50 books in 2020!

[Raenia]

1	Warbreaker	Brandon Sanderson	Own	Reread	1/6/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
2	The Complete Book of Home Organization	Toni Hammersley	Own	Educational	1/7/2020	Nonfiction - Home and Garden
3	Rocannon's World	Ursula LeGuin	Own	TBR List	1/14/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
4	Trickster's Choice	Tamora Pierce	Library	PopSugar	1/17/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
5	The Broken Universe	Paul Melko	Library	Sequel	1/25/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
6	The Devil in the White City	Erik Larson	Library	TBR List	2/3/2020	General Nonfiction
7	Eventide: Tales of the Dragon's Bard	Tracy and Laura Hickman	Library	PopSugar	2/13/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
8	Trickster's Queen	Tamora Pierce	Library	Sequel	2/15/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
9	Gilgamesh the King	Robert Silverberg	Library	PopSugar	2/24/2020	Fiction - Historical
10	The Sparrow	Mary Doria Russell	Library	PopSugar	2/24/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
11	Planet of Exile	Ursula LeGuin	Own	TBR List	2/24/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction

12	Children of the Night	Mercedes Lackey	Library	Sequel	2/29/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
13	City of Illusions	Ursula LeGuin	Own	TBR List	3/3/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
14	The Aylesford Skull	James P. Blaylock	Library	Other	3/11/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
15	Starsight	Brandon Sanderson	Library	Sequel	3/13/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction

[qbird]

1) Where Do I Begin by Elvis Duran
2) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
3) The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
4) The Printed Letter Bookshop by Katherine Reay
5) Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule
6) When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
7) Do Over by Jon Acuff
8) Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
9) The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates

[qbird]

1) Where Do I Begin by Elvis Duran
2) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
3) The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
4) The Printed Letter Bookshop by Katherine Reay
5) Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule
6) When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
7) Do Over by Jon Acuff
8) Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
9) The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates
10) The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

[Linea_Norway]

January:
1) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (started in December)
2) The Lie, a memoire of two marriages, catfishing and coming out by William Dameron
3) The Queston of Red by Laksmi Pamuntjak
4) Grønn ungdom hele livet (Green youth my whole life), by Peter Tutein. Only read halfway.
5) Dubbel zes (Double Six) by Daphne Deckers
6) Ventoux by Bert Wagendorp
7) Svamp under mikroskopet (Mushrooms under the microscope) by Jan Nilsson
8) Vi må snakke om bakterier (We need to talk about bacteria) by Jessica Lönn-Stensrud
9) Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
10) Resten av dagen (The Remains of the day) by Kazuo Ishiguro

February:
11) The seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
12) Koke bjørn (Cooking bears) by Mikael Niemi
13) Kijkvoer & Leesgenot (Dutch poetry) by Michèl de Jong and Drs. P.
14) The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman
15) Botanikum by Katie Scott and Kathy Willis
16) Skog vil si samfunn (The Word for World is Forest) by Ursula le Guin
17) Blå (Blue) by Maja Lunde
18) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
19) Ulvetider (an Era of Wolves) by Lars Lenth, Petter Böckman and Morten Tønnessen
20) Plukk selv (Forage yourself) by Trond Svendgård
21) Gratis mat av ville planter (Free Food from Wild Plants) by Jens Holmboe

March:
22) Lud-in-the-mist by Hope Mirrlees
23) The Slow Moon Climbs by Susan Mattern

[travelbug]

1. A Gentleman in Moscow. Amor Towles. this is a marvellous book. I enjoyed reading it immensely. Wonderful prose.
2. The Ten Thousand Doors of January. Alex E. Harrow.  I enjoyed this book, would recommend it.
3. The Binding. Bridget Collins. I really loved this style and the storytelling.
4. The 5am Club. Robin S. Sharma. I couldn't finished this book. It was terrible. I really like his other books. Disappointing.
5. Fleishman is in Trouble. Taffy Brodesser-Akner. An easy read, I enjoyed the narrative about modern relationships.
6. Still Life. Louise Penny. A wonderful and addictive read.
7. A Fatal Grace. Louise Penny. Still fabulous.
8. Less. Andrew Sean Greer. An easy, fun read.
9. The Cruellest Month. Louise Penny. Left wanting more...
10. A rule against Murder. Louise Penny. What will I do when this series ends?????
11. The Katharina Code. Jorn Lier Horst. A slow burn, enjoyable read.
12. My sister, the Serial Killer.  Oyinkan Braithwaite. I wanted to like this but it fizzled out for me. It could have been so wonderful, but lacked a depth (IMHO.)
13. Mrs Sherlock Holmes. Brad Ricca. I really, really enjoyed this.
14. The Art of Frugal Hedonism. Adam Grubb and Annie Raser-Rowland. OK.
15. Meet the Frugalwoods. Elisabeth Willard Thames. I have followed her blog on and off since their Cambridge days and when she posted here. The book gave some extra insights.

16. The book of Dreams. Nina George. This was a beautiful, heartbreaking story. I loved it.
17. Dinner with Edward: A Story of an Unexpected Friendship.  Isabel Vincent. I'm not sure if I enjoyed this one. I loved the idea, but felt it could've been edited more. After reading so many wonderful novels, I may be becoming picky.

[diapasoun]

1. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (library)
2. Classical Mythology, Elizabeth Vandiver (borrowed)
3. The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden (library)
4. Middlegame, Seanan McGuire (library)
5. The Book of the Courtier, Baldassare Castiglione (own, pre-2020)
6. Druid Magic Handbook, John Michael Greer (own, new)
7. Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. LeGuin (own, pre-2020)

8. Beowful, trans. Gerald Davis (own, pre-2020). Real great translation -- the alliteration is good -- and of course Beowulf is a classic.

Currently reading:

The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch (own, pre-2020)
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (own, pre-2020)
The Natural History of the UC Santa Cruz Campus (library)


Pre-2020 books: 3/15

Local natural history and ecology: 0/9

[sui generis]

1.  The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay, finished 01/02/2020 (audio).

2. Golden Gate Gardening: The Complete Guide to Year-Round Food Gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area & Coastal California by Pamela Peirce, finished 01/10/2020. 

3. Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions by Gloria Steinem, finished 01/11/2020.

4. Then She Was Gone, by Lisa Jewell, finished 01/13/2020.

5. Meridian, by Alice Walker, finished 01/26/2020.

6. Dawn, by Octavia Butler, finished 01/29/2020.

7. Women & Power: A Manifesto, by Mary Beard, finished 01/31/2020. 

8. Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, finished 02/14/2020.

9. The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton, finished 02/19/2020 (audio). 

10. There There, by Tommy Orange, finished 2/20/2020. 

11.  The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty (Updated 10th Anniversary Edition), by Peter Singer, finished 2/27/2020 (audio). The book is available for free download here: https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/the-book/

12. The Witches are Coming, by Lindy West, finished 3/7/2020 (audio). 

13. Everything Under, by Daisy Johnson, finished 3/8/2020.

14. This is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, finished 3/9/2020 (audio).

15. Still Life, by Louise Penny, finished 3/15/2020.  A nice cozy mystery and easy read.  I'll probably try another of this series in the future.

[jeroly]

1. Severance by Ling Ma
A Chinese immigrant to America tells the story of being one of the few survivors of a mysterious epidemic that zombifies almost all of humanity.  No brain eating, just good writing.

2.  A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
A Russian aristocrat is sentenced to life imprisonment in a Moscow Hotel and over the course of thirty some years, his life there unfolds.  Sweet and light, with occasional interesting philosophical observations.

3. The All-True Travels and Adventures of Liddie Newton by Jane Smiley
An Illinois girl marries and moves to the Kansas Territory in 1855.  Long and slow in parts, it does provide an interesting lens into the story of "Bleeding Kansas," a chapter of American history I didn't know much about before.

