My Reading in 2020
2020 wasn’t a good year for a lot of reasons that I don’t need to tell you about because you already know them if you haven’t been living under a rock. But for reading, 2020 was an excellent year. After all, many people, myself included, had little else to do. If you’re interested in hearing about my reading habits over the last year, or if you want some tips on things to read, read on!
As a conversation starter, here is the list of books I read in 2020:
Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets – J.K. Rowling (re-read)Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban – – J.K. Rowling (re-read)The Lover’s Dictionary – David LevithanHarry Potter & The Goblet of Fire – J.K. Rowling (re-read)Richard III – William ShakespeareEating Animals – Jonathan Safran FoerHarry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix – J.K. Rowling (re-read)Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe – Fannie FlaggHarry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince – J.K. Rowling (re-read)Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows – J.K. Rowling (re-read)My Year of Meats – Ruth OzekiDelicious Foods – James HannahamWar & Peace – Leo TolstoyThe Purple Hibiscus – Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieThe Bookshop on the Shore – Jenny ColganThe Girl of Ink & Stars – Kiran Milwood HargraveThe Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan KunderaThe Martian – Andy WeirThe Graduate – Charles WebbThe BuJo Method – Ryder CarrollShopgirl – Steve MartinThe Santaland Diaries – David SedarisHunger Makes Me A Modern Girl – Carrie BrownsteinEleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail HoneymanA Wild Swan – Michael CunninghamAn American Marriage – Tayari JonesThe Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel SparkPaaz – Myrthe van der MeerA Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’EngleAn Inspector Calls – J.B. PriestleyPyjamadagen – Marc van der HolstDe Boekhandel – Boudewijn BüchA Ladder to the Sky – John BoyneExtremely Loud & Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran FoerBroer – Esther GerritsenPale Fire – Vladimir NabokovThe Vet’s Daughter – Barbara ComynsA Perfectly Good Family – Lionel ShriverTuesdays With Morrie – Mitch AlbomThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow & Other Stories – Washington IrvingThe Ocean At The End of the Lane – Neil GaimanBetween The World & Me – Ta-Nehisi CoatesThe Midnight Library – Matt HaigMore Than A Woman – Caitlin MoranIncidents – Roland BarthesThe Guilty Feminist – Deborah Frances-WhiteThe Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood (re-read)The Testaments – Margaret AtwoodThe Penelopiad – Margaret AtwoodMuch Ado About Nothing – William Shakespeare (re-read)Romeo & Juliet – William Shakespear (re-read)The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – Suzanne CollinsThe Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to The Hunger Games – Ebony Elizabeth ThomasBefore COVID-19 drove all academic education online, I took a wonderful course on food studies with the incredible Dr. Jennifer Cognard-Black and read four books about food and the way food is represented in literature: Eating Animals, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, My Year of Meats and Delicious Foods. All of these were fascinating books, but most of all I would recommend reading them together and looking at the different ways they represent food and relate food to markers of social identity.
Then education moved online. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), I had been assigned War & Peace as part of a course on history and literature. I will be honest here: I would never, ever, in my life, have finished War & Peace if I had not been stuck in lockdown, but I am happy that I did finish it. My copy was 1.350 pages and it took me only five weeks to read it (okay, now I’m just bragging). It felt like a very drawn-out, somewhat less witty Jane Austen novel written by a grumpy historian. Overall, that’s a positive in my book, and the classes on the novel were also very educational and illuminating.
As a palate cleanser after War and Peace, I read The Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It was about as brilliant as I expected. I am still saving Half Of A Yellow Sun for the perfect moment.
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine deserves a special mention for being lovely and entertaining.
Then I went through a phase of reading feminist books (Atwood, Frances-White, Moran) which is always great.
I also read a number of books by African-American authors this year. Tayari Jones’ An American Marriage was absolutely brilliant and emotional. It is perhaps my favorite novel that I read this year. My reading experience of An American Marriage also helped shape my intense reading experience of Between the World and Me. As cherry on the cake, I read The Dark Fantastic towards the end of the year. This is an academic book and it is absolutely the best non-fiction book I read this year. It changed the way I think about what literary and cultural criticism is and should be and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Looking for more books to read? You can find what I read in previous years here:
