51. The clockmaker's daughter by Kate Morton - If you like Kate Morton’s books, you’ll like this one. Historical fiction, back and forth in history, gentleness.
52. Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterman - Surprisingly great book! I do love an older protagonist, and she’s such a bitch. It’s great.
53. Experimental film by Gemma Files - I really liked this one, though I read it while I worked out so it’s got a close association with “gym smells” for me. Definitely an “experimental film” version of a horror story, so it’s not particularly linear.
54. Automate This by Christopher Steiner - This book fucking sucked. It’s all about the gee-whiz, look at how high-speed market trading works! So super boring, plus he’s awfully excited about some really dystopian things.
55. Within these walls by Ania Ahlborn - Cult murder horror story. Great premise but it didn’t land with me.
56. Tapeworms, lice and prions: a compendium of unpleasant infections by David Grove - It’s weird that I read this on my lunchbreaks, I’ll grant you that.
57. J is for Judgment by Sue Grafton - Yup, I made it to J
58. The next pandemic: on the front lines against humankind's gravest dangers by Ali S Kahn - So good! I finished this February 27 so how's that for horrifying timing?
59. Everybody lies: Big data, new data, and what the internet can tell us about who we really are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz - Yesss this was super interesting. If you’re a pop-science fan, check this one out.
60. Stealing Rembrandts: the untold stories of notorious art heists by Anthony M. Amore and Tom Mashberg - Yeah this is fun, though kind of clunky. But who doesn’t like to read about heists?!
61. Kangaroo Too by Curtis C. Chen - Second in the Kangaroo series, and you really do need to read the first one. Warning: the audiobook narrator does not know how to narrate a kid's voice. Sawyer and I listened to this together and had a bonding moment when we faced that horror.
62. The current by Tim Johnston - Not really my thing. It’s about a murder and attempted murder, but it’s got some unreliable narrator business happening and ehh.
63. On cussing by Katherine Dunn - MotherFUCK this is a fun book. Ignore the pseudoscience and just enjoy the salt.
64. The catalog of shipwrecked books by Edward Wilson-Lee - Eh, not bad. Great title, standard history book.
65. The dazzle of day by Molly Gloss - I really wanted to like this one but goddamn it was a slog. It’s one of those books where there were four paragraphs that made me go, wow, this is so well written! But they’re scattered across 250 pages of space Quakerism. If science fiction about the meaning of society in outer space is your thing, you will adore this book. I’m just not its reader.
66. That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour by Sunita Puri - This book is one I want to own. It’s all about death, but it’s uplifting? It’s lyrical and painful and fascinating and devastating.
67. Spying on whales by Nick Pyenson - Whales are big and mysterious and this audiobook was damned interesting.
68. The Fourth Monkey by JD Barker - not awful but not the best thriller ever.
69. We sold our souls by Grady Hendrix - Oh Grady Hendrix, can you write a book I don’t like? The audiobook narrator, Carol Monda, was a perfect choice for this book too.
71. Caged by Ellison Cooper - Totally generic police procedural about a serial killer, but! One of the only thrillers I’ve read where a trans person exists and it’s 1) not a joke and 2) they don’t get misgendered at any point. So, 5 million stars for hitting the bare minimum, I guess?
72. Go tell it on the mountain by James Baldwin - This was a really good read, but also really difficult. All about the complexities of religion and gender and race. Semi-autobiographical from Baldwin as well.
73. Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters - I....hated this? I didn't like their relationship, I didn't like the setting, I didn't like the ending.
74. The Seeker by R.B. Chesterton - It's kind of a mystery set around Walden Pond? But it never really gets there. I didn't like it much.
75. The poison squad by Deborah Blum - The history of the FDA, AKA don't trust anything you ate back in the 1900s.
76. Every house is haunted by Ian Rogers - Short story collection of hauntings. Recommended if that's your jam!
77. K is for Killer by Sue Grafton - The thing about these books is they’re totally fun while I read them, and then my brain completely erases anything about them.
78. Deep survival: Who lives, who dies, and why by Laurence Gonzales - Holy crap, this book surprised me by how good it was. I picked it up at random and was completely absorbed. Possibly my favorite disaster book, and believe me, I have read a lot of disaster books.
79. The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett - Believe it or not, this is the first Pratchett book I'd ever read.
80. Cannibalism: a perfectly natural history by Bill Schutt - I mean look at that title, you can't go wrong here.
81. Pandemic: tracking contagions, from cholera to ebola and beyond by Sonia Shah - Read March 28. As far as pandemic nonfiction goes though, highly recommend this one.
82. War Dances by Sherman Alexie - Can we agree that Sherman Alexie sucks as a person but also writes really, really well?
83. Wolf Winter by Cecelia Ekback - Ooh, this is a solid one. Murder mystery set in Swedish Lapland in the early 1700s. All about gender roles and how to survive.
85. The last place you look by Kristen Lepionk - God this was hard to read this summer, especially as the plot point of a Black man wrongfully imprisoned wasn’t handled particularly well.
86. Holy Sh*t: a brief history of swearing by Melissa Mohr - Much more academese than I expected but still really good. I mean come on, it’s the history of swearing, what the fuck do you think I’ll say, it's great!
87. That last weekend by Laura DiSilverio - Eh, it's all right.
88. Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold - I’m so sorry Melody, but all I got from this was “it’s fine, I guess.”
89. The Axeman of New Orleans by Miriam C Davis - Great if you like true crime and unsolved mysteries.
90. Once upon an algorithm: how stories explain computing by Martin Erwig - Supposedly makes computing and algorithms easy to understand by using stories, but in some sections I thought it was actually even more confusing than it would have been otherwise.
91. Grasshopper by Ruth Rendell (as Barbara Vine) - One of Rendell's better books, about a young woman haunted by a tragedy in her past.
92. Evolving brains, emerging gods: early humans and the origins of religion by E. Fuller Torrey - I'm torn on this book. It was a super interesting account of how the human brain evolved and led to the development of religion. But it also veered into "those primitive people who believe in religion" territory.
93. Glass houses by Louise Penny - I do love the Armand Gamache books. Start with the first one, not this one.
94. Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff - So good! I hope the new TV show based on it handles it well.
95. Riddance: Or: The Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing-Mouth Children by Shelley Jackson - wow I did not like this book. I liked parts of it, but it was way too "experimental" for me.
96. Skeleton Keys: The Secret Life of Bone by Brian Switek - Let's talk about bones!
97. Paper Butterfly by Diane Wei Liang - It took me so long to find a copy of this sequel that I don't fully remember the first book in the series. But this mystery set in China around the Tiananmen Square protests through the early 2000s is well worth finding.
98. Snake Oil Science: The Truth about Complementary and Alternative Medicine by R. Barker Bausell - This book moves too far into mocking people who believe in alternative medicine for me to give it a strong recommendation, but it's also a super important book. I think Bausell does a really good job explaining the science behind why alternative medicine doesn't work, and I wish it was written in a way that wouldn't turn off folks who have already bought into it.
99. Father’s Day by Simon Van Booy - Ooh books about daddy issues!
100. The secret house of death by Ruth Rendell - Pretty good! Read it if you already know you like Ruth Rendell.
Well that does it for this list! The next chunk can be found here.
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