4. Quit like a Millionaire by Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung
A pretty great life story / intro to FIRE by a couple who FIREd at 31.  With the caveat that, IMNSHO, they miss the boat on the problems with yield chasing (they recommend high dividend, REITs, and preferred shares as a separate component of a FIRE portfolio to create a “yield shield”), it’s filled with good information.

5. Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Focused on eighties high schoolers at a southern performing arts school, this book has some surprising twists that I'll save the spoilers on. Well written.

6. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
A memoir of a dysfunctional family, a la Running with Scissors or The Glass Castle, but with war and racism thrown in for good measure.  Recommended.

7. Living Off Your Money: The Modern Mechanics of Investing During Retirement with Stock and Bonds by Michael H. McClung
A pretty comprehensive examination of withdrawal rates and strategies, asset allocations, glide paths, reallocation, variable withdrawal schemes, and more. Lots of backtesting and bootstrapping data are provided. It's a good overview but is clouded by some questionable examples and typos. It will stimulate further investigations on my part.

8. The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri
Not related to the movie with the same name, this is the first of a series of mysteries involving an Italian police inspector in Sicily.  A nicely composed story with a good balance of setting and plot, it was a fast and fun read.  I will read more of these Inspector Montalbano mysteries.

9. Seduction: A History from the Enlightenment to the Present by Clement Knox
An occasionally interesting but often tedious examination of how societal attitudes on sexual pursuit have changed over the centuries. Includes some portraits of famous figures such as Casanova, Mary Wollstonecraft, and others. Includes a consideration of #MeToo.

10. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
Charlie finds himself one morning with a dead wife, a new baby, and a side gig as a collector of the souls of the dead. Starts great, but in the second half of the book it gets bogged down in more of the macabre and less of the humor than I found early on.  Still entertaining overall.

11. The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry
A grim but useful look at the “Spanish Flu” epidemic (which actually started in Kansas) of 1918-20 that killed between 50 and 100 million.  I read it during my coronavirus-dictated social distancing... it’s scary to read how the lying and inaction of the authorities of the time led to the overloading of the healthcare system, while watching our malignant US administration repeat the errors of the past.

[Linea_Norway]

January:
1) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (started in December)
2) The Lie, a memoire of two marriages, catfishing and coming out by William Dameron
3) The Queston of Red by Laksmi Pamuntjak
4) Grønn ungdom hele livet (Green youth my whole life), by Peter Tutein. Only read halfway.
5) Dubbel zes (Double Six) by Daphne Deckers
6) Ventoux by Bert Wagendorp
7) Svamp under mikroskopet (Mushrooms under the microscope) by Jan Nilsson
8) Vi må snakke om bakterier (We need to talk about bacteria) by Jessica Lönn-Stensrud
9) Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
10) Resten av dagen (The Remains of the day) by Kazuo Ishiguro

February:
11) The seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
12) Koke bjørn (Cooking bears) by Mikael Niemi
13) Kijkvoer & Leesgenot (Dutch poetry) by Michèl de Jong and Drs. P.
14) The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman
15) Botanikum by Katie Scott and Kathy Willis
16) Skog vil si samfunn (The Word for World is Forest) by Ursula le Guin
17) Blå (Blue) by Maja Lunde
18) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
19) Ulvetider (an Era of Wolves) by Lars Lenth, Petter Böckman and Morten Tønnessen
20) Plukk selv (Forage yourself) by Trond Svendgård
21) Gratis mat av ville planter (Free Food from Wild Plants) by Jens Holmboe

March:
22) Lud-in-the-mist by Hope Mirrlees
23) The Slow Moon Climbs by Susan Mattern
24) Six Degrees by Mark Lynas

[diapasoun]

1. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (library)
2. Classical Mythology, Elizabeth Vandiver (borrowed)
3. The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden (library)
4. Middlegame, Seanan McGuire (library)
5. The Book of the Courtier, Baldassare Castiglione (own, pre-2020)
6. Druid Magic Handbook, John Michael Greer (own, new)
7. Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. LeGuin (own, pre-2020)
8. Beowulf, trans. Gerald Davis (own, pre-2020)

9. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (own, re-read, pre-2020). I've long liked this book and wanted to re-read it after seeing the movie. It's preachy but I still love it.

Currently reading:

The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch (own, pre-2020)
The Natural History of the UC Santa Cruz Campus, Martha Brown et al. (library)

Pre-2020 books: 4/15

Local natural history and ecology: 0/9

[Anette]

6) Nemesis by Jo Nesbo (re-read  this)
7) It's me: Trevor Noah, Born a crime

Really enjoyed the Trevor Noah book!

[Linea_Norway]

January:
1) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (started in December)
2) The Lie, a memoire of two marriages, catfishing and coming out by William Dameron
3) The Queston of Red by Laksmi Pamuntjak
4) Grønn ungdom hele livet (Green youth my whole life), by Peter Tutein. Only read halfway.
5) Dubbel zes (Double Six) by Daphne Deckers
6) Ventoux by Bert Wagendorp
7) Svamp under mikroskopet (Mushrooms under the microscope) by Jan Nilsson
8) Vi må snakke om bakterier (We need to talk about bacteria) by Jessica Lönn-Stensrud
9) Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
10) Resten av dagen (The Remains of the day) by Kazuo Ishiguro

February:
11) The seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
12) Koke bjørn (Cooking bears) by Mikael Niemi
13) Kijkvoer & Leesgenot (Dutch poetry) by Michèl de Jong and Drs. P.
14) The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman
15) Botanikum by Katie Scott and Kathy Willis
16) Skog vil si samfunn (The Word for World is Forest) by Ursula le Guin
17) Blå (Blue) by Maja Lunde
18) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
19) Ulvetider (an Era of Wolves) by Lars Lenth, Petter Böckman and Morten Tønnessen
20) Plukk selv (Forage yourself) by Trond Svendgård
21) Gratis mat av ville planter (Free Food from Wild Plants) by Jens Holmboe

March:
22) Lud-in-the-mist by Hope Mirrlees
23) The Slow Moon Climbs by Susan Mattern
24) Six Degrees by Mark Lynas
25) The Dirtbag's Guide to Life by Tim Mathis

[dblaace]

   1. The Long Road Back to Boston  by Phillip Fields Ph.D
   2. Fearvana  by Akshay Nanavati
   3. Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person Shonda Rhimes
   4. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
   5. Black Echo by Michael Connelly
   6. Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly
   7. Angels Flight by Michael Connelly
   8. Gray Ghost by William G. Tapply
   9. City of Bones by Michael Connelly
   10. Echo Park by Michael Connelly
   11. Blue on Black by Michael Connelly
   12. Bloody Genius by John Sandford

[Serendip]

1) Born A Crime, Trevor Noah (audiobook)
2) The Moth Presents Occasional Magic: True Stories About Defying the Impossible
3) The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides (*bookclub)
4) Face to Face: The Art of Human Connection, Brian Grazer
5) The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere, Pico Iyer
6) Self-Knowledge, The School of Life (Alain de Botton)
7) Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment, Robert Wright
8) A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
9) How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy: Jenny Odell
10) The Working Mind & Drawing Hand of Oliver Jeffers (art book)
11) A Beginners Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations, Pico Iyer
12) Burn the Place: a memoir, Iliana Regan
13) The Beauty of Everyday Things, Soetsu Yanagi
14) Starlight: Richard Wagamese (*bookclub)
15) The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible (Sacred Activism): Charles Eisenstein
16) Moon Over Crusted Snow: Waubgeshig Rice
17) A Tale for the Time Being: Ruth Ozeki
18) Akata Witch (*YA fiction, bookclub), Nnedi Okorafor
19) Territory of Light, Yuko Tsushima
20) Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert

still working on
21) Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (still listening to the audiobook)
22) The Kiss Quotient, Helen Hoang (somewhat racy bookclub book)
23) The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Mediation,  Toni Morrison

[Linea_Norway]

