2020: The Year In Books

As we wrap up 2020, a year where I should have been setting records due to the pandemic and stay at home orders, I managed to read only 23 books, a decrease of 5 books over last year.  Of those 23, 8 were non-fiction and, of the 15 novels, only 2 were tied to a TV show.  None of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer and 15 were e-books.  I read just over 7,800 pages, my seventh highest total of all time.

For the first time in years, a majority of the books I read this year were by authors I have read before. The 11 authors that I read for the first this year were:

  • Ken Harrelson
  • Jeff Snook
  • Liz Phair
  • Megan Abbott
  • Greer Hendricks
  • Sarah Pekkanen
  • Cameron Esposito
  • Rich Lindberg
  • Sara Schaefer
  • Alex Trebek
  • Trevor Noah

Tom Perotta, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Karin Slaughter were the only authors that I read multiple titles from during 2020.

6 of the books I read were released this year, while 5 of them were released last century, with the oldest first published in 1933.

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 11 (of 52) – Stuck On The Sox

Stuck On The Sox – Rich Lindberg

This rather light-hearted history of the White Sox, focused primarily from the early 50s until its publication in 1978, comes from noted Chicago historian Rich Lindberg.  I was intrigued when I saw the cover in a Twitter post by one of the NBCSN flunkies, so I ran out to Amazon and found a used copy for a reasonable price.

Truth be told, this really wasn’t worth it.  Aside from 1977, the mid-to-late 70s was not really a great time in White Sox history, and, because of my age, it isn’t a time that I really relate to.  Yeah, there were some names in there, but, for the most part, my life isn’t improved by having read this book.  That said, it was less than 200 pages, so if you happen across it, why not give it a shot?