindless crime drama to escape the horror of the world. I also read a fair amount of nonfiction related to local food and farming as a result of a work project I did on the same topic.

1. Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
2. Lost Light by Michael Connelly
3. The Narrows by Michael Connelly
4. The Closers by Michael Connelly
5. The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate
6. The Dayton Book Guys by J. Bradford Tillson Jr.
7. The Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
8. The Overstory by Richard Powers
9. Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
10. Horizon by Barry Lopez
11. Coming Home to Eat by Gary Nabhan [reread]
12. Climbing the Mango Trees by Madhur Jaffrey
13. Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
14. Nomadland by Jessica Bruder
15. Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
16. A Peace of My Mind by John Noltner
17. A Full Life in a Small Place by Janice Emily Bowers
18. The Town That Food Saved by Ben Hewitt
19. Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert
20. The Way of Peace by James Allen
21. Escape From Kathmandu by Kim Stanley Robinson
22. Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani
23. Greyhound by Steffan Piper
24. Underground by Mark Rudd
25. Vegetables Unleashed by Jose Andres
26. Eating Wildly by Ava Chin
27. Everything I Want to Do is Illegal by Joel Salatin
28. The Elephanta Suite by Paul Theroux
29. Reclaiming Our Food by Tanya Denckla Cobb
30. Accidentals by Susan Gaines
31. Win by Harlan Coben
32. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
33. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver [reread]
34. Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert
35. Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams
36. The Quiet Girl by SF Kosa
37. Sooley by John Grisham
38. A Time for Mercy by John Grisham
39. A Moveable Feast edited by Don George
40. We Are the Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee [reread]
42. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
43. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
44. A Bittersweet Season by Jane Gross
45. Nature’s Best Hope by Douglas Tallamy
46. Glorious Boy by Aimee Liu
47. The Turquoise Ledge by Leslie Marmon Silko
48. The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
49. The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson
50. Kiss the Ground by Josh Tickell
51. Foundation by Isaac Asimov [reread]
52. Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov [reread]
53. Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl
54. Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov [reread]
55. Varina by Charles Frazier
56. The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles
57. Later by Stephen King
58. Miracle Cure by Harlan Coben

This year was an uneven year of reading for me. The pandemic started with me being very unfortunately midway through The Stand. I toughed it out, but after that my reading slowed. After months of being home, I wasn’t able to focus on much, but then I jumped into some lighter fare, including a lot of Michael Connelly (Bosch). In the fall, I read quite a few food politics books as a part of an Eat Local work project I’m doing. By the end of the year, I exceeded my normal 50 books by a few.

1. Coyote Destiny by Allen Steele
2. Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver
3. The Stand by Stephen King
4. If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name by Heather Lende
5. Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman
6. Security by Poul Anderson
7. The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel
8. Born with Teeth by Kate Mulgrew
9. Navajos Wear Nikes by Jim Kristofic
10. Little Bee by Chris Cleave
11. Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fuller
12. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
13. The Peripheral by William Gibson
14. Agency by William Gibson
15. Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson
16. Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
17. Sundiver by David Brin
18. 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson
19. Heart of a Lion by William Stolzenburg
20. The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
21. The Guardians by John Grisham
22. The Black Ice by Michael Connelly
23. Clock Dance by Anne Tyler
24. Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
25. My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman
26. Camino Winds by John Grisham
27. The Concrete Blond by Michael Connelly
28. The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly
29. The Boy from the Woods by Harlan Coben
30. Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl
31. Delicious! by Ruth Reichl
32. Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl
33. My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl
34. Not Becoming My Mother by Ruth Reichl
35. Savage Feast by Boris Fishman
36. Plenty by Alisa Smith and JB MacKinnon
37. Trunk Music by Michael Connelly
38. Eat Here by Brian Halweil
39. Growing Tomorrow by Forrest Pritchard
40. The Poet by Michael Connelly
41. Local by Douglas Gayeton
42. Blood Work by Michael Connelly
43. Angels Flight by by Michael Connelly
44. Slow Food Nation by Carlo Petrini
45. A Darkness More Than Night by Michael Connelly
46. Gaining Ground by Forrest Pritchard
47. Void Moon by Michael Connelly
48. City of Bones by Michael Connelly
49. Waging Peace by Diana Oestreich
50. Chasing the Dime by Michael Connelly
51. Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
52. Earth by David Brin
53. Each Step is the Journey by Patricia Klinck
54. Hippie by Paulo Coelho
55. The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball
56. Food from the Radical Center by Gary Nabhan

It’s been cold here, and we had snow between Christmas and New Years (though it didn’t last long). Today was the first day it was warm enough that we wanted to take a good long walk. The sun felt good.

Here is my reading list from 2019. As usual, my favorites or ones I’d particularly recommend are in bold (but with not as much thought to this as usual).

Lots of sci fi this year with an emphasis on series about people colonizing other galaxies and all the attendant challenges of how to organize a society, manage conflict, etc. Both the Expanse series and the Coyote books were very good and helpful to reflect on in light of the current world situation. (The best that I’ve read in this genre is Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars series which I read last year.) I also finally read Harry Potter. (I started listening to the ebook with a kid. We didn’t get very far into it but it prompted me to take the books off my shelf and read them.) 

Many of these books I read as ebooks for whatever that’s worth. The fact that I finally got a phone with this century’s capabilities probably affected that.