January:
1) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (started in December)
2) The Lie, a memoire of two marriages, catfishing and coming out by William Dameron
3) The Queston of Red by Laksmi Pamuntjak
4) Grønn ungdom hele livet (Green youth my whole life), by Peter Tutein. Only read halfway.
5) Dubbel zes (Double Six) by Daphne Deckers
6) Ventoux by Bert Wagendorp
7) Svamp under mikroskopet (Mushrooms under the microscope) by Jan Nilsson
8) Vi må snakke om bakterier (We need to talk about bacteria) by Jessica Lönn-Stensrud
9) Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
10) Resten av dagen (The Remains of the day) by Kazuo Ishiguro

February:
11) The seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
12) Koke bjørn (Cooking bears) by Mikael Niemi
13) Kijkvoer & Leesgenot (Dutch poetry) by Michèl de Jong and Drs. P.
14) The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman
15) Botanikum by Katie Scott and Kathy Willis
16) Skog vil si samfunn (The Word for World is Forest) by Ursula le Guin
17) Blå (Blue) by Maja Lunde
18) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
19) Ulvetider (an Era of Wolves) by Lars Lenth, Petter Böckman and Morten Tønnessen
20) Plukk selv (Forage yourself) by Trond Svendgård
21) Gratis mat av ville planter (Free Food from Wild Plants) by Jens Holmboe

March:
22) Lud-in-the-mist by Hope Mirrlees
23) The Slow Moon Climbs by Susan Mattern
24) Six Degrees by Mark Lynas
25) The Dirtbag's Guide to Life by Tim Mathis
26) The Jakarta Pandemic by Steven Konkoly

[ahptex]

(1) The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemison
(2) Faithful Place by Tana French
(3) The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
(4) Lessons from Lucy by Dave Barry
(5) The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
(6) Broken Harbor by Tana French
(7) If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now by Christopher Ingraham
(8) The Wisdom Way of Knowing by Cynthia Bourgeault
(9) The Girl with all the Gifts by M. R. Carey

(10) Zealot by Reza Aslan

[Linea_Norway]

Our national library has scanned or photocopied lots of old books. I am currently reading a book by Albert Camus that is a literal photocopy, complete with some dust particles or other spits on the pages. That book was recommended now in the newspaper and I was glad I could read it for free. Only, I need to read it live streaming on a iPad. Not ideal, but doable.

[sui generis]

1.  The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay, finished 01/02/2020 (audio).

2. Golden Gate Gardening: The Complete Guide to Year-Round Food Gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area & Coastal California by Pamela Peirce, finished 01/10/2020. 

3. Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions by Gloria Steinem, finished 01/11/2020.

4. Then She Was Gone, by Lisa Jewell, finished 01/13/2020.

5. Meridian, by Alice Walker, finished 01/26/2020.

6. Dawn, by Octavia Butler, finished 01/29/2020.

7. Women & Power: A Manifesto, by Mary Beard, finished 01/31/2020. 

8. Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, finished 02/14/2020.

9. The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton, finished 02/19/2020 (audio). 

10. There There, by Tommy Orange, finished 2/20/2020. 

11.  The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty (Updated 10th Anniversary Edition), by Peter Singer, finished 2/27/2020 (audio). The book is available for free download here: https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/the-book/

12. The Witches are Coming, by Lindy West, finished 3/7/2020 (audio). 

13. Everything Under, by Daisy Johnson, finished 3/8/2020.

14. This is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, finished 3/9/2020 (audio).

15. Still Life, by Louise Penny, finished 3/15/2020.

16. The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett, finished 3/21/2020 (audio). Enjoyed this book.  The plot was just ok, but it was very well-written.  Also, the audiobook is read by Tom Hanks who, not surprisingly, does quite a good job.  P.S.  Tom says he's doing a bit better every day, recovering from COVID-19.

[qbird]

1) Where Do I Begin by Elvis Duran
2) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
3) The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
4) The Printed Letter Bookshop by Katherine Reay
5) Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule
6) When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
7) Do Over by Jon Acuff
8) Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
9) The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates
10) The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moye
11) The Other Woman by Sandie Jones

[jeroly]

1. Severance by Ling Ma
A Chinese immigrant to America tells the story of being one of the few survivors of a mysterious epidemic that zombifies almost all of humanity.  No brain eating, just good writing.

2.  A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
A Russian aristocrat is sentenced to life imprisonment in a Moscow Hotel and over the course of thirty some years, his life there unfolds.  Sweet and light, with occasional interesting philosophical observations.

3. The All-True Travels and Adventures of Liddie Newton by Jane Smiley
An Illinois girl marries and moves to the Kansas Territory in 1855.  Long and slow in parts, it does provide an interesting lens into the story of "Bleeding Kansas," a chapter of American history I didn't know much about before.

4. Quit like a Millionaire by Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung
A pretty great life story / intro to FIRE by a couple who FIREd at 31.  With the caveat that, IMNSHO, they miss the boat on the problems with yield chasing (they recommend high dividend, REITs, and preferred shares as a separate component of a FIRE portfolio to create a “yield shield”), it’s filled with good information.

5. Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Focused on eighties high schoolers at a southern performing arts school, this book has some surprising twists that I'll save the spoilers on. Well written.

6. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
A memoir of a dysfunctional family, a la Running with Scissors or The Glass Castle, but with war and racism thrown in for good measure.  Recommended.

7. Living Off Your Money: The Modern Mechanics of Investing During Retirement with Stock and Bonds by Michael H. McClung
A pretty comprehensive examination of withdrawal rates and strategies, asset allocations, glide paths, reallocation, variable withdrawal schemes, and more. Lots of backtesting and bootstrapping data are provided. It's a good overview but is clouded by some questionable examples and typos. It will stimulate further investigations on my part.

8. The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri
Not related to the movie with the same name, this is the first of a series of mysteries involving an Italian police inspector in Sicily.  A nicely composed story with a good balance of setting and plot, it was a fast and fun read.  I will read more of these Inspector Montalbano mysteries.

9. Seduction: A History from the Enlightenment to the Present by Clement Knox
An occasionally interesting but often tedious examination of how societal attitudes on sexual pursuit have changed over the centuries. Includes some portraits of famous figures such as Casanova, Mary Wollstonecraft, and others. Includes a consideration of #MeToo.

10. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
Charlie finds himself one morning with a dead wife, a new baby, and a side gig as a collector of the souls of the dead. Starts great, but in the second half of the book it gets bogged down in more of the macabre and less of the humor than I found early on.  Still entertaining overall.

11. The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry
A grim but useful look at the “Spanish Flu” epidemic (which actually started in Kansas) of 1918-20 that killed between 50 and 100 million.  I read it during my coronavirus-dictated social distancing... it’s scary to read how the lying and inaction of the authorities of the time led to the overloading of the healthcare system, while watching our malignant US administration repeat the errors of the Past.

12. The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean
The author uses the periodic table as a framework on which to tell a bunch of interesting stories from the history of science.  A good read.

