2020: A Year in Reading ( ...since it wasn't a year for much else)

A year in reading (since it wasn’t a year for much else)
 
1. Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway (For my fiction writing class. One of the best books on craft around.)
2. The Best American Short Stories 2019 ed. Anthony Doerr
3. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie (Brilliant, horrifying, heart-breaking. There’s a scene in here that will stay with me forever.)
4. The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer
5. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (A re-read. I was planning to start the Hulu series, and I wanted to remember what I’d read so long ago.)
6. Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy (For my freshman comp class. It was amazing the research questions they came up with based on this text.)
7. Unspeakable Things by Jess Lourey
8. The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray
9. Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny (Who doesn’t love Chief Inspector Armand Gamache?)
10. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh (I didn’t love this as much as Eileen, but it was in the same weirdly brilliant way.)
11. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin (One of my faves. The premise is brilliant, and these people broke my heart.)
12. Followers by Megan Angelo
13. The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
14. Landline by Rainbow Rowell (Audiobook. Charming, lovely, kitschy in the best way.)
15. The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
16. The Other Mrs. By Mary Kubica (My second favorite in Kubica’s line-up.)
17. The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna (A quiet book that stuck with me in a lot of ways. It looks at the aftermath of war, and asks what we do with our wartime misdeeds and everyday criminals, especially when those people are ourselves.)
18. The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
19. Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier (Audiobook. A dark thriller.)
20. Miracle Creek by Angie Kim
21. Husbands and Other Sharp Objects by Marilyn Simon Rothstein
22. A Friend of the Family by Lisa Jewell
23. A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne (I officially have a crush on John Boyne.)
24. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (Ann Patchett can make me interested in things I didn’t know I was interested in. Just damn good story-telling.)
25. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
26. He Said/She Said by Erin Kelly
27. Wilder Girls by Rory Power (I read this for the social-distance-this! book club. This was back when the pandemic was going to last for just a month or so.)
28. A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd
29. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
30. The Warehouse by Rob Hart
31. Pretty Things by Janelle Brown
32. Marlena by Julie Buntin
33. Recursion by Blake Crouch
34. Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
35. Everything Here is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee
36. An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd
37. My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell (another read for the social-distance-this! book club. Dark indeed. I admire how the author let the main character stick to her guns, even though as a reader/woman I wanted to scream for most of the book.)
38. A Bitter Truth by Charles Todd
39. Father of the Rain by Lily King (I’d read Euphoria and was fascinated by it. This is a much more familiar story, but the characters are well drawn.)
40. The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson
41. The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple by Jeff Guinn (I felt like this could have been trimmed 150 pages or so, but it was a pretty exhaustive look at the cult.)
42. Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover and Me by Adrienne Brodeur
43. Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney
44. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson (Unexpected surprise for me. Smart and edgy.)
45. An Unmarked Grave by Charles Todd
46. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Long overdue read. Should be required reading for high schools.)
47. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (for social-distance-this! book club)
48. A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
49. Dominicana by Angie Cruz (I found this on a “what to read instead of American Dirt” booklist, and it was a compelling immigrant coming of age story.)
50. Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo (I’m in love with Nigerian fiction, and this was a fantastic read that truly felt universal.)
51. Conviction by Denise Mina
52. This is How I Lied by Heather Gudenkauf
53. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah (Recommended reading.)
54. There There by Tommy Orange (Excellent.)
55. The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall
56. Sister Dear by Hannah Mary McKinnon
57. The Arrangement by Robyn Harding
58. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (Timely and convicting. A read for social-distance-this! book club.)
59. Writers & Lovers by Lily King (Audiobook. So damn good. Read Lily King!)
60. The Subway Girls by Susie Orman Schnall
61. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
62. Darktown by Thomas Mullen
63. Stranger in the Lake by Kimberly Belle
64. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo (A read for the Friday-night-anti-racism book club. Required reading for white people, like me.)
65. Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas (reading for freshman comp. My students loved this.)
66. One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul
67. The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See (read for the social-distance-this! book club. Had no idea this world existed.)
68. American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures by America Ferrera (Lots of great essays here, very teachable.)
69. Passing by Nella Larsen
70. Godshot by Chelsea Bieker
71. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (I read this with the Penguin-Read-Along. Pretty fascinating, lots of stuff not included in the musical.)
72. How to be an Antiracist by Ibran X. Kendi (Read for the Friday-night-anti-racist book club. Required reading.)
73. Blank Klansman: Race, Hate and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime by Ron Stallworth
74. Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli (This didn’t quite do it for me, but it brought me to 75. Tell Me How it Ends, which was great.)
76. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Darkly comic, delves into cultural and familial expectations. What wouldn’t you do for your sister?)
77. Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
78. The Night Swim by Mean Goldin
79. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou (Fascinating. Good companion to the Netflix documentary Inventor: Out for Blood.)
80. The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James (True crime fans, unite!)
81. The Gunners by Rebecca Kauffman (I loved this so much, I shot a five a.m. book review video.)
82. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
83. The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai (In the top ten for 2020, for sure.)
84. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb (Read for a Writing for Psych class—part memoir, part-therapy. Recommended.)
85. The Last Flight by Julie Clark
86. Long Bright River by Liz Moore (Gritty, dark police drama.)
87. Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
88. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Wild and inventive, a great gothic read.)
89. Tell Me How it Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions by Valeria Luiselli (Highly recommended.)
90. Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land (Read this instead of Hillbilly Elegy.)
91. The Witch Elm by Tana French
92. These Women by Ivy Pochada
93. One Drop: My Father’s Hidden Life—A Story of Race and Family Secrets by Bliss Broyard (read for Friday-night-anti-racist book club)
94. American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment by Shane Bauer (Undercover look at private prisons. Completely horrifying.)
95. A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
96. The Whisper Man by Alex North
97. The River by Peter Heler
98. The Bright Lands by John Fram
99. Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane (Heart-breaker. Just a good story.)
100. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Togarczuk