Last round up from 2020. I’ve already started on this year’s pile, hunkering down with Tana French’s The Searcher this weekend. I seem to go though phases where I read a whole pile of books in a month and then almost nothing the next. Hoping that I can read a bit more consistently through this coming year.
Pictured are books from my shelves, the rest I borrowed from the library, which thankfully is doing curbside pickup!
The Beauty in the Breaking by Michele Harper - A beautiful memoir told in case studies, on what being a doctor and woman today means.
To the River by Olivia Laing - Laing walks the entirety of the Ouse, a river in Sussex that Virginia Woolf drowned in. Along the way she traces her own history, Woolf’s, and the Ouse’s.
The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley - A claustrophobic whodunit set in a snowstorm on a remote property in Scotland, read late into a snowy night.
Intimations by Zadie Smith - The first and likely to remain my favorite of many books on the pandemic.
Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit - Loved her memoir, no surprise, as I’ve loved every book I’ve read by Solnit.
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado - An amazing and inspiring read, told in carefully crafted pieces about a dream house and an abusive relationship. Reading her short stories next!
Losing Eden by Lucy Jones - A wonderful book about how green spaces and walks in the woods and playing in dirt can heal.
A Girl’s Story by Annie Erneax - Erneax takes a magnifying glass to a period of romantic obsession in her late teens.
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell - Spellbinding and creepy thriller that follows a student teacher relationship at a boarding school in Maine.
Time is the Thing a Body Moves Through by T. Fleishman - A beautiful and inspiring essay about art and love and time and Felix Gonzáles-Torres.
My Meteorite by Harry Dodge - I read this at the same time as T. Fleishman’s essay above, and I love how both are mixing art and memoir writing together. Definitely something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
The Missing One by Lucy Atkins - Since we can’t travel this year, this thriller was a nice way to get back to Vancouver Island.
The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin - Loved reading this short story with the new introduction by Donna Harraway, thanks Adrian for sending this too me!
The Years by Annie Erneax - Erneax tells her life story as a collective history, of her generation and France from the years of her birth to the 2000s.
A Discovery of Witches Trilogy by Deborah Harkness - This trio of books got me through the month of November when I needed serious distraction to get to sleep.
I’m glad to see the end of 2020. But some books I read last year will stick with me for a long time coming. My top ten from the year of reading in no particular order:
Constellations by Sinéad Gleeson
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Cleanness by Garth Greenwell
The Yield by Tara June Winch
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
A Girl’s Story by Annie Erneax
Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino
The rest of the 2020 books are here and here. (And 2019 here.) Leave your favorites in the comments below!