[Linea_Norway]

January:
1) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (started in December)
2) The Lie, a memoire of two marriages, catfishing and coming out by William Dameron
3) The Queston of Red by Laksmi Pamuntjak
4) Grønn ungdom hele livet (Green youth my whole life), by Peter Tutein. Only read halfway.
5) Dubbel zes (Double Six) by Daphne Deckers
6) Ventoux by Bert Wagendorp
7) Svamp under mikroskopet (Mushrooms under the microscope) by Jan Nilsson
8) Vi må snakke om bakterier (We need to talk about bacteria) by Jessica Lönn-Stensrud
9) Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
10) Resten av dagen (The Remains of the day) by Kazuo Ishiguro

February:
11) The seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
12) Koke bjørn (Cooking bears) by Mikael Niemi
13) Kijkvoer & Leesgenot (Dutch poetry) by Michèl de Jong and Drs. P.
14) The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman
15) Botanikum by Katie Scott and Kathy Willis
16) Skog vil si samfunn (The Word for World is Forest) by Ursula le Guin
17) Blå (Blue) by Maja Lunde
18) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
19) Ulvetider (an Era of Wolves) by Lars Lenth, Petter Böckman and Morten Tønnessen
20) Plukk selv (Forage yourself) by Trond Svendgård
21) Gratis mat av ville planter (Free Food from Wild Plants) by Jens Holmboe

March:
22) Lud-in-the-mist by Hope Mirrlees
23) The Slow Moon Climbs by Susan Mattern
24) Six Degrees by Mark Lynas
25) The Dirtbag's Guide to Life by Tim Mathis
26) The Jakarta Pandemic by Steven Konkoly
27) The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang

[Serendip]

1) Born A Crime, Trevor Noah (audiobook)
2) The Moth Presents Occasional Magic: True Stories About Defying the Impossible
3) The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides (*bookclub)
4) Face to Face: The Art of Human Connection, Brian Grazer
5) The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere, Pico Iyer
6) Self-Knowledge, The School of Life (Alain de Botton)
7) Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment, Robert Wright
8) A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
9) How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy: Jenny Odell
10) The Working Mind & Drawing Hand of Oliver Jeffers (art book)
11) A Beginners Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations, Pico Iyer
12) Burn the Place: a memoir, Iliana Regan
13) The Beauty of Everyday Things, Soetsu Yanagi
14) Starlight: Richard Wagamese (*bookclub)
15) The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible (Sacred Activism): Charles Eisenstein
16) Moon Over Crusted Snow: Waubgeshig Rice
17) A Tale for the Time Being: Ruth Ozeki
18) Akata Witch (*YA fiction, bookclub), Nnedi Okorafor
19) Territory of Light, Yuko Tsushima
20) Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert
21) The Kiss Quotient, Helen Hoang (somewhat racy bookclub book)
22) Letters to a Young Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke

[Raenia]

1	Warbreaker	Brandon Sanderson	Own	Reread	1/6/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
2	The Complete Book of Home Organization	Toni Hammersley	Own	Educational	1/7/2020	Nonfiction - Home and Garden
3	Rocannon's World	Ursula LeGuin	Own	TBR List	1/14/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
4	Trickster's Choice	Tamora Pierce	Library	PopSugar	1/17/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
5	The Broken Universe	Paul Melko	Library	Sequel	1/25/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
6	The Devil in the White City	Erik Larson	Library	TBR List	2/3/2020	General Nonfiction
7	Eventide: Tales of the Dragon's Bard	Tracy and Laura Hickman	Library	PopSugar	2/13/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
8	Trickster's Queen	Tamora Pierce	Library	Sequel	2/15/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
9	Gilgamesh the King	Robert Silverberg	Library	PopSugar	2/24/2020	Fiction - Historical
10	The Sparrow	Mary Doria Russell	Library	PopSugar	2/24/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
11	Planet of Exile	Ursula LeGuin	Own	TBR List	2/24/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
12	Children of the Night	Mercedes Lackey	Library	Sequel	2/29/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
13	City of Illusions	Ursula LeGuin	Own	TBR List	3/3/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
14	The Aylesford Skull	James P. Blaylock	Library	Other	3/11/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
15	Starsight	Brandon Sanderson	Library	Sequel	3/13/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction

16	The Deep	Rivers Solomon, et al	Library	PopSugar	3/16/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
17	The Dispossessed	Ursula LeGuin	Own	TBR List	3/22/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction

[cerat0n1a]

1) Behave - Robert Sapolsky.
2) Lonely Planet - 50 natural wonders.
3) Lonely Planet - Hiking in Spain.
4) The Secret Commonwealth - The Book of Dust Volume 2 - Philip Pullman.
5) The University of Hard Knocks, by Ralph Parlette.
6) Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez
7) Connie - Harry Pearson
8) Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage -  ‎Haruki Murakami
9) Small Island - Andrea Levy.
10) Life 3.0 - Max Tegmark. 
11) This thing of Darkness - Harry Thompson
12) The Secret Barrister - Anonymous.
13) Life:A User's Manual - Georges Perec.

14) The Electric Michelangelo - Sarah Hall
15) Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman - Yvon Chouinard

[jeroly]

1. Severance by Ling Ma
A Chinese immigrant to America tells the story of being one of the few survivors of a mysterious epidemic that zombifies almost all of humanity.  No brain eating, just good writing.

2.  A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
A Russian aristocrat is sentenced to life imprisonment in a Moscow Hotel and over the course of thirty some years, his life there unfolds.  Sweet and light, with occasional interesting philosophical observations.

3. The All-True Travels and Adventures of Liddie Newton by Jane Smiley
An Illinois girl marries and moves to the Kansas Territory in 1855.  Long and slow in parts, it does provide an interesting lens into the story of "Bleeding Kansas," a chapter of American history I didn't know much about before.

4. Quit like a Millionaire by Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung
A pretty great life story / intro to FIRE by a couple who FIREd at 31.  With the caveat that, IMNSHO, they miss the boat on the problems with yield chasing (they recommend high dividend, REITs, and preferred shares as a separate component of a FIRE portfolio to create a “yield shield”), it’s filled with good information.

5. Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Focused on eighties high schoolers at a southern performing arts school, this book has some surprising twists that I'll save the spoilers on. Well written.

6. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
A memoir of a dysfunctional family, a la Running with Scissors or The Glass Castle, but with war and racism thrown in for good measure.  Recommended.

7. Living Off Your Money: The Modern Mechanics of Investing During Retirement with Stock and Bonds by Michael H. McClung
A pretty comprehensive examination of withdrawal rates and strategies, asset allocations, glide paths, reallocation, variable withdrawal schemes, and more. Lots of backtesting and bootstrapping data are provided. It's a good overview but is clouded by some questionable examples and typos. It will stimulate further investigations on my part.

8. The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri
Not related to the movie with the same name, this is the first of a series of mysteries involving an Italian police inspector in Sicily.  A nicely composed story with a good balance of setting and plot, it was a fast and fun read.  I will read more of these Inspector Montalbano mysteries.

9. Seduction: A History from the Enlightenment to the Present by Clement Knox
An occasionally interesting but often tedious examination of how societal attitudes on sexual pursuit have changed over the centuries. Includes some portraits of famous figures such as Casanova, Mary Wollstonecraft, and others. Includes a consideration of #MeToo.

10. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
Charlie finds himself one morning with a dead wife, a new baby, and a side gig as a collector of the souls of the dead. Starts great, but in the second half of the book it gets bogged down in more of the macabre and less of the humor than I found early on.  Still entertaining overall.

11. The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry
A grim but useful look at the “Spanish Flu” epidemic (which actually started in Kansas) of 1918-20 that killed between 50 and 100 million.  I read it during my coronavirus-dictated social distancing... it’s scary to read how the lying and inaction of the authorities of the time led to the overloading of the healthcare system, while watching our malignant US administration repeat the errors of the Past.

12. The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean
The author uses the periodic table as a framework on which to tell a bunch of interesting stories from the history of science.  A good read.

13.  And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories and Other Revenges by Amber Sparks
This started off promisingly, with a story about being ghosted by a friend, but then devolved into sketches (not really full stories) of ghost stories and modernized  fairly tales.  The prose was poetic, but not really my style by and large...a disappointment.

[sui generis]

14. Coming Clean – Kimberly Rae Miller - just finished this for book club (and enjoyed it). 

Book club is very reasonably cancelled this month, but not until after a bitter email battle over whether we should meet or not (I was firmly on the NOT side).  These are intelligent, educated women who didn't want to skip our regular meeting for the good of their own health.  I know the subtext of the discussion was really about fear and loneliness, but come on people, bringing the 12 of us together in the same room at the moment could wipe out book club in a single cough if one of us has been exposed and is just not showing symptoms yet.

