A Banner Year for Reading
2020 sucked for me and everyone else in many ways, but in one way, it was a banner year for me. I read 58 books, plus parts or most of nine others, for a total of 67 books, well more than one a week. I’m not going to list them all. I read many genres, including some YA dystopian fantasy, essays, memoir, self-help, biography, contemporary fiction, historical fiction, and a couple of novels written in the early 20th century.
I read many of the same books my reader friends read, including Normal People, The Vanishing Half, and The Giver of Stars, all of which I liked, but they weren’t my favorites. Here, among the books I read in 2020, are the ones I enjoyed most, that stuck with me for some reason, or that made me look at the world or my life from a different perspective.
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi — Whoa. This was a first novel? Holy moly, what a talent. The entire history of Black people in America told in linked short stories, an unconventional and engaging structure. My book group took time to discuss which scenes disturbed us the most. There was much to choose from. Read this book.
An America Marriage, Tayari Jones — Because, yep, that’s what happens when a Black man is falsely accused and jailed and his wife has to go on.
The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehesi Coates — Harriet Tubman is magic. Yes she is.
The Book of Longings, Sue Monk Kidd — Kidd is among the authors I love enough to read anything she writes, but I was surprised how much I liked this reimagining of the life of Jesus before he was The Christ. Sensitive to believers, told from a feminist perspective, great period detail on a far away and long-ago time.
The Dutch House, Ann Patchett — Another writer I will always read, Patchett keeps getting better. In this book, the house itself is a character in that it motivates the plot, but it’s the story of sibling love and their inability to overcome the past that makes this book so powerful.
The Great Alone, Kristen Hannah — It was wonderful to read about Alaskan winter while sweating in Florida’s August heat. The plotting in this novel is worth studying. Every time I thought things couldn’t get worse, they did, and yet, I always believed the main character would survive. A story of hope and love.
The Truth Keepers, June H. McCash — I was privileged to be a beta reader on my stepmom’s latest historical novel, set in antebellum Jekyll Island, Ga. It’s the second book in her series about the people who populated the island in its early days, before it was taken over by Gilded Age millionaires. They were a bunch of fascinating flawed French people named DuBignon. The book’s research is impressive. You’ll be able to read it in 2022, I think. Meanwhile, check out June’s book Eleanor’s Daughter about Eleanor of Aquitaine’s first child, Marie de Champagne, daughter of Louis VII of France. It has won a bunch of well-deserved historical fiction awards and you will be enthralled by the historical detail about 12th-century France. Totally worth reading.
Red Queen, Victoria Aveyard — A YA guilty pleasure. Not going to spoil it for you, but if you like sword-and-sorcery fiction as I do, this book is good fun. I read the whole series, because you can gobble up these books in a day.
Main Street, Sinclair Lewis — On the other hand, it took me three weeks to slog through this plotless novel satirizing narrow-minded people who are set in their ways. Lewis was prescient. These same people drive me nuts today.
Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse — Pulled this one off my shelf on a whim. There’s a reason this book is a classic. It got me started reading about Buddhism, which helped me make it through this frustrating, isolating year.
Which brings us to the nonfiction I read this year that I won’t forget, and I’ll keep going back to:
Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh — In this lovely, gentle book of essays, Lindbergh meditates upon the shape, texture and anatomy of various seashells to reveal truths about marriage, love, solitude, youth, aging, and contentment.
The Art of Stillness, Pico Iyer — This book of travel essays about going nowhere helped me to reflect on places I’d been, what I’d seen and learned and felt while traveling. It kept me at peace as one vacation after another crumbled in the dust of 2020.
Finding Yourself in the Kitchen, Dana Velden — Who didn’t find themselves in the kitchen this year? Velden writes about the zen of cooking and preparing food. Her essays made me both more focused and more adventurous with our meals. She taught me how to turn chopping onions into a meditation.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver — Another good one about staying in place I snatched from my shelf. Kingsolver and her family were already master vegetable gardeners before they vowed to eat for a year only the food they could find within a 30-mile radius of their home. The book takes you through a year in the life of a farm. Also, they raised turkeys, dumbest birds on earth. Highly amusing and, of course, great writing. Kingsolver is another writer I will always read.
Becoming, Michelle Obama — I just love her outlook on life. Also, her writing is breezy, easy, keeps moving. Lots of interesting detail about what it’s like to live in the White House.
White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo — I know there’s been a lot of criticism of this book, but I needed to read it to help myself understand my own racism and the racial divide in our nation. I agree with critics, though. Rather than worrying about whether I, a privileged white woman, am a racist and trying to make myself feel better about being aware of my racism — an attitude that is condescending by being so conscious of trying not to offend — I should be advocating for the dismantling of the institutions that disadvantage people due to race and class. And, of course, also try not to do or say stupid, racist things.
No Nonsense Buddhism for Beginners, Noah Rasheda — Noah makes the basics of Buddhism, which are neither clear nor easy to understand, clearer and easier to understand. This book led me to his podcast, “Secular Buddhism,” which I listen to often. I’m using Buddhism to become a better human.
Atomic Habits, James Clear — Along those same lines, here’s a book that reveals how to build habits a little at a time. Creating habits is a lot easier than breaking the bad ones, it turns out.
Here’s to 2021, a year I hope will bring about better habits a little at a time: more joy, better food, more focus and ease, more gratitude, continued good health, and less drinking than 2020.