The 38 books I read in 2020
Be forewarned: You’re not going to find a lot of inspiration about how wonderful this year was for readers, thanks to there not being anything else to do. The fact is, that just wasn’t the case for me.
I had a hard time reading this year. For a solid few months — say, March to June — my brain couldn’t focus on anything more significant than TV shows like Younger or Emily in Paris. It’s what I needed in that moment when the world went sideways, and I was so grateful that kind of escapism existed.
But once I could get back into books, there were a lot of great ones waiting. I stayed mostly away from my usual preferences for post-apocalyptic tomes (as Station Eleven’s Emily St. John Mandel put it when someone recommended her book about society falling apart following a pandemic caused by a respiratory virus in March: “Counterpoint: maybe wait a few months?”), and found new, exciting fiction across the board.
Without further ado — here goes. As usual, I want to hear what you thought of these books, and also, what were the best ones you read this year?
If you’d prefer to read this in Google docs, here’s the link! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qj5cqf_yDEaaJbMjEHC0G5DUXU68f_dYqE4vhOd8Sy4/edit?usp=sharing
* = favourite
*Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes — This was such a good book to start the year with (if you haven’t read it yet, hello 2021!). About new beginnings, and remorse, and baseball, and romance, it’s a charming, well-written story that lands on the just-serious-enough side of fluff.
Hunting Houses by Fanny Britt — This was one of those books that didn’t necessarily make an impression on me when I first read it, but in the days that followed, kept popping into my mind, revealing just how concisely the author found the words to portray a hinging-on-middle-aged woman’s life as she deals with temptation (and in fact, embarks on a memoir of her years thus far). It’s a literary creeper, so don’t be deceived.
The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott — Like “The Alice Network” but with a Soviet and literary twist, this book bills itself as a look at how women contributed to the CIA’s work in the ’50s, specifically as it pertains to “Dr. Zhivago.” It sounds random, but it works — and like “Dr. Zhivago” (apparently, because I’ve never read it), it’s also secretly a love story.
*A Dream About Lightning Bugs by Ben Folds — Ben Folds is a fuckup, and he’s not afraid to tell you that. I almost think people need to read his author’s bio at the back of the book and then read his stories about his life and career because the two couldn’t contrast more, but that’s the whole point. His winding and often nonsensical road to where he has gotten is a lesson in trusting your instincts, and also just purely living, and in this oftentimes conscripted world, that feels like a revelation in itself.
Rules For Visiting by Jessica F Kane — A book about a woman who plans to reconnect with old friends during her 40th year, I thought I’d personally connect with it more (I turned 40 this year, and have a tendency to reach out to people from my past). It wasn’t entirely for me, but there were sentences in this book that reminded me of the quotation books I used to keep as a teenager, where I wrote down phrases and lyrics that felt meaningful, that I could look back on again to appreciate that someone was able to so completely capture the way I thought I alone felt. Actually, so much of this book made me think about being younger, when friends were the whole point … Interesting concept for a book, and great writing.
My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. A good, quick read that’s about, well, it’s in the title. Taking place in Lagos, but truly could have been anywhere in the world, it’s the story of two sisters whose shared history is a blessing and a curse as they navigate their lives.
*The Huntress by Kate Quinn — By the author of “The Alice Network,” this story is similarly about women’s roles after WWII, albeit this time a Russian pilot and a Nazi war criminal and a teenage photographer. Very much a plot-driven book, the novel is tough to put down as different viewpoints each take their turn telling the story, and the ending makes it all worthwhile.
*Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan — Yes, it took me 10 years (and two viewings of the movie) to read this book, but it was totally worth it. What delectable, ostentatious trash! About the indulgences of Singapore’s upper upper class (and the various interlopers trying to get into it), this book was so fun and over-the-top, I can’t wait to read the sequels. (*narrator’s voice: she has yet to read the sequels)
Waiting For Eden by Elliot Ackerman — I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book, but it’s something I’m glad was written because it seems to express such a specific circumstance that needs to be on the page, and the way in which it is written is truly unique. The plot, such as it is, centres on a soldier severely wounded and confined to a hospital bed, and the wife who sits by his side. But it’s wholly a book about people’s emotions and intentions, without ever feeling touchy-feely or sentimental.