I offered to set up a conference call but got shot down.  I sent out a group email with some observations on the book, but got only one reply.  I'm more than a little worried that the yes-lets-meet faction has cut out the no-its-irresponsible-to-meet faction and are meeting in secret.  I desperately hope I am wrong, but its possible I'll be recruiting new book club members in future.

OMG, this is terrible to hear!  I can't believe they shot you down so fast on the conference call.  I'm sure you've heard of people successfully doing this, but for a personal recommendation, my podcast club met on uberconference last week and it was *totally* worth it!  We still had fun and a great, lively discussion.  Of course it wasn't quite as good as our usual potluck dinner and it's much easier to hear people accidentally speaking over each other briefly in-person than on video, but it was overall fun and a welcome change of pace.  I hope your group reconsiders so that you still get to enjoy some socializing during this tough time.

P.S. for anyone that needs resources, uberconference has lifted it's time and participant limits for their free accounts for now, Webex has a free account with no limit and lots of bells and whistles if you need 'em, and of course good ol' Skype (what I use for my online group Spanish lessons) and Google Hangouts can also accommodate groups for something like this.  So many options and all completely FREE!

[Frugal Lizard]

14. Coming Clean – Kimberly Rae Miller - just finished this for book club (and enjoyed it). 

Book club is very reasonably cancelled this month, but not until after a bitter email battle over whether we should meet or not (I was firmly on the NOT side).  These are intelligent, educated women who didn't want to skip our regular meeting for the good of their own health.  I know the subtext of the discussion was really about fear and loneliness, but come on people, bringing the 12 of us together in the same room at the moment could wipe out book club in a single cough if one of us has been exposed and is just not showing symptoms yet.

I offered to set up a conference call but got shot down.  I sent out a group email with some observations on the book, but got only one reply.  I'm more than a little worried that the yes-lets-meet faction has cut out the no-its-irresponsible-to-meet faction and are meeting in secret.  I desperately hope I am wrong, but its possible I'll be recruiting new book club members in future.

OMG, this is terrible to hear!  I can't believe they shot you down so fast on the conference call.  I'm sure you've heard of people successfully doing this, but for a personal recommendation, my podcast club met on uberconference last week and it was *totally* worth it!  We still had fun and a great, lively discussion.  Of course it wasn't quite as good as our usual potluck dinner and it's much easier to hear people accidentally speaking over each other briefly in-person than on video, but it was overall fun and a welcome change of pace.  I hope your group reconsiders so that you still get to enjoy some socializing during this tough time.

P.S. for anyone that needs resources, uberconference has lifted it's time and participant limits for their free accounts for now, Webex has a free account with no limit and lots of bells and whistles if you need 'em, and of course good ol' Skype (what I use for my online group Spanish lessons) and Google Hangouts can also accommodate groups for something like this.  So many options and all completely FREE!

We have an ER doc living across the street and she has asked us to spread awareness to help her and her colleagues cope. And she banned her kids from hanging with any of our kids.  So we all committed to keeping everyone home.  It is ok.  I am going to host a ZOOM Happy hour on Friday night.

[Linea_Norway]

14. Coming Clean – Kimberly Rae Miller - just finished this for book club (and enjoyed it). 

Book club is very reasonably cancelled this month, but not until after a bitter email battle over whether we should meet or not (I was firmly on the NOT side).  These are intelligent, educated women who didn't want to skip our regular meeting for the good of their own health.  I know the subtext of the discussion was really about fear and loneliness, but come on people, bringing the 12 of us together in the same room at the moment could wipe out book club in a single cough if one of us has been exposed and is just not showing symptoms yet.

I offered to set up a conference call but got shot down.  I sent out a group email with some observations on the book, but got only one reply.  I'm more than a little worried that the yes-lets-meet faction has cut out the no-its-irresponsible-to-meet faction and are meeting in secret.  I desperately hope I am wrong, but its possible I'll be recruiting new book club members in future.

Stupid book club members.
My hobby just organized a presentation on google meet, where 100 people attended online.

[diapasoun]

Omg, SheWhoWalksAtLunch!

Bless our book club -- everyone was very very happy to do a remote vidchat.

[jeroly]

14. Coming Clean – Kimberly Rae Miller - just finished this for book club (and enjoyed it). 

Book club is very reasonably cancelled this month, but not until after a bitter email battle over whether we should meet or not (I was firmly on the NOT side).  These are intelligent, educated women who didn't want to skip our regular meeting for the good of their own health.  I know the subtext of the discussion was really about fear and loneliness, but come on people, bringing the 12 of us together in the same room at the moment could wipe out book club in a single cough if one of us has been exposed and is just not showing symptoms yet.

I offered to set up a conference call but got shot down.  I sent out a group email with some observations on the book, but got only one reply.  I'm more than a little worried that the yes-lets-meet faction has cut out the no-its-irresponsible-to-meet faction and are meeting in secret.  I desperately hope I am wrong, but its possible I'll be recruiting new book club members in future.

Stupid book club members.
My hobby just organized a presentation on google meet, where 100 people attended online.

We did a Zoom-based happy hour for my book club this month, and it went pretty well.  I think the pc-based version worked better than my android phone app which only showed four people on the screen at a time.

[ahptex]

(1) The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemison
(2) Faithful Place by Tana French
(3) The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
(4) Lessons from Lucy by Dave Barry
(5) The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
(6) Broken Harbor by Tana French
(7) If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now by Christopher Ingraham
(8) The Wisdom Way of Knowing by Cynthia Bourgeault
(9) The Girl with all the Gifts by M. R. Carey
(10) Zealot by Reza Aslan

(11) The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

[qbird]

1) Where Do I Begin by Elvis Duran
2) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
3) The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
4) The Printed Letter Bookshop by Katherine Reay
5) Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule
6) When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
7) Do Over by Jon Acuff
8) Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
9) The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates
10) The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moye
11) The Other Woman by Sandie Jones
12) Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman

Modify message

[Linea_Norway]

January:
1) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (started in December)
2) The Lie, a memoire of two marriages, catfishing and coming out by William Dameron
3) The Queston of Red by Laksmi Pamuntjak
4) Grønn ungdom hele livet (Green youth my whole life), by Peter Tutein. Only read halfway.
5) Dubbel zes (Double Six) by Daphne Deckers
6) Ventoux by Bert Wagendorp
7) Svamp under mikroskopet (Mushrooms under the microscope) by Jan Nilsson
8) Vi må snakke om bakterier (We need to talk about bacteria) by Jessica Lönn-Stensrud
9) Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
10) Resten av dagen (The Remains of the day) by Kazuo Ishiguro

February:
11) The seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
12) Koke bjørn (Cooking bears) by Mikael Niemi
13) Kijkvoer & Leesgenot (Dutch poetry) by Michèl de Jong and Drs. P.
14) The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman
15) Botanikum by Katie Scott and Kathy Willis
16) Skog vil si samfunn (The Word for World is Forest) by Ursula le Guin
17) Blå (Blue) by Maja Lunde
18) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
19) Ulvetider (an Era of Wolves) by Lars Lenth, Petter Böckman and Morten Tønnessen
20) Plukk selv (Forage yourself) by Trond Svendgård
21) Gratis mat av ville planter (Free Food from Wild Plants) by Jens Holmboe

March:
22) Lud-in-the-mist by Hope Mirrlees
23) The Slow Moon Climbs by Susan Mattern
24) Six Degrees by Mark Lynas
25) The Dirtbag's Guide to Life by Tim Mathis
26) The Jakarta Pandemic by Steven Konkoly
27) The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang
28) The Good Life by Marian Thurm

[ahptex]

(1) The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemison
(2) Faithful Place by Tana French
(3) The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
(4) Lessons from Lucy by Dave Barry
(5) The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
(6) Broken Harbor by Tana French
(7) If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now by Christopher Ingraham
(8) The Wisdom Way of Knowing by Cynthia Bourgeault
(9) The Girl with all the Gifts by M. R. Carey
(10) Zealot by Reza Aslan
(11) The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

