The 10 Best Books I Read This Year
(And 5 I’m planning to read next year)
I read almost 40 books in 2020. I’m a reading generalist: I’ll pick up most anything and finish it, but I don’t like them all equally. I went through my list of this year’s reads and pulled out my favorites. These are books that deserve to be read.
If, like me, you’re taking some time off at the end of this year, I’d highly recommend one of these as your literary companion. Down at the bottom, I’m sharing 5 books I’m looking forward to reading in 2021. For another book round-up, see this post. All my links are to Amazon, but if you’d prefer not to shop there, I’ve seen lots of good buzz about Bookshop.org
For Those Who Like a Slow Burn
Part whodunit, part survival story, part love song to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, this coming-of-age book is beautiful and poignant.
There’s a little bit of everything here: an abandoned child, a murder, a love story, a courtroom drama. It’s slow going, but not too ponderous, and there’s a nice little twist at the end. The plot is a little contrived (a six-year-old surviving on her own? Sure.), but the prose throughout is gorgeous. I really liked this one - it made me miss the days of discussions in English class.
For the Cloak-and-Dagger Fan
This book’s chapters alternate between the World Wars. In 1915, a network of women spies work in France to defeat the Germans; in 1947, a mismatched trio searches France for a young woman who went missing during the war years.
I stayed up all night reading this one. It’s fast-paced and suspenseful. There are real stakes here as well - the book draws on the true story of the covert Alice Network, which you should definitely spend some time Googling after you’ve finished.
For the History Lover
(This write-up is from my previous roundup, because this book deserves to be on both lists!)
Homegoing follows two branches of a family tree, starting in Ghana in the 1800s. One sister will marry an Englishman, the other will be captured in a raid, sold, and taken to America. It’s a novel that leaves many stories unfinished as it moves from one generation to the next. Gyasi’s characters are so vivid that any chapter could have been its own book, and I would have loved it.
This book is not just good - it’s excellent. I’m not the person who gets to decide, but it should become a classic.
For the Fan of the Classics
I read this book because it won the Pulitzer for fiction in 2019, but I fell a little bit in love with it. It’s science paired with prose. It’s a reflection on connectivity: on one level, it uses loose human connections to build a winding plot; on another, it explores forest and ecosystems, waxing poetic about communities of trees (not boring somehow).
The science behind the book is very real. It was featured recently on the NY Times Daily podcast (which name checks the book). Listening to it, I felt the same thrill of happiness I always did when subjects lined up in two of my classes at school.
A book where the trees are the real protagonists has no business being so good. It’s a little bit different, and probably not for everyone. But it feels like a new classic.
For Those New to Social Justice
I’ve spent the past 6 years learning and reading about racism, and I found this book helpful, if only to put words to observable phenomena. I read it and promptly passed it to my husband; we now keep a copy on hand to lend out.
DiAngelo’s sociological observations on race, power, and relationships are so important. The way she writes is straightforward in a very good way: this is why we feel x, then we say y, and we struggle with z.
It’s not an easy read, but it’s a pretty quick one. You don’t have to agree with all her prescriptions to find it useful!
For the Christians
I’ve been thinking a lot about politics lately (more on that later, but you can read some of my thoughts here).
This short, non-partisan book is invaluable. It’s a must-read (here’s another) about Christianity in politics; not so much policy as rules of engagement and motivation. I could go on and on, but I’ll just say that I underlined about half the book and plan to force it into the hands of as many people as I can.
You certainly don’t have to be a Christian to read it. If you just want to find common ground, I think it would be useful for you as well.
For Fans of a Family Drama
Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere was on my previous list of favorite books. After I loved it so much, I wanted to read this, her debut novel. It has the same strengths as Little Fires: deeply human characters and beautiful explorations of the human condition. She’s particularly masterful at the art of the omniscient narrator (the opening line: "Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.”)
Here, she spends time with grief, assimilation, and the little familial secrets and resentments that compound over time. I will read absolutely anything Ng writes. She is spectacular.
For Those Who Like a Throwback
This book was on my reading list for years, and I finally got around to it this year. It certainly stands the test of time as a piece of religious satire. It takes a minute to adjust the the idea of demon “protagonists” - it’s written as letters from a senior demon to an underling - but it’s richly written and as relevant today as it was in 1942.
I underlined half the book and plan to return to it every few years.
I’m still thinking about this line: “Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility.”
For the Memoir Lover
For me, memoirs are tricky. So many feel ghost-written or precisely engineered to evoke outrage or sorrow or sympathy. Educated could have struggled with that - it’s a story that features abuse, neglect, and dangerous survivalist-fundamentalism.
But Westover isn’t going for the gut-punch. She’s just telling her story, the way it happened to her. She writes in a very straightforward way; I got the sense a few times that she’d held back some details, smoothed things over to make them a little less dramatic.
The result is a beautiful reflection on grit and community, the power of education, and the unique pain of loving the people who have damaged you.
For Those Who Love a Little Drama
An influencer, a young Black nanny, a potentially viral video, an unexpected love triangle. Kiley Reid is a genius at characters and dialogue (truly the best toddler dialogue I’ve ever read), which makes this piece of empathetic satire fun to read while you cringe at the characters.
Issues of race, class, gender, and young-millenial adulthood tumble along in familiar and painful ways. I didn’t want to put the book down and found myself wishing for a book club as I mulled it over during the weeks after I finished it.
And 5 Books I’m Looking Forward To
Sing, Unburied Sing | Jesmyn Ward I’ve seen this book on just about every “must-read” list of the last few months, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.
Gentle and Lowly | Dane Ortlund I don’t tend to venture too far into religious non-fiction, but this book keeps being mentioned by people I deeply respect as both beautiful and important.
Notes from a Young Black Chef | Kwame Onwuachi I’ve become a person who enjoys food writing and non-fiction. I’ve heard this memoir is excellent.
Transcendent Kingdom | Ya Gyasi After being stunned by Homegoing, I’m looking forward to this one. It’s also just such a good title for a book.
The Vanishing Half | Brit Bennett This book was on all the best-of lists this year, and I just haven’t gotten around to it (this is the downside of getting all my books from the library).
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