Last year I finished 151 books. I don't plan to exceed that this year, but there are some books that I have written down that I want to read this year.
4 3 2 1 | Paul Auster
I read this many years ago and really enjoyed it. It was a powerful and moving story of four different versions of the same teenager. Each Ferguson grew up in the same place, against the backdrop of the 60s, of Kennedy and Johnson, but random chance took them each in different directions. One thread remained in place with each: unusual precociousness and a certain degree of aloofness. The similarities and differences between each illuminate that life isn't inevitable, or pre-determined, but that inevitability only exists retrospectively.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell | Susanna Clarke
Having read Piranesi last year, I'm eager to read this again and see the connections between the two.
Lifelode | Jo Walton
Having finished Tooth and Claw, this is the only Walton singleton remaining that I haven't read yet.
The Broken Tower: The Life of Hart Crane | Paul Mariani
Crane was a modernist and a Romantic poet with a short life, taking it himself at thirty-four. He was a gay man during a time when it was difficult to be gay, and the ways this shaped his personality and poetry seem interesting.
Terra Ignota #1-4 | Ada Palmer
I read the first book last year and thought it very intelligent and very well-written and purchased the second. Once the fourth and last book comes out, I'll reread the first and get through the whole of the tetralogy.
In the Dream House | Carmen Maria Machado
Her short fiction collection from a few years ago was an excellent read, and so of course I'm interested in this newest work, which takes as its subject an abusive relationship Machado had with a previous girlfriend. Each chapter, apparently, is in the style of a different literary genre, which is interesting.
Catch-22 | Joseph Heller
I've got doubts on 4 3 2 1, but this, which I also read a few years ago, I expect to be as good if not better than I remember.
The Overstory | Richard Powers
One of my favorite reads of 2019.
Invisible Cities | Italo Calvino
When I really, really love a particular creator's work, and detect (or think I detect) that their thinking resembles or resonates with my own, I like to go and dig up a bunch of interviews with them, find out some of their favorite works. Daniel Abraham is a favorite, and he mentioned this is in an interview, so I put it on my TBR list. Last year, reading a collection of Gore Vidal essays, Calvino came up again. So now I've really gotta read it!
Worldbreaker Saga #1-3 | Kameron Hurley
I read the first book in paper back; then the second in an eBook which didn't have paragraph indentation (since rectified by the publisher); then the third. I don't think the full impact of the series hit me. I read someone's review of it praising it as on par with Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun (which I've not yet read but want to), and so I think a reread will be worthwhile.
The Dragon Waiting | John M. Ford
About eighty years ago, in 2019, there was an article on the rediscovery of the work of John M. Ford (Mike to his friends), which appeared in Slate, which lead me to his occasional works. This is one of his novels, which Tor is republishing, and based on the affection with which he was held by so many, and the intelligence and humor of his occasional works, I'm looking forward to reading it, as well as his other works.
Broken Earth trilogy | N.K. Jemisin
By seemingly every measure this is considered a modern-day classic of the genre. And, having enjoyed Jemisin's short fiction collection, I very much want to read it.
Jerusalem | Alan Moore
I picked this up a few years ago based on the high regard with which Moore is held by so many, and tried reading it once but only got three chapters in. Time to read the full thing.
The Name of the Rose | Umberto Eco
Lotta people have said good things about it.
Some other things I'd like to read, but which I don't for whatever reason place quite as much stock into reading this year specifically, without notes:
- Gardner Dozois' and Michael Swanwick's City Under the Stars
- Michael Swanwick's The Iron Dragon's Daughter
- Christopher Slatsky's The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature
- George Daniel Lea's Born in Blood: Volume One
- Ursula Vernon's Jackalope Wives and Other Stories
- Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy
- Hal Duncan's Susurrus on Mars
- Terry Bisson's Fire on the Mountain
- E.P. Thompson's William Morris: From Romantic to Revolutionary
- Gitta Sereny's Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth
- Maxe Crandall's The Nancy Reagan Collection
- Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
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