(12) The Mind-Gut Connection by Emeran Meyer

[Frugal Lizard]

1)  Girl, Woman, Other  by Bernardine Evaristo
2) The Choice by Nicholas Spark
3) Into the Light - Lionel LeMoine Fitzgerald by Sarah Milroy, Ian A. C. Dejardin and Michael Parke-Taylor
4) Why We Can't Sleep, Women's New Midlife Crisis by Ada Calhoun
5) The Winemaker's Wife by Kristin Harmel    ......a light read.  I always enjoy historical /romance/World War 2 novel
6) The Watercolour enigma by Stephen Coates
7) Middlemarch by George Eliot - audiobook.  It was so nice to have a very long story being told to me.  I have never been able to get into Middlemarch.
8) Colour and Light in Watercolour - Jean Haines  The exercises are really hard to replicate - either I am not processing the instructions or the instructions need more pictures.
9) Watercolour Techniques - Micheal Reardon
10) Finding Fontainebleau - An American Boy in France by Thad Carhart - I have only ever toured the grounds of Fontainebleau.  I wish I had gone inside to see the splendor.  I really enjoyed this memorial / history lesson / cultural study.


still on deck: Food Security by Ralph Martin

[Serendip]

1) Born A Crime, Trevor Noah (audiobook)
2) The Moth Presents Occasional Magic: True Stories About Defying the Impossible
3) The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides (*bookclub)
4) Face to Face: The Art of Human Connection, Brian Grazer
5) The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere, Pico Iyer
6) Self-Knowledge, The School of Life (Alain de Botton)
7) Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment, Robert Wright
8) A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
9) How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy: Jenny Odell
10) The Working Mind & Drawing Hand of Oliver Jeffers (art book)
11) A Beginners Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations, Pico Iyer
12) Burn the Place: a memoir, Iliana Regan
13) The Beauty of Everyday Things, Soetsu Yanagi
14) Starlight: Richard Wagamese (*bookclub)
15) The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible (Sacred Activism): Charles Eisenstein
16) Moon Over Crusted Snow: Waubgeshig Rice
17) A Tale for the Time Being: Ruth Ozeki
18) Akata Witch (*YA fiction, bookclub), Nnedi Okorafor
19) Territory of Light, Yuko Tsushima
20) Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert
21) The Kiss Quotient, Helen Hoang (somewhat racy bookclub book)
22) Letters to a Young Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke

23) Things to do Instead of Killing Yourself: Tara Booth & Jon-Michael Frank
24) If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: the graduation speeches and other words to live by: Kurt Vonnegut

[jeroly]

1. Severance by Ling Ma
A Chinese immigrant to America tells the story of being one of the few survivors of a mysterious epidemic that zombifies almost all of humanity.  No brain eating, just good writing.

2.  A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
A Russian aristocrat is sentenced to life imprisonment in a Moscow Hotel and over the course of thirty some years, his life there unfolds.  Sweet and light, with occasional interesting philosophical observations.

3. The All-True Travels and Adventures of Liddie Newton by Jane Smiley
An Illinois girl marries and moves to the Kansas Territory in 1855.  Long and slow in parts, it does provide an interesting lens into the story of "Bleeding Kansas," a chapter of American history I didn't know much about before.

4. Quit like a Millionaire by Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung
A pretty great life story / intro to FIRE by a couple who FIREd at 31.  With the caveat that, IMNSHO, they miss the boat on the problems with yield chasing (they recommend high dividend, REITs, and preferred shares as a separate component of a FIRE portfolio to create a “yield shield”), it’s filled with good information.

5. Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Focused on eighties high schoolers at a southern performing arts school, this book has some surprising twists that I'll save the spoilers on. Well written.

6. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
A memoir of a dysfunctional family, a la Running with Scissors or The Glass Castle, but with war and racism thrown in for good measure.  Recommended.

7. Living Off Your Money: The Modern Mechanics of Investing During Retirement with Stock and Bonds by Michael H. McClung
A pretty comprehensive examination of withdrawal rates and strategies, asset allocations, glide paths, reallocation, variable withdrawal schemes, and more. Lots of backtesting and bootstrapping data are provided. It's a good overview but is clouded by some questionable examples and typos. It will stimulate further investigations on my part.

8. The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri
Not related to the movie with the same name, this is the first of a series of mysteries involving an Italian police inspector in Sicily.  A nicely composed story with a good balance of setting and plot, it was a fast and fun read.  I will read more of these Inspector Montalbano mysteries.

9. Seduction: A History from the Enlightenment to the Present by Clement Knox
An occasionally interesting but often tedious examination of how societal attitudes on sexual pursuit have changed over the centuries. Includes some portraits of famous figures such as Casanova, Mary Wollstonecraft, and others. Includes a consideration of #MeToo.

10. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
Charlie finds himself one morning with a dead wife, a new baby, and a side gig as a collector of the souls of the dead. Starts great, but in the second half of the book it gets bogged down in more of the macabre and less of the humor than I found early on.  Still entertaining overall.

11. The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry
A grim but useful look at the “Spanish Flu” epidemic (which actually started in Kansas) of 1918-20 that killed between 50 and 100 million.  I read it during my coronavirus-dictated social distancing... it’s scary to read how the lying and inaction of the authorities of the time led to the overloading of the healthcare system, while watching our malignant US administration repeat the errors of the Past.

12. The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean
The author uses the periodic table as a framework on which to tell a bunch of interesting stories from the history of science.  A good read.

13.  And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories and Other Revenges by Amber Sparks
This started off promisingly, with a story about being ghosted by a friend, but then devolved into sketches (not really full stories) of ghost stories and modernized  fairly tales.  The prose was poetic, but not really my style by and large...a disappointment.

14. The Terra-Cotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri
The second in the Inspector Montalbano mysteries.  It’s light and enjoyable but not much of a mystery, more of a police procedural really, but rich with ambiance, set in an imaginary town in Sicily.

(Gosh, pandemics are great for making it through a reading goal! 1/4 of the year gone by and more than 1/4 of the way to goal...)

[Linea_Norway]

January:
1) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (started in December)
2) The Lie, a memoire of two marriages, catfishing and coming out by William Dameron
3) The Queston of Red by Laksmi Pamuntjak
4) Grønn ungdom hele livet (Green youth my whole life), by Peter Tutein. Only read halfway.
5) Dubbel zes (Double Six) by Daphne Deckers
6) Ventoux by Bert Wagendorp
7) Svamp under mikroskopet (Mushrooms under the microscope) by Jan Nilsson
8) Vi må snakke om bakterier (We need to talk about bacteria) by Jessica Lönn-Stensrud
9) Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
10) Resten av dagen (The Remains of the day) by Kazuo Ishiguro

February:
11) The seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
12) Koke bjørn (Cooking bears) by Mikael Niemi
13) Kijkvoer & Leesgenot (Dutch poetry) by Michèl de Jong and Drs. P.
14) The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman
15) Botanikum by Katie Scott and Kathy Willis
16) Skog vil si samfunn (The Word for World is Forest) by Ursula le Guin
17) Blå (Blue) by Maja Lunde
18) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
19) Ulvetider (an Era of Wolves) by Lars Lenth, Petter Böckman and Morten Tønnessen
20) Plukk selv (Forage yourself) by Trond Svendgård
21) Gratis mat av ville planter (Free Food from Wild Plants) by Jens Holmboe

March:
22) Lud-in-the-mist by Hope Mirrlees
23) The Slow Moon Climbs by Susan Mattern
24) Six Degrees by Mark Lynas
25) The Dirtbag's Guide to Life by Tim Mathis
26) The Jakarta Pandemic by Steven Konkoly
27) The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang
28) The Good Life by Marian Thurm

April:
29) In Dog we Trust by Neil S. Plakcy

My library is now opening for loaning books by email order, but not bringing them back. I can collect some books today.