1. Down by the River by Charles Bowden
2. Letters to a Young Farmer, compiled by the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture
3. Notes on a Foreign Country by Suzy Hansen
4. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
5. Goat Song by Brad Kessler
6. The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko
7. A Map of Betrayal by Ha Jin
8. The Power by Naomi Alderman
9. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
10. The Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey
11. One Life At a Time, Please by Edward Abbey
12. Postcards from Ed by Edward Abbey
13. Into the Beautiful North by Luis Urrea
14. Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe
15. Appetite for Life by Noel Riley Fitch
16. Doing Justice by Preet Bharara
17. The Reckoning by John Grisham
18. Gray Mountain by John Grisham
19. A Call for Revolution by Dalai Lama
20. Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey
21. Caliban’s War by James S.A. Corey
22. Abbadon’s Gate by James S.A. Corey
23. Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey
24. Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey
25. Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey
26. Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey
27. Tiamat’s Wrath by James S.A. Corey
28. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by JK Rowling
29. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling
30. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling
31. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling
32. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling
33. The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez by Aaron Bobrow-Strain
34. Full Circle by Michael Palin
35. The Old Man’s Love Story by Rudolfo Anaya
36. A Stranger at My Door by Peg Bowden
37. Mindfulness for Kids by Carole Roman
38. On the Margins by Johannes Wilm
39. After the Flood by Kassandra Montag
40. Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn
41. Coyote by Allen Steele
42. Coyote Rising by Allen Steele
43. Coyote Frontier by Allen Steele
44. Spindrift by Allen Steele
45. Galaxy Blues by Allen Steele
46. Coming Home to Eat by Gary Paul Nabhan
47. Coyote Horizon by Allen Steele

As I usually post each year, below is a list of the books I read in 2017.

The books are listed in the order I read them with my favorites in bold.

I had a goal to read 50 books for the year, but I cut myself some slack on that for a couple reasons. First, Brad and I both did Nanowrimo in November, which took a chunk of time. In addition, toward the end of the year, I started the Red Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson (thanks to MA); these are fairly big books, and I opted for finishing that instead of cramming in a few shorter reads at year end.

1. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
2. The Oral History Workshop by Cynthia Hart with Lisa Samson
3. The Tree Bride by by Bharati Mukherjee
4. We Are Stories edited by Margarita Ramirez Loya and her students
5. Epitaph for a Peach by David Mas Masumoto
6. Revival by Stephen King
7. Adnan’s Story by Rabia Chaudry
8. Heirlooms by David Masumoto
9. Sowing Seeds in the Desert by Masanobu Fukuoka
10. Start Where You Are by Pema Chödrön
11. Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben
12. The Innocent Man by John Grisham
13. One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka
14. The Nix by Nathan Hill
15. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
16. The Chamber by John Grisham
17. The Education of Dixie Dupree by Donna Everhart
18. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
19. Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie
20. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
21. So Big by Edna Ferber
22. Eiger Dreams by Jon Krakauer
23. Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
24. Public Library by Ali Smith
25. Four Seasons in Five Senses by David Mas Masumoto
26. Desert Sanctuary by Hank Messick
27. Rebel Mother by Peter Andreas
28. The Yellow Envelope by Kim Dinan
29. Andrew’s Brain by E.L. Doctorow
30. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
31. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
32. The Postman by David Brin
33. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
34. The Man in the High Castle by Philip Dick
35. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
36. Ten Years on the Line by Mike Ligon
37. Assignment Eternity by Robert Heinlein
38. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
39. Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance
40. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
41. Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
42. India Calling by Anand Giridharadas

What were your favorite reads this year?

As always, I’m on GoodReads. If you’re there, let’s connect!

Here is the list of books I read this year (in the order I read them with the particularly great ones in bold, also shown in the banner above):

1. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
2. Summer of My Amazing Luck by Miriam Toews
3. The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami
4. Irma Voth by Miriam Toews
5. A Boy of Good Breeding  by Miriam Toews
6. The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews
7. Born for This by Chris Guillebeau
8. En Recuerdo de: The Dying Art of Mexican Cemeteries in the Southwest by Bruce F. Jordan
9. As Aways, Julia by Julia Child and Avis Devoto
10. Journey through an Arid Land by G. Davies Jandrey
11. Language Arts by Stephanie Kallos
12. The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr
13. Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy
14. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
15. A Movable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
16. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
17. The Rabbit Back Literature Society  by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen
18. Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham
19. The Last Train to Zona Verde by Paul Theroux
20. Deep South by Paul Theroux
21. Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
22. The Empty Mirror by Janwillem van de Wetering
23. The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
24. 10:04 by Ben Lerner
25. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
26. The Happiness of Pursuit by Chris Guillebeau
27. Arizona Kicks on Route 66 by Roger Naylor
28. The Land of Open Graves by Jason De León
29. My Life in France by Julia Child
30. Alaska by James Michener
31. The Litigators by John Grisham
32. At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen
33. The Racketeer by John Grisham
34. Drop Shot by Harlan Coben
35. Nathan Coulter by Wendell Berry
36. The Oath by Jeffrey Toobin
37. A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
38. Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
39. American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin
40. Outside 25: Classic Tales and New Voices from the Frontiers of Adventure edited by Hal Espen
41. The Best American Travel Writing 2006 by Tim Cahill (Editor)
42. The Backbone of the World by Frank Clifford
43. Where the Waters Divide by Karen Berger and Daniel R. Smith
44. Going Back to Bisbee by Richard Shelton
45. Dear Data by by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec
46. Crossing the Yard by Richard Shelton
47. Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry
48. That Distant Land by Wendell Berry
49. Andy Catlett by Wendell Berry
50. Whitefoot by Wendell Berry
51. A Place in Time by Wendell Berry
52. The Whistler by John Grisham
53. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

As usual, there were several authors I read several books by — Miriam Toews, Julia Child, Paul Theroux, Wendell Berry. The Berry books were particularly special, and I finished the last of his fiction that I hadn’t read earlier. (I’d been saving them up, and it was a nice way to finish the year.)