Episode 43: Yeah, I read a few books last year

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David and Perry look back at the books they read during 2020 and pick their favourites in a variety of categories.

  • David’s reading during 2020 (03:59)
  • Perry’s reading during 2020 (08:58)
  • David’s Best SF read for the first time (04:19)
    1. Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan
    2. Hothouse by Brian Aldiss
    3. Touch by Claire North
    4. Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
    5. The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts
  • Perry’s Best SF read for the first time (06:31)
    1. The Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
    2. Infinite Detail by Tim Maugham
    3. A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
    4. The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
    5. Ghost Species by James Bradley
  • David’s Best SF read again (02:15)
    1. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jnr.
    2. Solaris by Stanisław Lem
    3. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
    4. Way Station by Clifford Simak
    5. The Dragonmasters by Jack Vance
  • Perry’s Best SF read again (03:25)
    1. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
    2. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr
    3. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
    4. Way Station by Clifford D. Simak
    5. Dune World by Frank Herbert
  • David’s Best Fantasy (03:04)
    1. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
    2. The Green Pearl by Jack Vance
    3. Madouc by Jack Vance
    4. Lyonnesse by Jack Vance
    5. Sylva by Vercours
  • Perry’s Best Fantasy (04:09)
    1. Voices by Ursula K. Le Guin
    2. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
    3. Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
  • David’s Best Alternate History (02:27)
    1. The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick
    2. Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore
    3. Fatherland by Robert Harris
    4. Dominion by C. J. Sansom
  • Perry’s Best Crime (05:46)
    1. Peace by Garry Disher
    2. Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
    3. The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan
    4. Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay
    5. The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan
  • David’s Best Crime (04:39)
    1. Truth by Peter Temple
    2. Gone by Midnight by Candice Fox
    3. The Searcher by Tana French
    4. The Broken Shore by Peter Temple
    5. The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan
  • Perry’s Best Literary (06:25)
    1. The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
    2. A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr
    3. The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott
    4. The Women in Black by Madeleine St John
    5. Heatwave in Berlin by Dymphna Cusack
  • David’s Best Literary (09:08)
    1. Normal People by Sally Rooney
    2. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
    3. The Sunken Land Has Begun To Rise Again by M. John Harrison
    4. Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson
    5. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
  • Perry’s Best Single Author Collections (05:20)
    1. A Rose for Ecclesiastes by Roger Zelazny
  • David’s Best Historical Fiction (02:26)
    1. The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
    2. How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang
    3. What the Wind Brings by Matthew Hughes
    4. Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey
  • Perry’s Best Novellas (08:10)
    1. This is How You lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
    2. The Children’s Bach by Helen Garner
    3. The Dragon Masters by Jack Vance
    4. Prosper’s Demon by K. J. Parker
    5. Sisters of the Vast Black by Linda Rather
  • David’s Best Children’s Literature (02:57)
    1. I Was A Rat, or The Scarlet Slippers by Phillip Pulman
    2. Tom’s Midnight Garden by Phillipa Pearce
    3. Just William by Richmal Crompton
    4. Harding’s Luck by E. Nesbit
    5. Clockwork by Phillip Pulman
  • Perry’s Best Nonfiction (04:05)
    1. Unreliable Memoirs by Clive James
    2. Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room by Geoff Dyer
    3. The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
  • David’s Best Nonfiction (02:55)
    1. Daemon Voices by Phillip Pulman
    2. Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe
    3. The Erratics: A Memoir by Vicki Laveau-Harvie
    4. Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson
    5. Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain by David Eagleman
  • Windup (01:34)

Photo by Ricardo Esquivel from Pexels

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