[cerat0n1a]

1) Behave - Robert Sapolsky.
2) Lonely Planet - 50 natural wonders.
3) Lonely Planet - Hiking in Spain.
4) The Secret Commonwealth - The Book of Dust Volume 2 - Philip Pullman.
5) The University of Hard Knocks, by Ralph Parlette.
6) Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez
7) Connie - Harry Pearson
8) Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage -  ‎Haruki Murakami
9) Small Island - Andrea Levy.
10) Life 3.0 - Max Tegmark. 
11) This thing of Darkness - Harry Thompson
12) The Secret Barrister - Anonymous.
13) Life:A User's Manual - Georges Perec.
14) The Electric Michelangelo - Sarah Hall
15) Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman - Yvon Chouinard

16) Harvest - Jim Crace

[Serendip]

1) Born A Crime, Trevor Noah
2) The Moth Presents Occasional Magic: True Stories About Defying the Impossible
3) The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides (*bookclub)
4) Face to Face: The Art of Human Connection, Brian Grazer
5) The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere, Pico Iyer
6) Self-Knowledge, The School of Life (Alain de Botton)
7) Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment, Robert Wright
8) A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
9) How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy: Jenny Odell
10) The Working Mind & Drawing Hand of Oliver Jeffers
11) A Beginners Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations, Pico Iyer
12) Burn the Place: a memoir, Iliana Regan
13) The Beauty of Everyday Things, Soetsu Yanagi
14) Starlight: Richard Wagamese (*bookclub)
15) The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible (Sacred Activism): Charles Eisenstein
16) Moon Over Crusted Snow: Waubgeshig Rice
17) A Tale for the Time Being: Ruth Ozeki
18) Akata Witch (*YA fiction, bookclub), Nnedi Okorafor
19) Territory of Light, Yuko Tsushima
20) Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert
21) The Kiss Quotient, Helen Hoang (somewhat racy bookclub book)
22) Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
23) Things to do Instead of Killing Yourself, Tara Booth & Jon-Michael Frank
24) If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: the graduation speeches and other words to live by, Kurt Vonnegut

25) Anna Karenina: Leo Tolstoy (a mammoth 34 hour audiobook experience)
26) Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls: a memoir,  T Kira Madden..a gritty/slightly brutal memoir -hard to put down once reading it

[Raenia]

1	Warbreaker	Brandon Sanderson	Own	Reread	1/6/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
2	The Complete Book of Home Organization	Toni Hammersley	Own	Educational	1/7/2020	Nonfiction - Home and Garden
3	Rocannon's World	Ursula LeGuin	Own	TBR List	1/14/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
4	Trickster's Choice	Tamora Pierce	Library	PopSugar	1/17/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
5	The Broken Universe	Paul Melko	Library	Sequel	1/25/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
6	The Devil in the White City	Erik Larson	Library	TBR List	2/3/2020	General Nonfiction
7	Eventide: Tales of the Dragon's Bard	Tracy and Laura Hickman	Library	PopSugar	2/13/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
8	Trickster's Queen	Tamora Pierce	Library	Sequel	2/15/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
9	Gilgamesh the King	Robert Silverberg	Library	PopSugar	2/24/2020	Fiction - Historical
10	The Sparrow	Mary Doria Russell	Library	PopSugar	2/24/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
11	Planet of Exile	Ursula LeGuin	Own	TBR List	2/24/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
12	Children of the Night	Mercedes Lackey	Library	Sequel	2/29/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
13	City of Illusions	Ursula LeGuin	Own	TBR List	3/3/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
14	The Aylesford Skull	James P. Blaylock	Library	Other	3/11/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
15	Starsight	Brandon Sanderson	Library	Sequel	3/13/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
16	The Deep	Rivers Solomon, et al	Library	PopSugar	3/16/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction
17	The Dispossessed	Ursula LeGuin	Own	TBR List	3/22/2020	Fiction - Science Fiction

18	Blood Price	Tanya Huff	Library	Other	3/29/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
19	Blood Trail	Tanya Huff	Library	Sequel	4/1/2020	Fiction - Fantasy
20	White Sand	Brandon Sanderson, Rik Hoskin	Own	TBR List	4/3/2020	Fiction - Fantasy

[jeroly]

1. Severance by Ling Ma
A Chinese immigrant to America tells the story of being one of the few survivors of a mysterious epidemic that zombifies almost all of humanity.  No brain eating, just good writing.

2.  A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
A Russian aristocrat is sentenced to life imprisonment in a Moscow Hotel and over the course of thirty some years, his life there unfolds.  Sweet and light, with occasional interesting philosophical observations.

3. The All-True Travels and Adventures of Liddie Newton by Jane Smiley
An Illinois girl marries and moves to the Kansas Territory in 1855.  Long and slow in parts, it does provide an interesting lens into the story of "Bleeding Kansas," a chapter of American history I didn't know much about before.

4. Quit like a Millionaire by Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung
A pretty great life story / intro to FIRE by a couple who FIREd at 31.  With the caveat that, IMNSHO, they miss the boat on the problems with yield chasing (they recommend high dividend, REITs, and preferred shares as a separate component of a FIRE portfolio to create a “yield shield”), it’s filled with good information.

5. Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Focused on eighties high schoolers at a southern performing arts school, this book has some surprising twists that I'll save the spoilers on. Well written.

6. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
A memoir of a dysfunctional family, a la Running with Scissors or The Glass Castle, but with war and racism thrown in for good measure.  Recommended.

7. Living Off Your Money: The Modern Mechanics of Investing During Retirement with Stock and Bonds by Michael H. McClung
A pretty comprehensive examination of withdrawal rates and strategies, asset allocations, glide paths, reallocation, variable withdrawal schemes, and more. Lots of backtesting and bootstrapping data are provided. It's a good overview but is clouded by some questionable examples and typos. It will stimulate further investigations on my part.

8. The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri
Not related to the movie with the same name, this is the first of a series of mysteries involving an Italian police inspector in Sicily.  A nicely composed story with a good balance of setting and plot, it was a fast and fun read.  I will read more of these Inspector Montalbano mysteries.

9. Seduction: A History from the Enlightenment to the Present by Clement Knox
An occasionally interesting but often tedious examination of how societal attitudes on sexual pursuit have changed over the centuries. Includes some portraits of famous figures such as Casanova, Mary Wollstonecraft, and others. Includes a consideration of #MeToo.

10. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
Charlie finds himself one morning with a dead wife, a new baby, and a side gig as a collector of the souls of the dead. Starts great, but in the second half of the book it gets bogged down in more of the macabre and less of the humor than I found early on.  Still entertaining overall.

11. The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry
A grim but useful look at the “Spanish Flu” epidemic (which actually started in Kansas) of 1918-20 that killed between 50 and 100 million.  I read it during my coronavirus-dictated social distancing... it’s scary to read how the lying and inaction of the authorities of the time led to the overloading of the healthcare system, while watching our malignant US administration repeat the errors of the Past.

12. The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean
The author uses the periodic table as a framework on which to tell a bunch of interesting stories from the history of science.  A good read.

13.  And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories and Other Revenges by Amber Sparks
This started off promisingly, with a story about being ghosted by a friend, but then devolved into sketches (not really full stories) of ghost stories and modernized  fairly tales.  The prose was poetic, but not really my style by and large...a disappointment.

14. The Terra-Cotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri
The second in the Inspector Montalbano mysteries.  It’s light and enjoyable but not much of a mystery, more of a police procedural really, but rich with ambiance, set in an imaginary town in Sicily.

15. A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
A fictionalized account of the bubonic plague pandemic of 1665 as experienced in London, where 100,000 died. (Defoe did not live through it himself but may have heard the stories from his uncle.) Fascinating parallels to our present situation.  It seems that even many ordinary seventeenth century citizens were more aware of the benefits of social distancing than our Covidiot-in-chief is...