The Art of Leaving by Ayelet Tsabari — I wanted to like this memoir, by an Israeli writer who (spoiler alert) meanders her way to Canada while contending with various longings for home, love and acceptance, but something about it didn’t connect with it. Admittedly, I was reading this just as the pandemic struck, so it’s possible a story about travelling the world wasn’t quite the right match.
The Topeka School by Ben Lerner — Lerner is a writer’s writer, one of those people whose work you have to, I guess, kind of work for and truly pay attention to. This one, about debating and where life leads you after your teenage years (and includes many autobiographical details about Lerner himself), required the kind of attention I wasn’t able to give it this year. Perhaps it’s one I can return to.
*The Heavens by Sandra Newman — A skillfully weird book that engages in a bit of time travel, a bit of a love story, a bit of … well, I’m not going to ruin anything, let’s just say major creators of literature as characters. It’s very easy to fall in love with the dream life of main character Kate and follow her down the rabbit hole, so to speak.
Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston — If the words “super fun, sexy romp starring fictional President’s offspring and members of the royal family” sound exciting to you … well, you’re welcome.
Big Sky by Kate Atkinson — I neglected to realize this was part of a series before picking it up, but it was compelling nonetheless, about a detective (Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie) solving a crime. Now a major TV series! :)
*Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World: Doerr, Anthony — Remember a little while back up there, I said I couldn’t read anything about travel once the pandemic hit? Well by the time I read this book, it was exactly what I needed, to imagine myself (and my little family) getting the chance to spend a year in Italy, discovering ourselves and the country. A lovely memoir that evoked so much of what is wonderful about going to new places.
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak — A really different book about women who are sex workers in Istanbul, their histories and stories and the death that’s at the centre of all their lives.
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix — I read this, fittingly, for my book club, the first book we did this year (and it was in something like June!). Very fun, with a bit of “Interview with the Vampire,” a bit of “Twilight” and a bit of something suburban and feminist and strange that made it completely its own.
*Tuesday Nights in 1980 by Molly Prentiss — Oh, this book was so good, about the art scene in New York in the early ’80s, and while it’s based on what I believe are fictional characters, it’s sprinkled with enough real names and lurid details to make it feel like you’re getting a behind-the-scenes look at what it was really like, in all its grittiness and genius.
*Dead Mom Walking: A Memoir of Miracle Cures and Other Disasters by Rachel Matlow — I was surprised by how much I liked this memoir by journalist Matlow (sister of Toronto city councillor Josh Matlow), about her mother’s cancer diagnosis and subsequent, uh, defiant plan to deal with it. I was carried along on the current of Rachel’s annoyance with her mother’s refusal to get with the program, happening parallel to her work at CBC alongside Jian Ghomeshi. All in all, well-written, engaging and heart wrenching.
*The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel — I mentioned St. John Mandel up above (in reference to her excellent first book, Station Eleven). Fortunately, she’s far more than a one-trick pony, and this exciting but lyrical book goes everywhere from a remote B.C. island to New York during the financial crisis, swooping along with characters from both spaces you need to know more about and a story you need to finish.
*Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener — Is this the year I realize memoirs are pretty great? I read and enjoyed a bunch, most especially this one. Its subject matter (working at startups in Silicon Valleys during the ’00s) is very interesting to me, and the way in which Wiener writes about it, very much in layperson’s terms, an outsider looking into the bro culture, makes it so very readable.
The Heir Affair (Royal We #2) by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan — I completely adored the first book in this series (not to mention the authors, a.k.a. The Fug Girls), which was essentially fan fiction about William, Kate and Harry. While I wasn’t as head-over-heels about this one, it still had a fun, captivating plot, was a very quick read, and a lighthearted companion piece to, say, The Crown.
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray — The story of a family in a small town contending with their mother-figure committing a crime in the community and what happens after that, to the people who have to come home to help, the ones who live there and have to face fellow citizens who were affected, and the family history that comes to light. Well-written and solid.
The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh — This book felt very Margaret Atwood to me (yes, in a Handmaid’s Tale kind of way), focusing on otherworldly sisters who are living in a seemingly deserted land, and have been taught to mistrust men and survive any way they can. I’ll admit, I didn’t feel like I got as many answers as I would have liked from it, so if someone smarter can read it and get in touch to discuss, that’d be great.
*Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell — This felt like a book version of “American Pie” with a lot of very Mitchell-esque weirdness and twists. Centred on a band in London in the ’60s, it seems like a normal book above, but has a lot more going on beneath. That is to say, I loved it.
