2019: The Year In Books

As we wrap up 2019, it is time to take a look back at the 28 books I read over the past year, an increase of 6 books over last year.  Of those 28, 7 were non-fiction and, of the 21 novels, only 3 were tied to a TV show.  Only one of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, 19 were e-books, and, for the first time, there was 1 audio book.  I read nearly 9,500 pages, my second highest total of all time.

Once again, a majority of the books I read this year were by authors I’ve never read before. The 15 authors that I read for the first this year were:

  • Bill Clinton
  • Charles Willeford
  • Nell Scovell
  • Ernest Cline
  • Katrin Schumann
  • Lindy West
  • Luke Jennings
  • Agatha Christie
  • W. P. Kinsella
  • Aziz Ansari
  • John Gregory Betancourt
  • Julie Gregory
  • Mindy Kaling
  • Anthony Stevens
  • Louis Strauss
  • Dean Wesley Smith
  • Kristine Kathryn Rusch
  • Nell Zink
  • Stephanie Wittels Wachs

Jeffery Deaver and Karin Slaughter were the only authors that I read multiple titles from during 2019.

5 of the books I read were released this year, while 5 of them were released last century, with the oldest first published in 1934.

Finally, the breakdown by month.  My vacation to Hawaii in February and being off in December certainly helped pad its totals a tad bit.

Continue reading →

Book 17 (of 52) – Infection

Double Helix: Infection – John Gregory Betancourt

When a virus breaks out that targets mixed species people on a racist Federation planet, the Enterprise is sent to help find a cure while quarantining the system.  When the virus spreads to the Enterprise and takes down Troi, Dr. Crusher doubles her efforts to get to the bottom of it.

John Gregory Betancourt brings us back to the Star Trek universe with Infection, the first chapter of the Double Helix saga.  It certainly wasn’t the best TNG entry I’ve ever read, with an ending that was very rushed.  The other entries look to be spread across the different corners of the Star Trek universe, which is outside of my usual comfort zone, so we’ll see if picking up this series was worth it.