In 2020 I Mostly Read . . .

The 2020 reading list:

September-December 2020 - Finally back to Dresden, with both new books now out. Had suspended the re-read at no.10 towards the end of last year, as I was getting ahead of myself. On to re-read the last five:

Turncoat - battling a skin-walker, and lots of wizard politics.

Changes - family revelations, facing down the Red Court, and Harry finds himself signing up with the Winter Fae.

Ghost Story - errm, trying to avoid spoilers, but yes, here he is mostly dead.

Cold Days - back in the land of the living, but as the Winter Knight, treachery and Outsiders.

Skin Game - a heist on Hades, working for the Denarians!

And with the re-reads done - dipped in to some short stories, in the Side Jobs and Brief Cases compilations before the first of the new releases:

Peace Talks - as it turns out this only leads in to the next book, so lots remains unresolved - the eponymous peace talks don't go well, more family issues and politics, and an epic battle in the offing.

August 2020 - In need of something unchallenging, a return to childhood with Enid Blyton's Secret Island (it was one of my favourites, so has remained on the book shelf!). Very illustrative in itself of how times have changed from the early C20th to the modern day.

July-August 2020 - Some historical reading for a change - Peacocks in Paradise - a history of Hafod and the Johnes family. I didn't quite get to the end of this for one reason or another (it wasn't easy lockdown reading), but I did enjoy what I read, and it certainly casts a light on C18th society and how that played out in rural Wales.

June-July 2020 - Back to Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series - first of all the novella The October Man (with a German protagonist), I liked this one, the story was pacy and there were some good cross-references to the wider 'magic' story. Then a re-read of Lies Sleeping ahead of the new offering False Value. I found this a bit difficult to get into - it jumped around a bit too much maybe. There were some amusing references to other genre offerings (Hitch-hikers and The Librarians) and by about half way through I did settle in to it. Good, but not his best.

June 2020 - Lifespan: Why We Age - and Why We Don't Have To - maybe I'm getting conscious of getting older! Didn't finish this but what I read was really interesting - it does sound as though there are drugs that we could be taking to inhibit the degrading effects of aging, and that maybe one day they will be more widely available - just not quite yet ...

April-May 2020 - Book 4 in the Pathway Tree series - The Cascade - all getting quite serious now, with more to come. Want to find out how this ends!

April 2020 - Sandi Toksvig's Between the Stops: The View of My Life from the Top of the Number 12 Bus - I really enjoyed this, a mix of snippets from her life and interesting and odd facts about London - with some really thought-provoking stuff mixed in. Recommended read.

March-April 2020 - Charlaine Harris' Lily Bard series - Shakespeare's Landlord, Shakespeare's Champion, Shakespeare's Christmas, Shakespeare's Trollop - another great central character, and interesting stories / mysteries (picked them up cheap in a charity shop, but haven't got the fifth one yet).

January-March 2020 - F.D. Lee's Pathway Tree series, books 1-3 The Fairy's Tale, The Academy, and The Princess and the Orrery. Interesting and original fantasy, great characters, and a political edge to it all - kept the pages turning . . . looking forward to book 4.