Toil and Trouble by Augusten Burroughs — I’ve never read any Burroughs before, and apparently this is a weird one to enter on, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. The big reveal is that he’s a witch, which I found a little hard to wrap my head around, but once I decided to just go with it, it made his tales of moving to a country home and living a hilarious rural life much more enjoyable.
*Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld — I’ve recommended Sittenfeld’s American Wife (a fictional account of Barbara Bush’s life) for years, so was thrilled when I heard she was writing something similar for Hillary. An account of what Hillary’s life could have looked like had she not married Bill, it’s essentially fan fiction, but really satisfying, well-written fan fiction. The second half is better than the first (which is a bit too focused on the politician rather than the woman for my taste), with wonderful flourishes and plot lines to make it sing.
*The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett — There’s a reason why this book is on every “best of the year” list — it’s because it really is that good. From the very setting of the story, in a Black community that prides itself on the light skin of its members, to the twin sister main characters who react to those constraints so differently, the book is a journey about identity and secrets, and an engaging read.
*The Index of Self-Destructive Acts by Christopher Beha — I make no secret about the fact that I love books about rich New Yorkers, and while this appears to be one on the surface, it’s so much more than that, mixing in a Nate Silver-type character, the 2008 financial crisis, the halls of academia and the very idea of intelligence itself. Excellent.
Long Bright River by Liz Moore — What’s essentially a crime novel with hints of family secrets and sordid affairs, this book’s foundation is the opioid crisis and the people it affects, its far-flung repercussions and seemingly never-ending reverberations.
*The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins — Hell yes, I’m reading any prequel to The Hunger Games Collins decides to write. Be warned, it is long and definitely has some parts that could have been cut down, but the back story for Coriolanus Snow, and much of how The Hunger Games themselves came to be, is wildly gripping, and it was very easy to picture the films that are inevitably being made from it.
*The Sudden Weight of Snow by Laisha Rosnau — This book is somewhat of a creeper, so beautifully written you don’t even realize you’re enmeshed in a teenage coming-of-age story (albeit one unlike most you’ve ever read). Part small-town Canada, part hippie commune, the locations are as much a part of this story as any character, and just as captivating.
The Ash Family by Molly Dektar — It was hard to stay away from cults this year (not literally, but in the pop culture sense) and this book did an excellent job complementing that. Gritty, visceral, frustrating — I was torn between understanding the main character’s motivations to wanting to shake her. I didn’t adore the ending, but it was worth the read.
Kaddish.com by Nathan Englander — A bit of a strange book that finishes very differently than it starts, departing on a deeply Jewish journey of faith and internet and how they do (and don’t) combine. It probably didn’t help that I was annoyed by the main character’s inconsistencies, as he vacillates between abandoning the Orthodox Judaism of his youth, then embraces it, then seems to do everything he can to destroy it. But that’s an essential part of the book, and if I want to get literary about it, part of what I think Englander is trying to say about modern Jewishness, so worth the delving and questioning it asks of its reader.
*Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski — This book was so good, bringing together a variety of topics I had no idea I’d want to read about — Thailand! Anthropology! Christian missionaries! — and shooting out storylines from each one that mixed and matched throughout the pages. It follows a through line about an American woman who murdered someone and went to a prison in northern Thailand for the crime, but reveals itself to be so much more than that, much the same way the villages written about in the pages become more and more tangible.
*Sea Wife by Amity Gaige — The premise of this book is enticing from the get-go, about a family who plans to spend a year sailing around the Caribbean after the father essentially has a midlife crisis and insists on it. But it quickly shows itself to have so many more layers, from (surprising!) commentary on right-wing U.S. politics to how our childhood defines us to making sense of yourself when you no longer have your most defining characteristics. So good.
The Guest List by Lucy Foley — A quick, easy suspense novel about a wedding taking place on an Irish island and the back stories of the people attending. It could have used some edits (so many people “reading each other’s minds”!) and I could see where it was leading about halfway through, but damned if I didn’t race to get there.
*A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet — It seems only fitting I would end off 2020 with an apocalyptic book focused on climate change — oh, please don’t let that be a deterrent. I ripped through this novel so quickly I couldn’t believe it, fully engaged in the plot and the characters and the way that it’s written so as to seem somewhat surreal, even when its points hover on our current reality.
