Every year, and KWeeks makes a little fun of me for this, I record all of the books I read. I do this for several reasons, not the least of which being that I have the short-term memory of a fruit fly, and I will literally forget what I have read from January to December.
That’s not such a big deal until the third time you think a book looks really good, so you buy it…and it’s already on your bookshelf. And you have already read it. Sometimes more than once.
This year I also began keeping track of how many male-identified and female-identified authors I read, plus how many writers of color I reach for without going out of my way. This year, I read:
47 books by women
24 books by men
18 writers of color
My total number of books was 77. The discrepancy between my total and the above numbers is because I read multiple books by the same author. The percentage of authors of color is 25% of the total – in line with the demographics of the U.S., but not nearly enough, IMVHO. This past year I just kept reading like I do to get a baseline, and I hope to incorporate less white-centric books in 2021.
I won’t bore you with the entire list, some of which is completely forgettable, even written down, but here are my top 13 books, in the order in which I experienced them.
I was going to put stars by the ones I really recommend, but I just can’t. They were all so fucking good.
Salvage the Bones by Jessmyn Ward
Upstream by Mary Oliver
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano
The Leftovers by Tom Perrota
The Nature Fix by Florence Williams
Walk Through Walls by Marina Abramovic
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deeshaw Philyaw
The History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
Transcendant Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa by Marilyn Chase
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
Top 13 for 2020 – a mix of non-fiction, one exceptional book of short stories, and fiction. Some stunning writing in this list, and I recommend each one of these unreservedly – purchased from your local bookstore, not Amazon, natch.
I already have a list longer than my arm, but tell me what I missed last year – what books should have been on my radar, and what should I look out for next year?
Happy reading!
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett – I keep thinking about this one even though I’ve ready a half dozen books since. I’m reading Anxious People now 🙂
Yes, I read The Vanishing Half, too. That was really good. I feel like I need to buy it so I can read it again. I got it from the library.
Did you read A Man Called Ove? SO GOOD. And also a really good movie – rare.
I haven’t yet – but I loooooooved My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry. Highly recommend it if you haven’t read it already (or don’t remember… haha).
Definitely haven’t read that but will add it to the list!