Books I’ve read (or listened to) in 2020

I miss reading for pleasure. Alongside the standard lament of being too busy/tired/lazy, one of the professional hazards of being an academic is having to read “lots of stuff”, broadly defined. Previously, I have tried to identify a set of books in January to read in the year ahead, with minimal success. But with the multitude of challenges from the last year including little, if any, travelling, I have made a conscious effort to chip away at the stack of books that I’d been collecting over recent years.

As you see from the mix of physical books and audiobooks listed below — including a number of re-reads, annotated by [⟳] — there is combination of fiction (largely sci-fi/fantasy) and non-fiction, aligning to some of the key themes that have defined this year(!). I was actually surprised at how many books I’d finished this year when I compiled this list; but sets an ambitious target for attacking the “never even touched” book pile next year.

So, in reading/listening order:

• Superior: The Return of Race Science (2019) by Angela Saini
• Lying for Money: How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of Our World (2019) by Dan Davies
• Fatherland (1992) by Robert Harris [⟳]
• Diaries: Into Politics 1972-1982 (2000) by Alan Clark [⟳]
• Diaries: In Power 1983-1992 (1993) by Alan Clark [⟳]
• Diaries: The Last Diaries 1993–1999 (2002) by Alan Clark
• Gotta Get Theroux This: My Life and Strange Times on Television (2019) by Louis Theroux
• How to Argue With a Racist: History, Science, Race and Reality (2020) by Adam Rutherford
• The Death of the Gods: The New Global Power Grab (2019) by Carl Miller
• The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
• The Fifth Season (2016) by N. K. Jemisin [⟳]
• The Obelisk Gate (2016) by N. K. Jemisin [⟳]
• The Stone Sky (2017) by N. K. Jemisin [⟳]
• What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions (2015) by Randall Munroe
• Dune (2006) by Frank Herbert
• The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread — and Why They Stop (2020) by Adam Kucharski
• HHhH (2013) by Laurent Binet
• Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (2020) by Caroline Criado Perez
• Surprisingly Down to Earth, and Very Funny: My Autobiography (2019) by Limmy

Enjoy!