At the beginning of the New Year, I had an idea of looking back at the books I’ve read last year to see if any particularly memorable or useful bits that I learned from them would spring to mind. So here it goes: books I’ve read in 2020, not including various technical books, papers, etc. that I read for work (some of which are actually quite entertaining, but maybe it’s just my nerdy opinion). I am not going to list all of them at once, but rather will try to do it one or two at a time. I think this way I’ll be able to reflect on them a bit deeper.
As a note, most of what I read is e-books, unless otherwise noted. I typically read them in the tiniest chunks of time I have throughout the day while waiting for something or someone. Notable exceptions are the books I read aloud to my daughter. Those are physical paper books, and we read them over longer intervals (15 minutes would be minimum – when we really want to know what happens next in the story, but the bedtime is really close).
1. “Percy Jackson’s Greek Heroes” by Rick Riordan. Just before the COVID lockdown, my daughter participated in a piano festival in Vancouver. After the performance, we stopped by an Indigo bookstore, and this book was recommended to us by a store employee. We got the hardcover version, illustrated by John Rocco. This book has been quite influential for us. It fanned my daughter’s interest in Greek Mythology and prompted us to read more of the Percy Jackson series (Percy is short for Perseus – just to give one spoiler to those who are new to this). I also used this book as a reference in one of the first videos that I made for my Energy Conversion course, when we were abruptly plunged into the online teaching mode in March.
2. “Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods” by Rick Riordan. We simply had to read this book after the “Heroes”, and it did not disappoint.
3. “The Lightning Thief” by Rick Riordan. As an adult, I personally really enjoyed this book. It has all the components of a good adventure story – fast pace, historical references and just the right amount of humour, which is equally aimed at the millenials (maybe even early generation Z’s), their parents and all the way back to the ancient Greeks themselves.
4. “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” by J.K. Rowling.
5. “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” by J.K. Rowling. In parallel with other books, my daughter and I have been slowly making our way through the Harry Potter series. These books need no introductions, and I can just echo what everyone probably already knows – they are practically perfect in every way, to paraphrase Marry Poppins.
