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What were your favorite reads of 2019?

Several series kept going well this year. Head On by Scalzi was good, but I was particularly tickled by a couple of new Murderbot stories by Martha Wells.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was excellent. I had high hopes for the series, but the second book was just OK & I abandoned the third one. Too much talk & description, not enough story. Dennis E. Taylor's Bobiverse trilogy was great fun. The first book was the best, but I liked all 3.

I reread some excellent books. Under A Calculating Star was just as good as when it came out 40 years ago. 1984 & Alas, Babylon were better. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court wasn't as good, though. Disappointing.

Off the top of my head, The Raven and the Reindeer, just because I read it last week. I'll try to come up with others....

Since 2014, there has been a book for the yearly reads on GR. This year it's "2019 on ŷ������" (book search isn't working right now). I stick it on my current reads shelf & fill in books as the year progresses. I was just touching it up today. It's amazing how many good books I've read this year. It's been good for SF, but even better for nonfiction. It's not finished yet, but mostly complete.
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Jim wrote: "What were your favorite reads of 2019?"

Stop the insanity! 2019 isn't over yet, so how could I possibly know?

Some of my favorite SF/F fiction so far includes:
Who Fears Death, Cthulhu 2000, The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein and Silver in the Wood.

Cheryl wrote: "Off the top of my head, The Raven and the Reindeer, ..."

I just realized the author is the same person who wrote the Hugo-winning comic Digger. I read some of that this year but can't remember which volume I stopped with. I hate when that happens!

This year I remember enjoying the Forever War cycle by Joe Haldeman. /series/5437....
Apart from his most famous first book of this series he doesn't get exceptional ratings here, but I very much like his style and will read more of him.
Another thing to rembember this year was racing through the Wayward Pines cycle by Blake Crouch.
/series/1162....
Reading his books is always like travelling light with a huge wind in your back.

Leo wrote: "This year I remember enjoying the Forever War cycle by Joe Haldeman. ..."

He's written some stinkers. I loved the first 'Forever', but didn't care for the 2 others. All My Sins Remembered & There Is No Darkness are my other favorite novels. His 'Worlds' trilogy & Mindbridge are good. He's a good short story writer & editor. If you like them, I recommend Dealing in Futures.

I agree with you about Crouch. I hope he doesn't burn out.

Jim wrote: "All my Sins Remembered & There Is No Darkness are my other favorite novels. His 'Worlds' trilogy & Mindbridge are good"

Thanks, I'll check those out.

ŷ������ has a special page for all of us in our Year in Books.
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I looked at mine & was unimpressed again, mostly because they don't handle 'pages' in audiobooks properly, so my shortest book is always one. This year my longest book is also an audiobook, one that is on my 'did-not-finish' shelf. Sigh.

I like that my 5 star books are larger than the others.

The most popular book I read was 1984. Over 4 million read it. No one else read Short Stories of Gordon Randall Garrett, a pretty much forgotten SF author.

The "Year in Books" works for my quite well, since I always shelf the books as the first option that comes up when I type in the title - which is usally the English paperback or hardcover Version. For my overview it is of no concern if I read them as ebooks or listened to them on audiobooks or read in another language.

The most popular one in my pile therefore is The Golden Compass with 1.2 million reads (I didn't get around reading 1984 yet and am not sure I'll manage this year), the least known is Aipotu with 2 reads. The one with the highest GR rating is Words of Radiance, which also is the book with the most pages out of my reads.

As for my favourite reads, I can't boil them down to a sizeable list. This year I had the good fortune to read a lot of books that impressed me one way or the other. I think I have roughly 40 5-star ratings on my 2019 list (not counting graphic novels and short stories)

My longest was Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction (but that is mostly because of endnotes and appendices.)

My most popular was The Giver. Meh.

My least popular was apparently Panorama Du Theatre Nouveau Volume 3: Le Théâtre De La Dérision, but I've read some other oddities as well.

