The Books I Read in 2020
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“The world was hers for the reading.” – Betty Smith
Let’s get right down to it, shall we?
I did read quite a bit this year. It’s nice to look back and realize I didn’t spend all my time just staring into the void. Here are the stats, mostly provided by Goodreads, a platform that I am abandoning in the new year. More on that later.
The Stats
Books read: 74. (I hate that it’s not 75. It’s really driving me nuts.)
Pages read: 28,194
Earliest publication date: Emma (1815)
Latest publication date: A number of 2020 releases
Male authors: 18
Female authors: 56
Longest book: Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (944 pages)
Shortest book: The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald (163 pages)
A selection of a few of my “highest rated” reads:
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Daisy Jones and the Six is the title of the novel AND the name of a fictional band that is loosely based upon Fleetwood Mac. I love Fleetwood Mac. I love Stevie Nicks. I loved this read. The coolest thing about this novel is its documentary-style format and fully developed, flawed, but likeable characters. (It reads like the script of an MTV Behind the Music television series. There’s even a discontented band member who feels underappreciated and complains about everything.) This book led to my exclusive listening of seventies rock for a good two months. It also led to the following conversation with my mom:
Me: Don’t you think that the seventies was the best decade for rock music?
Mom: How can you even suggest that to a person who grew up in the sixties?
Me: How about the eighties?
(She hasn’t really spoken to me much sense.)
Fleishman Is In Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Toby is a hepatologist in the midst of a divorce. Toby is enjoying his newfound freedom. He’s especially enjoying new-to-him dating apps and the plethora of different women they provide throughout the week (and weekends he doesn’t have his kids). At the end of one visit from his children, his ex doesn’t show up to take them. She’s nowhere to be found. The rest of the novel focuses on Toby’s desperate search for her.
The novel is narrated by Toby’s best friend, Libby. How does Libby know so much about the intimate and often mundane details of Toby’s everyday life? It’s probably best not to think too much about that. Libby’s involvement in the story increases as the novel progresses. Fleishman Is In Trouble is both hilarious and heartbreaking and sympathetic to its characters, all who are trying hard to navigate a difficult new existence.
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
This detective novel classic kicked off my 2020 crime novel/ mystery binge. It’s been a wild ride. First, you’re reading Dorothy Sayers and some Sherlock Holmes short stories, and the next thing you know, you’re deep into Nordic noir, a weirdly specific genre in which to find one’s self immersed.
Anyway, Gaudy Night is one of Sayers’ most recognizable works, and the college-set mystery holds up eighty-plus years later. I love pre-forensic science mysteries. You know, when a pool of blood was just a pool of blood and not a big pile of incriminating DNA. It was a time when fictional detectives had to use their observation skills and their gut instinct. There were no hidden cameras, no David Carusos stealing hair from a suspect’s brush. Harriet Vane, our heroine and smarty-pants sleuth, travels to her alma mater to figure out who's been terrorizing the campus with poison-pen messages and costly acts of vandalism and graffiti. She figures it out.
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
A Gentleman in Moscow is the ultimate quarantine read. After the Russian Revolution, former aristocrat Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced by the Red Leaders to house arrest within the Metropol, a posh Moscow hotel conveniently located across the street from the Kremlin. (Red Leaders are communists. It’s a misguided Star Wars reference. Capitalists are Gold Leaders. Get it? Okay, so there’s absolutely no sense behind either of these labels.) Even though his quarters are located within a cramped attic room, the hotel provides the affable Count with everything he needs to live a full life: friends, food, a barbershop, a love interest, even a job. A Gentleman in Moscow is a long, lighthearted, languid read, with lovable characters, a formidable nemesis, and an ending that rivals all other endings ever written.
The Cormoran Strike Series by Robert Galbraith
Robert Galbraith is J.K. Rowling’s pen name. I read all five (so far) of Rowling’s private detective series this year. Cormoran Strike is a war veteran-turned-private detective. His assistant (and eventual business partner) Robin is introduced in the first scene, arriving at Strike’s office for an interview just as an ex-girlfriend is fleeing down the stairs. It’s quite dramatic.
Each novel contains a great story and a complicated mystery. As much as I love Cormoran and Robin, the best character in each book is the city of London, which is brought to life just like Hogwarts was in the Harry Potter novels. I bought my mom the first novel for Christmas. She’s a crime novel buff who always figures out whodunnit. (When I was growing up, she had worn paperback copy of P.D. James’ novel, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman on her bookshelf. You can’t imagine how disappointed I was when it didn’t turn out to be the lurid story I had imagined.)
Other five-star reads: Long Bright River by Liz Moore, East of Eden by John Steinbeck, Emma by Jane Austen, Persuasion by Jane Austen, Dominicana by Angie Cruz, North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, The Cactus by Sarah Haywood, The New Wilderness by Diane Cook
The Classics
“‘Classic’ – a book which people praise and don’t read.” – Mark Twain
I read several classics and quasi-classics this year, including two novels by Somerset Maugham, the aforementioned Austen novels, Steinbeck’s masterpiece, East of Eden, and Elizabeth Gaskell’s marvelous saga, North and South. I also read John Updike’s grim but perfect executed Rabbit, Run, Haruki Murakami’s sixties-period novel, Norwegian Wood, Dodie Smith’s charming I Capture the Castle, and L.M. Montgomery’s disappointing The Blue Castle. In late fall, I read the truly terrible The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte. (Readers are meant to sympathize with the character Helen, who flees with her young son to begin a new life away from her drunken, abusive husband. I consider myself a feminist, and it pains me to say this, but if I’d been married to Helen, I probably would’ve taken to drink, too. She is insufferable.)
