{"id":51544,"date":"2024-12-31T10:00:01","date_gmt":"2024-12-31T18:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=51544"},"modified":"2024-12-31T10:11:06","modified_gmt":"2024-12-31T18:11:06","slug":"2024-reading-round-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2024\/12\/31\/2024-reading-round-up\/","title":{"rendered":"2024 Reading Round-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every year, I set myself a goal of reading at least 52 books over the course of the year \u2014 an average of one a week. This year I made it to 76 books<\/a>. Here’s a quick (?) overview\u2026<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

Once again, the trend of the last few years<\/a> holds true, with another year almost entirely dedicated to escapist fluff. Surprised? I’m not. Have you seen<\/em>\u2026everything?<\/p>\n

Non-fiction<\/strong>: Three books, counting for 4% of my reading. A silly little guide to surviving visiting quaint English villages<\/a>, a comic anthology of plans and schemes that didn’t quite work out<\/a>, and a really good look at menopause<\/a>, which I’d recommend to anyone dealing with it personally or who knows someone who is dealing with it personally (I fall into the latter category, being a 50-something cis man who knows a lot<\/em> of women “of a certain age”, as the old saying goes).<\/p>\n

Non-genre-fiction<\/strong> (where “genre” is shorthand \u2014 though, not very short, if you include this parenthetical \u2014 for science-fiction, fantasy, and horror): Not much, but a little bit. Frederik Backman’s books are always a delight, and this year I really enjoyed Anxious People<\/em><\/a>. Also in this category is the tenth anniversary re-release of Smut Peddler<\/a>, an erotic comic anthology (another release in the Smut Peddler series was also on my reading list this year, though that one counts as genre fiction<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Quality genre fiction<\/strong>: About the same as last year; primarily the Philip K. Dick nominees<\/a> and my Hugo project<\/a>, with a few others added here and there.<\/p>\n

As usual, I read all of the books nominated for this year’s Philip K. Dick awards. However, I’m no longer posting my thoughts or review on the nominees, as I am the coordinator for the Philip K. Dick award ceremony at Norwescon<\/a>. While I have no input into selecting any of the nominees or the eventual winner, I don’t want to give any appearance of impropriety. So, I’ll just read and enjoy each year’s nominees, and you all will have to make your own judgements as to your favorites.<\/p>\n

I added seven books to my Hugo reading project<\/a> and decided to skip re-reading three milkshake ducks<\/a>, bringing me up to 77% of the way through. This year’s selections were all good \u2014\u00a0I continue to very much enjoy Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga<\/a>, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy<\/a> was excellent hard SF, Connie Willis’s Oxford Time Travel<\/a> books are delightful, and Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age<\/em><\/a> continues to hold its place as my favorite of his books.<\/p>\n

Fluff genre fiction<\/strong>: Unsurprisingly, this once again ended up being the strong majority of this year’s reading. Lots of Star Trek<\/em> novels, with a few detours here and there. And given everything that was going on in 2020<\/del> 2021<\/del> 2022<\/del> 2023<\/del> 2024, it was very nice to have a bookshelf full of options that wouldn’t take a whole lot of brain power for me to disappear into. I did hit the somewhat silly but still notable milestone of having read every officially physically released standalone TOS Star Trek novel published to date (this excludes eBook only releases and TOS books that are part of a larger, multi-show series) — basically, on Wikipedia’s list of Star Trek novels<\/a>, everything in the Bantam Books<\/a> and Random House<\/a> sections and everything in the Simon & Schuster<\/a> section up to where it starts listing TNG books.<\/p>\n

Continuing from last year is reading more digitally than in the past, with my two SF\/F magazine subscriptions (Uncanny<\/em><\/a> and Clarkesworld<\/em><\/a>) and the ease of bringing ebooks along when vacationing landing me at a split of 70% physical, 30% digital for the year, compared to 78\/22 last year.<\/p>\n

Finally, Storygraph’s stats on my year’s reading<\/a> tell me:<\/p>\n