A Book A Week in 2020: The Reading List

by admin | January 8, 2021 8:36 am

A couple of years ago, Mere, my middle daughter, gave me a ballcap that I wear often while reading outside in the gazebo. The inscription:  Fight Evil. Read Books. It is one of my favorite caps. She also told me about the Goodreads app, which I now use to keep up with books I have read or plan to read. For years, I used to keep a handwritten list in a notebook. That was rather analog. Goodreads is way handier and likely will keep me from buying the same novel twice, a few years apart. I have done that more than once. Now that 2020 is in hindsight, Goodreads kindly provided My Year in Books. So here are the highlights and some of the books I consumed while holed up at home last year.

To tally up, I read 52 books that amassed a total of 20,596 pages. A book a week. Funny, it didn’t seem I read that many. The longest book, weighing in at 1,120 pages was Reaganland by Rick Perlstein, an account of the rise of Ronald Reagan and the election of 1980. I am an inveterate reader of presidential biographies. I am about to start reading President Obama’s autobiography, A Promised Land, with hopes of finishing by the end of the month. It is heavy enough to injure a cat if dropped, so I’ll be careful.

The shortest book, at 112 pages, that I read early last year was Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart, by Father Jacques Philippe. Seeking peace last year certainly was a challenge for all of us. I can’t say I succeeded but am still trying.

Other books of note that ended up on my bookshelves last year:

On the lighter side:

There are plenty of other worthy books that I consumed in 2020. If you’re interested, take a look here: https://tinyurl.com/y4pxyhwl[2]

Finally, I kicked off the 2021 reading season with His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope, by Jon Meacham, an acclaimed historian and biographer. It is a truly beautiful story of one of America’s greatest heroes.

Happy reading, everyone.

Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: http://garyborders.com/pages/a-book-a-week-in-2020-the-reading-list/my-year-in-books-2020/
  2. https://tinyurl.com/y4pxyhwl: https://tinyurl.com/y4pxyhwl

Source URL: https://garyborders.com/pages/a-book-a-week-in-2020-the-reading-list/