Spotify delivered its 2020 “Year in Review” on December 2. Goodreads sent reading stats sometime around December 19. These annual round-ups feel early. What if I find a song I listen to 10 times a day for a week mid-December? The week between Christmas and New Year’s is perfect for inhaling at least two books. What if I finish my last read on December 31st?
I didn’t, Mexican Gothic will appear on next year’s list as the first book finished in 2021.
Anyway, here I am, days into this new year with last year’s book list. It was a weird year for reading. I found it difficult to focus on books like Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, which I started sometime in March. Disappearing into Patricia Campbell’s nightmare life in The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires was a welcome escape from worry about COVID-19. Audio books helped when I couldn’t focus on the page or sleep (hello, Little Women).
I read some of the big antiracist books this year, which inspired self-reflection. So did books like Beloved and Such a Fun Age. I try to keep my reading varied and make sure it’s not just books by white men. In 2020, this meant reading my first romance novels in years, Alyssa Cole’s Reluctant Royals, a translated book, Convenience Store Woman, and Dominicana, a novel by Dominican writer Angie Cruz. My goal to finally finish Robert Caro’s LBJ series remains unfulfilled, but I surpassed the 50 books goal I set.
The Reading Glasses podcast and friends’ recommendations continue to guide my reading. Here are the 61 books I read and listened to in 2020. Some notes follow, I’ve asterisked those I loved, and the dates are when I finished each.
Got lots of reading done on a trip to Switzerland right before we locked down
1. The Winter of the Witch, Katherine Arden, 1/3*
2. An American Marriage, Tayari Jones, 1/5
3. Travel Light, Naomi Mitchinson, 1/7
4. Calling Dr. Laura, Nicole J. Georges, 1/9
5. This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, 1/12*
6. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard, 1/26
7. Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin, 2/1
8. How I Tried to Be A Good Person, Ulli Lust, 2/1
9. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe, 2/8 - I really recommend the audio book, read by Matthew Blaney
10. The Testaments, Margaret Atwood, 2/12
11. Do What You Love and Other Lies About Success and Happiness, Miya Tokumitsu, 2/19
12. Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens, 2/20*
13. True Grit, Charles Portis, 2/23
14. The Age of Miracles, Karen Thompson Walker, 2/29
15. Children of Blood and Bone, Toni Adeyemi, 3/3
16. The Cabaret of Plants: Forty Thousand Years of Plant Life and the Human Imagination, Richard Mabey, 3/4*
17. Convenience Store Woman, Sayaka Murata, 3/6
18. The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness, Sy Montgomery, 3/14 - Octopus are fascinating. Pairs well with the documentary My Octopus Teacher.
19. Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey, 3/17
20. Mostly Dead Things, Kristen Arnett, 3/24
21. Dicey’s Song, Cynthia Voigt, 4/5 - I used to reread this book regularly as a kid and found it in a little free library. The series takes place on the Eastern Shore, and I enjoyed revisiting the story as an adult who lives in the region.
22. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott, 4/14
23. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari, 4/17
24. The Party, Elizabeth Day, 4/23
25. Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays, Eula Biss, 5/2*
26. The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry, 5/3*
27. Exit West, Mohsin Hamid, 5/6*
28. The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix, 5/15 - A couple years ago, I read The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, at the recommendation of the Reading Glasses podcast hosts. It was thrilling and terrible and I’m afraid to read any of his other work. Grady Hendrix, I will read. TheSouthern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires disgusted me at times and scared me at others. It taught me I like horror. I can’t recall another book I’ve had to put down for a break while also really wanting to know what happens.
29. Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love, Dr. Sue Johnson 5/17
30. The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern, 5/30*
31. The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate, Gary Chapman, 6/10
32. How to Be an Anti-Racist, Ibram X. Kendi, 6/25
33. Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir, 7/2*
34. The Family Upstairs, Lisa Jewell, 7/4
Read Unapologetic in between walks around Mascoutah, Illinois
35. Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Our Movement, Charlene A. Carruthers, 7/12
36. Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid, 7/14*
37. Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life, Lulu Miller, 7/18*
38. A Princess in Theory, Alyssa Cole, 7/19
39. Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, Jia Tolentino
40. Binti, Nnedi Okorafor, 8/13
41. White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo, 8/15
42. Beloved, Toni Morrison 8/24***
43. The Witch Boy, Molly Knox Ostertag, 8/27
44. Children of Virtue & Vengeance, Tomi Adeyemi, 9/7
45. A Duke by Default, Alyssa Cole, 9/19
46. The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World, Patrik Svensson, 9/30*
47. Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist, Judith Heumann, 10/1
48. Parachutes, Kelly Yang, 10/3
49. My Beloved World, Sonia Sotomayor 10/16
50. Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir, 10/27* - Gideon and Harrow the Ninth are some of the weirder books I read this year. Harrow had me confused for most of the book. The reveal made me cry. I totally recommend this series for anyone intrigued by the summary “lesbian necromancers in space."
51. The Glass Hotel, Emily St John Mandel, 11/2*
52. American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time, edited by Tracy K. Smith, 11/11
53. On Apology, Aaron Lazare, 11/15
54. The Paying Guests, Sara Waters, 11/21
55. Dominicana, Angie Cruz, 11/21
A birthday bike ride before heading home to finish Dominicana
56. A Prince on Paper, Alyssa Cole, 12/11
57. Wintering: How I learned to flourish when life became frozen, Katherine May, 12/27* - great for those who, like me, are still coming to terms with cold and winter grey every year after living warm places.
58. Strong Female Protagonist, Book 1, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Molly Ostertag (illustrator), 12/27
59. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Mary Roach, 12/27
60. Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Barbara Robinson, 12/27
61. Strong Female Protagonist, Book 2, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Molly Ostertag (illustrator), 12/28