My longest this year is The Way of Kings, 1007 pages

My most popular was 1984

My least popular was Коммерческие банки Москвы. Конец XIX в. - 1914 г., a non-fic about commercial banks

Oleksandr wrote: "My least popular was Коммерческие банки Москвы. Конец XIX в. - 1914 г...."

Wow! You have the most "liked" review for that!

The book I read with the highest ratings was Watermelons, Nooses, and Straight Razors: Stories from the Jim Crow Museum. It gets high ratings in part because only people who would like it will actually read it. It is very good, though.

2020 on ŷ������ is now available if anyone else wants to add it to their shelves. As I mentioned earlier, I add it early & update it as the year goes on. For me, finishing it up at the end of the year is one of the highlights of the season.

I enjoyed The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein and Alas, Babylon was my favourite group read.

I don't do any reading challenges, but do like to see what my reading trends are.



I joined GR at the end of 2007, but didn't really track my reading until 2009. Being a nerdy sort, I export my reads each year & massage them in an Excel sheet to see how the year has gone. For instance, my 3 star & above ratings have held pretty steady around 80% - great reading. Kudos to the GR community & my GR friends for steering me right.

Thanks to audiobooks, the number I read each year has generally increased, although it seems I slacked off a bit this year from last. I almost doubled my books in 2013-14 due to audiobooks, though.

2009 - 147 books read
2010 - 117 books read
2011 - 125 books read
2012 - 130 books read
2013 - 220 books read
2014 - 212 books read
2015 - 241 books read
2016 - 230 books read
2017 - 259 books read
2018 - 312 books read
2019 - 264 books read

I'm definitely reading more nonfiction thanks to audiobooks. I'm happy about that. I'm finding they're of more interest. So many of the fiction genres have become stale for me - 'been there, done that' kind of thing. Nonfiction, especially the latest in biology & astronomy, is burgeoning with new discoveries. I generally won't read a book in biology if it was published after 2000 & prefer 2010.

Cool! Look at your last column, is there a growing correlation between "paper" and "did not finish"? :p

I've never actually listened to an audiobook. I think if I drove to work, that would be the only time I'd be inclined to.

Sabri wrote: "Cool! Look at your last column, is there a growing correlation between "paper" and "did not finish"? :p ..."

Actually, I rarely put down a paper book, but I'm slow to get through them now. I just don't seem to have the time to sit & read. Audiobooks are the most likely to not get read. I found the swing in ebooks another interesting stat. I really don't care for them much, but read them when other formats aren't available.

OK, since 2020 is here: a list of my best SF/F reads in 2019 (mostly). All 5 stars from me (which I'm pretty stingy with), and all with reviews posted here, I think. Mostly SF, which is my preference and home comfort zone.

The current Scalzi series, the Emperox/Flow stuff, just for fun. He just keeps getting better!
Sue Burke's Semiosis duology, both first rate.
Linda Nagata's EDGES. Note the sequel was a big step down, I thought.
Swanwick's "The Iron Dragon's Mother". OK, it's fantasy, but hard fantasy, OK? Really, go back to "The Iron Dragon's Daughter," if you missed it, which is even better. Great, in fact.
Arkady Martine, "A Memory Called Empire"
Benford's "The Berlin Project", if you missed it. A tour de force of alternate history.

Here's to lots of Good Reads in 2020!

I had a feeling that I hadn't found many exceptional books to read in 2019. My "Year and Books" confirmed this by showing my average rating to be 2.8 and this didn't include more than 30 books I did not finish because I put them on a separate shelf.

I read books mostly on Kindle with a few hard copies from the local library. The least popular book I read was a collection of short stories by Raymond F. Jones called "Pete Can Fix-it". Apparently only one person beside myself claimed to have read it.

It is a OK collection of short SF stories from the late '40's and early '50's. Jones is probably best known for writing the novel "This Island Earth" which was turned into a movie in 1955.