I only read a handful of nonfiction, which is typical of me. They included a memoir by Jane Goodall and one from Buffalo singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco, the best-selling personal narrative Hillbilly Elegy (which I found underwhelming), and The Season of the Witch, a fascinating history of San Francisco in the sixties and seventies. I read Wave, a heartbreaking memoir from a Sri Lankan woman who was the only member of her family to survive the 2004 tsunami. And finally, I read Jesus Land, a memoir from a girl whose parents sent her and her adopted brother to an unregulated reform school in the Dominican Republic. Things were rough there.
Additional Observations
I read a lot more female authors than male authors. This, apparently, is a normal phenomenon. Male readers tend to read male authors and women readers tend to read women authors. This year, I'm going to make a concerted effort to read more male authors. I’m also going to drop a lot of the “chick lit.” A couple of my chick lit choices contained inventive stories. I enjoyed The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary, whose main character was sorting through some PTSD symptoms after breaking up with a verbally abusive and manipulative ex. I had fun reading K.A. Tucker’s Alaskan-based “Wild” series. (Mostly because it was based in Alaska.) But the rest of the “chick lit” was subpar. By subpar, I mean forgettable drivel.
I’m also going to try and read more nonfiction and more world fiction.
In 2021, I’m challenging myself to read:
10 general nonfiction books
10 books by authors from 10 different countries
Five books by the same author (author TBD)
Five short-story collections.
Five biographies
10 classics
5+ “free choice” books
That should come to 50. If it doesn’t, what can I say. I’m bad at math.
Goodbye Goodreads, Hello The Storygraph
I’m leaving Goodreads, which has an outdated platform and a flawed rating system. I saved all my Festivus airing of the grievances for Goodreads.
Hey Goodreads. I’ve got a lot of problems with you.
Your algorithms are poorly conceived, your interface is difficult to navigate, and your search tool is not intuitive. I shouldn’t have to do a Google search of the book I want to read before I search for it on Goodreads. You all should KNOW how to spell an author’s last name. Unfortunately, because you are powered by Amazon, you have an astronomically large database that none of your competitors will ever be able to match.
Goodreads is owned and operated by Amazon and is basically a shill for its parent company. It exists to get people to buy their books from Amazon. The thing I like least about Goodreads is that it doesn’t value its most important asset: its authors. Anonymous non-readers have the capability of tanking a book BEFORE IT’S EVEN PUBLISHED with unkind comments and fake reviews. Trolls have unimpeded ability to create multiple accounts under assumed names (often names of living authors) to increase their number of fake reviews. Rotten Tomatoes and Wikipedia faced similar issues, and each took steps to curtail spammers and false identities. Amazon refuses to address the problem.
Goodreads is the kind of website Trump would use if he were a reader.
A second major concern: If you’re an indie publishing firm or an independent author, it’s nearly impossible to market your book through the site’s expensive promotion system. If authors want their book found, they have to shell out hundreds of dollars. Most authors are not Tom Clancy and J.K. Rowling. Most authors make little money. Amazon is one of the most profitable companies in the world. Goodreads doesn’t value creativity. They value profit. And before you call me a Red Leader, I’m perfectly okay with companies wanting to make a profit. But come on. Bring your website into the 21st century and show some compassion for the little guy.
To be completely transparent: I buy from Amazon as much as the next person. I purchase books for my Kindle and the occasional new release. I complain about the demise of malls and the closing of bookstores, but the ease of clicking on a product and having it arrive on my doorstep two days later is really hard to resist. I am a hypocrite. But I’m making an effort to change my ways. For Christmas, I purchased all of the books I gifted from Barnes and Noble. Most of the books I bought myself this past year came from used book stores and thrift shops. I’m trying.
So, I’ll continue to record books read in a notebook that also contains random quotes and a bizarre, disorganized TBR list. I can also be found at The Storygraph, a book sharing site described as an “ethical alternative” to Goodreads. It’s a new platform, still in beta. Full service plans launch January 21st. So far I’m very impressed. It’s clean, modern, and is, most importantly, functional. It allowed me to import my reading lists from Goodreads, which made the move easier. I currently have no friends there. I’m fine with that. I’m an introvert.
One last note: Reading is not a contest. No one should feel bad that they read fewer books than another person. Making your way through East of Eden should be a pleasure, not a race. Some people naturally read faster than others. Some settle down for the evening with the intention to read, and fall asleep three pages in. (I have chronic insomnia, so this has never been an issue for me.) I encourage you to pick up a book that interests you and savor it. Reading has made my life infinitely better. Audiobooks are great, too. As the great Dr. Seuss said: “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
What did you read this past year?
Additional reading about Goodreads:
Almost Everything About Goodreads is Broken
Why Goodreads is Bad For Books
Five Reasons Not To Do The Goodreads Reading Challenge
Amazon Owns Goodreads, The Storygraph is the Black-Owned Ethical Alternative You’ve Been Looking For
