This week I am working on clearing out the draft folder of my blog. So, late though it is, here is a post I wrote about reading in 2020.
By the Numbers
- I read more books in 2020 (41) than I did in 2019 (33). Note: I had previously declared my reading total for 2020 to be 40, but as I was checking to see which Hercule Poirot novels I hadn’t yet read, I realized that I’d read one in 2020 that I hadn’t recorded on the list.
- I read no nonfiction in 2020, perhaps because circumstances made escapism seem a lot more important than education. I hope that won’t become the new norm.
- I gave A-level grades to roughly half of the books (you can read about my favorites from the year here). I’m not sure if all those high grades mean that I was lucky in my reading choices or that pandemic desperation made me more willing to be pleased. Maybe it was a bit of both.
Overall it was a pleasant reading year, but over the course of the year I threw away three books. Yes, I literally threw them in the trash! The first was a book that reeked so strongly of perfume that I couldn’t tolerate handling it. I had neither the heart to try to de-stink the toxic thing nor the willingness to foist it off on some other reader, so I threw it out. The second was an old paperback that fell apart as I was reading it (for the record, it was Ngaio Marsh’s Tied Up in Tinsel). Its pages were foxed and tanned, not good recycling material. The story itself was so annoying that I didn’t even finish it. Throwing it into the trash was the only satisfaction I got from it. And the third book had dead bugs and what looked like a tiny cocoon in it, so the trash was the only place for it. Such are the perils of buying used books.
I haven’t given up the practice, though. I developed a book-buying habit early in the year and never quite managed to quit it. At first, it was because we couldn’t get books from the library, which had locked down along with the rest of the state. But later, after the library reopened, I continued to buy a lot of books, perhaps because they were the only “people” I was allowed to bring into my home, and surrounding myself with them meant there would be no shortage of company when I needed it. I didn’t have enough room for them, it’s true, but I was glad (and still am) to have them.
Now it’s time to focus on reading in 2021. My goals for the year are broad. I’d like to read more nonfiction and more poetry. I’d like to read more books from outside my “reading bubble.” But mostly I’d just like to read more, and I wish everyone, myself included, an plentiful year of reading.