Books Read 2019

Ah that time of year again, what all my readers of 0 have been waiting for, wha books I got around to reading in 2019. Not as many as I had hoped, as I had wanted to read all of JRR Tolkien's works, and even asked my friends via FB for suggestions as to order to read them in, but never got around to doing. But at least I still read some.

Quite interestingly in the last week of the year, I heard a couple of related examples of this sort of thing: on the radio I heard about a study conducted by people at a local university, who were looking at social media and photography. They took a bunch of people to one of the zoos that you can stay at, they could tell their family and friends where they were going, could take photos, but could not use social media for the time they were there which was a huge overnight stay. And the result was that they took less photos, and spent less time when taking photos.
    The same day, when getting home, I read a friend's post about how she found that tracking her reading through using an online app made it more likely for her to increase her reading (though she also found she hadn't read as much as she wanted).
      I found these two similar stories interesting as it really does show the increasing use of and combination (assimilation?) of stuff into the one place/implement. My friend is younger than I am and very much a telecommunication implement user, whereas I use my phone pretty much mainly as a phone, despite now having a smart one. Although I will admit that I have seen plety of people my age and older, using their phones in a likewise manner to her. She does however take public transport for work travel, whereas I, now driving to and from work, am reading less. I'll also admit that I read far less at home than I used to when I was younger, having become addicted to the computer and social media.

So onto the list, re-reads with asterisks:

1. The Fall of Gondolin - JRR Tolkien (?/12/18 -19/1/19)
2. Instruction Pour Dancer: An Annonymous Manuscript - Editors Angene Feves, Ann Lizbeth     Langston, Uwe W Schottermüller and Eugene Roucher (22-27/1)
3. Vespasian Tribune of Rome - Robert Fabbri (17-28/2)
4. Rebels and Traitors* - Lindsey Davis (25/3 - 23/7)
5. Pandora's Boy - Lindsey Davis (?/5 - 16/6)
6. Hogfather* - Terry Pratchett (25-26/12)
7. A Capitol Murder - Lindsey Davis (28/12 - 4/1/20)

                
Whilst not as many as in previous years, and not as many as I had hoped, more than I thought I had read (definitely helped by the unexpected reading of the TP book) and way more than last year (2018 that is). Book four took so long as I was reading it only at work during lunch breaks once I realised I had already read it.

Writing this prompts me to advertise Deadly Science - a very cool organisation which is sending science books and early reading material to remote schools in Australia, and whose organiser has been nominated for Young Australian of the Year, along with winning the state level. Will keep fingers crossed for him.

Will be interesting to see what 2020 is like reading wise. Not only did the idea of reading Tolkien's other works come into my head (for obvious reasons given the first book), but also through watching the TV renditions of works, was struck by the idea to read the original Poldark books, along with Vanity Fair and one other series, though I'm not sure if I'm imagining this other one or not. Looking back on previous read book posts to check formatting, I see that I had also wanted to read the James Bond novels and Moby Dick a year or so ago. Rather ironically, I arrived back from work  slightly early for a Christmas party being held at my physio's and decided to walk down to the local library ro borrow a book, only to find that I had missed it by about 12 days, and it was now closed for at least six months due to renovations. On the poster saying where the closest things it provided were, it did give two close libraries in other councils, though I feel that this may be more for use of internet & computers than for book borrowing, as it didn't give any specifics on that, in comparision to the local pool, which when it closed for rebuilding, gave you the option to use your paid for entrances at another pool run by the council, though in a different suburb or to keep it for the pool re-opened. So will be interesting to see if my council has reached agreement with the other two to give us free access, or whether we'll need to pay for membership.

Read well and lots.