The Best Books (that I read in) 2020

*Not necessarily published in 2020

One of these things is not like the other

I picked up a lot of new habits in 2020. Hosting elaborate conversations with myself. Making sure my children stand up at least once a day. Hoarding boxes. But probably the most fruitful one was Reading. Not lowercase ‘reading’. I’ve always done that. It took a pandemic for me to start Reading.

What, you didn’t think there were going to be cat gifs? You must be new here.

I developed a weirdly fevered zeal for it, reading 3-4 books at a time. It was like the vaccine was buried in one of the texts, anxiously waiting for me to uncover it. Anyway, I finished 53 books this year (hence the Goodreads screenshot at the top) so feel reasonably informed to recommend some to you. Looking back over this list, it’s pretty dark. I read some frothy stuff, but those just never seem to stick in the brain. If you want lighter fare, I’m happy to post a few in the comments.

Herewith, the top 10 books that allowed me to visit someplace else for a little while.

Anger and astonishment were not hard-to-find emotions in 2020, but this book revealed new depths of them. A riveting and engrossing memoir that reads like a novel, Educated tells the story of the author’s upbringing in a religious, survivalist, rural family. Her parents didn’t believe in Western medicine, and if you think you’re prepared for the effects that would have, you are not. I wished multiple times to transport myself in and rescue her from the insanity. It’s also one of those stories that will have you heading to Google afterward, to see what people like this look like.

In the same vein, but thankfully fiction, Godshot was hilarious, heartbreaking, and also a little infuriating. A teenage girl and her weird grandmother, a pastor with a Messiah complex, a coven of phone-sex operators, and a record California drought all converge into one hell of a ride. If you’re reading something into the fact that I’m drawn to books about religious fervor and tyranny and its ensuing effects on women—you very much should be.

I read multiple anti-racism books this year along with the rest of you, and this one was my… favorite? That’s not the right word. But Khan-Cullors’ compelling prose put my feet directly into her shoes—I was standing right beside her on her front porch as a SWAT team confronted her for the mere reason of being Black (and couldn’t help but think of Breonna Taylor.) If Kendi’s How to Be an Anti-Racist was the textbook for 2020, When They Call You a Terrorist was its memoir, grabbing your head and shoving it into the murky water Black people have been swimming in all their lives.

I’m not sure why this didn’t find its way to more best-of lists because it’s a stunner from a debut novelist. Set in Odessa, Texas in the 70s, Valentine is the story of what unfolds in a community when a young girl is assaulted by an oilfield worker. As a former resident of West Texas, I can vouch that Wetmore absolutely nails the environment and people. A definite page-turner.

A real eye-opener for this white girl who’d never heard of redlining till last year. Sarah Broom takes us on a journey through The Yellow House, her family home in New Orleans East, bought by her mother in 1961. The devolution of the neighborhood around it, the widening gap between their neighborhood and the tourist mecca of the French Quarter mere miles away, and the subsequent effects on her family and neighbors is glaring evidence of how much equitable infrastructure matters.

I have a weird fascination with North Korea—which, having typed that, isn’t really weird at all. It’s a country shrouded in mystery and filled with bizarre despotic fervor, about as close to dystopia as we have in the present. (Dear god, I hope.) I’ve read several books about it, and The Orphan Master’s Son is one of the best. It’s a novel, but the author based much of it on real-life anecdotes. If you’re a lover of epic, sweeping tales, this one’s for you.

I came into work one day (pre-March obvs) to find this laying on my desk, neither asked for nor previously discussed. Turns out my boss brought it to me, and after finishing it in two days, I decided that my boss was much cooler than I knew. The prose in Night Boat to Tangier is… indescribable. It will take a bit to get used to. And then you won’t want it to stop.

I sat for a long, long time after finishing this. Albert Woodfox spent 40 years in solitary confinement, primarily in the Louisiana prison system, and primarily because he was a Black Panther. It’s the longest concurrent period any prisoner has spent in solitary and, of course, he was innocent of the crimes he was charged with. Solitary is an exhausting, frustrating, infuriating read, and does more to explain systemic racism than all the ‘how to’ books currently in circulation.

In a year when we spent a significant amount of time questioning established narratives, The Five fit in perfectly. Rubenhold takes on the seemingly impossible task of tracing the narratives of Jack the Ripper’s five victims, women who have spent much of history taking a back seat to their barbaric murderer. She unearths detailed timelines of their lives, arriving at the surprising conclusion that only one of them was an actual prostitute. What emerges from their collective stories is a sad profile of how little women - especially poor women - were valued or even nominally regarded at the time.

These Women was one of the last books I finished in 2020, and it packed a punch. Perpetuating the year’s theme, it’s a novel that explores women at the margins, this time in the dark corners of Los Angeles. Following a serial killer of prostitutes, it’s not always an easy read, but it also doesn’t take you down the roads you assume it will. There’s little focus on the murderer; much more so on the women who move among dark places and how they do so.

Now that I’ve written this all out, I seem to be establishing this newsletter as one filled with murder, sadness, and frustrated women. Also systemic racism. I’ll be funny and lighthearted next time, I promise. We’ll talk about the season’s hottest sweatpants.

Thanks for reading and Happy NEW Year!