The Best Books I Read in 2020
The card catalogue at the art deco library in Reims, France. August 14, 2020.
I read a total of 102 books in 2020.
Looking over my lists of books read in each quarter, I note that my pace slowed considerably after the advent of the pandemic and my push to start reading in French (both of which began in the second quarter). I went from having read 31 books in the first quarter to squeaking out a mere 21 books in the fourth.
Whether due to the stresses of the pandemic, an overexposure to spare and cold literary fiction, or evolving tastes, I found that I craved bigger, meatier, messier, more bravely creative stories this year. Books that I might have loved at another time felt too bloodless and analytical in 2020.
This urge to find writers pushing their creativity to its limits drove me into different genres than my usual and opened me to new levels of reading experimentation. If someone recommended a type of book outside my normal preferences, I often took the recommendation.
Some of these risks paid off. I never had much interest in horror writing after adolescence, but one novel in that category made my best-of-the-best runners-up list this year. And I found that I bolded several books over the course of the year on my quarterly round-up reviews in genres that included fantasy and police procedural—never areas of the bookstore I’d explored much in the past.
To create my shortlist of the best of the best books I read in 2020, I took my top reads of each quarter—noted by their bolding on my reading lists—and picked my absolute favorites. I defined “absolute favorites” as the books I still remember and think about months later and that, in the thinking, continue to elicit a visceral response (ordered by the author’s last name):
Vernon Subutex 1, by Virginie Despentes (French-language edition)
Deacon King Kong, by James McBride
The Great Offshore Grounds, by Vanessa Veselka
I found the final criterion on my list (the “visceral response” criterion) most challenging; books that I remember well and think about over time—the first two criteria on my list—may not quite have elicited a visceral response then or still. Yet I feel strongly about emotional reaction as an essential element, at least when it comes to judging the books I’d note as top-level favorites.
I would recommend these three books highly to anyone seeking meaty, story-driven fiction that will still make you think—and feel. (And yes, I read the Despentes in the original French; however, English-only readers can find a translated version.)
Highly honorable mentions include books that made the first criteria, but not the third: Blacktop Wasteland, by S. A. Cosby; The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones; and Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata.
For the full rundown of the books I read in each quarter of 2020, including the books I bolded as favorites that didn’t make my best-of-the-best cut, click through my quarterly reviews below:
To check out other years’ lists of best of the best books I read, follow these links:
What have you read recently that I should add to my list? I love recommendations!