[sui generis]

15. A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
A fictionalized account of the bubonic plague pandemic of 1665 as experienced in London, where 100,000 died. (Defoe did not live through it himself but may have heard the stories from his uncle.) Fascinating parallels to our present situation.  It seems that even many ordinary seventeenth century citizens were more aware of the benefits of social distancing than our Covidiot-in-chief is...

sounds fascinating. 

Am I the only one that always pictures Willem Dafoe when I think of Daniel Defoe?

[Luz]

The past 2 weeks have left little time for reading. I also get my books from the now-closed library and don't want to start buying any just yet. So I'm left with the few I have lying around my house. After I get through those, I'll check out the collection of digital and audiobooks still available through the library.

1. The Unwinding of the Miracle by Julie Yip-Williams
2. Elemental: How the Periodic Table Can Now Explain (Nearly) Everything by Tim James
3. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
4. Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini (though I'm not sure I can count this one since it's quite short)
5. On the Move: A Life by Oliver Sacks (the length of this one makes up for that of Sea Prayer)
6. The Devil's Highway: A True Story by Luis Alberto Urrea
7. Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Judy Melinek and T.J. Mitchell
8. Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right by Jamie Glowacki
9. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
10. Oh Crap! I Have A Toddler: Tackling These Crazy Awesome Years- No Time-outs Needed by Jamie Glowacki

Working on:
-Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
-Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish

In Queue:
-Essential Psychopathology & Its Treatment by Mark D. Kilgus, Jerrold S. Maxmen, and Nicholas G. Ward

[cerat0n1a]

15. A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
A fictionalized account of the bubonic plague pandemic of 1665 as experienced in London, where 100,000 died. (Defoe did not live through it himself but may have heard the stories from his uncle.) Fascinating parallels to our present situation.  It seems that even many ordinary seventeenth century citizens were more aware of the benefits of social distancing than our Covidiot-in-chief is...

Excellent choice - I'll have to re-read that.

Defoe did in fact live through the plague, although he was only 5 or 6 at the time, and also the great fire of London the following year, when his was one of only three houses in the neighbourhood to stay standing. Samuel Pepys' Diary of the same years is fascinating - you can read it in blog form, with comments from experts here https://www.pepysdiary.com/

[jeroly]

15. A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
A fictionalized account of the bubonic plague pandemic of 1665 as experienced in London, where 100,000 died. (Defoe did not live through it himself but may have heard the stories from his uncle.) Fascinating parallels to our present situation.  It seems that even many ordinary seventeenth century citizens were more aware of the benefits of social distancing than our Covidiot-in-chief is...

Excellent choice - I'll have to re-read that.

Defoe did in fact live through the plague, although he was only 5 or 6 at the time, and also the great fire of London the following year, when his was one of only three houses in the neighbourhood to stay standing. Samuel Pepys' Diary of the same years is fascinating - you can read it in blog form, with comments from experts here https://www.pepysdiary.com/

Thanks for the correction!

New project:  Six years ago I switched to ebooks, but I did keep a bookcase full of unread hardcopy books that has sat untouched since then.  So this 50 books project will serve to help me to do a jerolified version of Marie Condo to my office - with the difference being that even those books that bring me joy will go to Goodwill when I've read them!

First up are actually two books - "Booked," which is a travel book looking at literature-connected sights and destinations (e.g. Providence for HP Lovecraft fans), and "Wolf Hall."

[ahptex]

(1) The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemison
(2) Faithful Place by Tana French
(3) The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
(4) Lessons from Lucy by Dave Barry
(5) The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
(6) Broken Harbor by Tana French
(7) If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now by Christopher Ingraham
(8) The Wisdom Way of Knowing by Cynthia Bourgeault
(9) The Girl with all the Gifts by M. R. Carey
(10) Zealot by Reza Aslan
(11) The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins
(12) The Mind-Gut Connection by Emeran Meyer

(13) The Secret Place by Tana French

[sui generis]

1.  The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay, finished 01/02/2020 (audio).

2. Golden Gate Gardening: The Complete Guide to Year-Round Food Gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area & Coastal California by Pamela Peirce, finished 01/10/2020. 

3. Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions by Gloria Steinem, finished 01/11/2020.

4. Then She Was Gone, by Lisa Jewell, finished 01/13/2020.

5. Meridian, by Alice Walker, finished 01/26/2020.

6. Dawn, by Octavia Butler, finished 01/29/2020.

7. Women & Power: A Manifesto, by Mary Beard, finished 01/31/2020. 

8. Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, finished 02/14/2020.

9. The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton, finished 02/19/2020 (audio). 

10. There There, by Tommy Orange, finished 2/20/2020. 

11.  The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty (Updated 10th Anniversary Edition), by Peter Singer, finished 2/27/2020 (audio). The book is available for free download here: https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/the-book/

12. The Witches are Coming, by Lindy West, finished 3/7/2020 (audio). 

13. Everything Under, by Daisy Johnson, finished 3/8/2020.

14. This is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, finished 3/9/2020 (audio).

15. Still Life, by Louise Penny, finished 3/15/2020.

16. The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett, finished 3/21/2020 (audio).

17. Slow Horses, by Mick Herron, finished 4/4/2020.

[cerat0n1a]

1) Behave - Robert Sapolsky.
2) Lonely Planet - 50 natural wonders.
3) Lonely Planet - Hiking in Spain.
4) The Secret Commonwealth - The Book of Dust Volume 2 - Philip Pullman.
5) The University of Hard Knocks, by Ralph Parlette.
6) Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez
7) Connie - Harry Pearson
8) Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage -  ‎Haruki Murakami
9) Small Island - Andrea Levy.
10) Life 3.0 - Max Tegmark. 
11) This thing of Darkness - Harry Thompson
12) The Secret Barrister - Anonymous.
13) Life:A User's Manual - Georges Perec.
14) The Electric Michelangelo - Sarah Hall
15) Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman - Yvon Chouinard
16) Harvest - Jim Crace

17) Educated - Tara Westover

[Linea_Norway]

January:
1) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (started in December)
2) The Lie, a memoire of two marriages, catfishing and coming out by William Dameron
3) The Queston of Red by Laksmi Pamuntjak
4) Grønn ungdom hele livet (Green youth my whole life), by Peter Tutein. Only read halfway.
5) Dubbel zes (Double Six) by Daphne Deckers
6) Ventoux by Bert Wagendorp
7) Svamp under mikroskopet (Mushrooms under the microscope) by Jan Nilsson
8) Vi må snakke om bakterier (We need to talk about bacteria) by Jessica Lönn-Stensrud
9) Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
10) Resten av dagen (The Remains of the day) by Kazuo Ishiguro

February:
11) The seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
12) Koke bjørn (Cooking bears) by Mikael Niemi
13) Kijkvoer & Leesgenot (Dutch poetry) by Michèl de Jong and Drs. P.
14) The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman
15) Botanikum by Katie Scott and Kathy Willis
16) Skog vil si samfunn (The Word for World is Forest) by Ursula le Guin
17) Blå (Blue) by Maja Lunde
18) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
19) Ulvetider (an Era of Wolves) by Lars Lenth, Petter Böckman and Morten Tønnessen
20) Plukk selv (Forage yourself) by Trond Svendgård
21) Gratis mat av ville planter (Free Food from Wild Plants) by Jens Holmboe

March:
22) Lud-in-the-mist by Hope Mirrlees
23) The Slow Moon Climbs by Susan Mattern
24) Six Degrees by Mark Lynas
25) The Dirtbag's Guide to Life by Tim Mathis
26) The Jakarta Pandemic by Steven Konkoly
27) The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang
28) The Good Life by Marian Thurm

April:
29) In Dog we Trust by Neil S. Plakcy
30) In for the Kill, John Lutz