best of the books, 2020

Happy, happy new year (AT LAST) my friends! Since I’m not getting any newsletters out right now, here’s a little end of year reading update. I finished 107 books this year which was a pretty good year for me. These are the ones that stand out in my memory (with some of my Goodreads notes included):

Nonfiction:

On Immunity: An Inoculation - Eula Biss - My son gave me a copy of this well before the pandemic arrived, but it’s certainly timely now. Biss writes as a mother, with a mother's perspectives and concerns, in pursuit of understanding the history of vaccination, the fears around it, the science we know and don't know, and the ways our lives are changed because of it. She is empathetic, real, curious, and human in her responses to what she uncovers. The book is not so much an argument for vaccination as an exploration of what it means to be a parent, what it means to live in community, our dependence on each other, and the real challenge of fear. The book is imminently readable and approachable. Highly recommended.

Distant Neighbors: Selected Letters of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder - Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder have two very different approaches to life (WB is an agrarian in the Christian tradition, GS is an environmental activist and Zen Buddhist) but both men are poets and writers who managed to forge a respectful and affectionate friendship through the years. I was so touched by their admiration and respect for each other's work, for the way they capitalized on agreement and went to each other for understanding their own biases and assumptions. My own affection for both men grew as I read their correspondence, but I was most taken with Berry, whose quiet humility, thoughtfulness, integrity and goodness shines through. What a lovely book for these fractious days.

Stamped From the Beginning - Ibram X Kendi - I don't feel qualified to judge the merits of this book as a history text - as I read I began to think of it more as sitting down with an intelligent, informed neighbor to hear their side of an ongoing story. It was powerful, shocking (not to discover that racism is pervasive, but to realize how much of it I've passively accepted in my life), humbling, and infuriating.

It is a long book, over 500 pages, and densely written. At times, I thought Kendi wielded his labels a little too broadly, but as I said, I considered the book from the standpoint of hearing a version of my history from a necessary and informed perspective rather than a precise history (though, as I said, I'm simply not qualified to judge it on those merits.) Still, it's an outstanding, eye-opening, and disturbing work that I wish everyone could read.

Poetry:

Deaf Republic - Ilya Kaminsky -

"We lived happily during the war
And when they bombed other people's houses, we
protested
but not enough..."

"At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow this?
And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow this?"

A parable/poem about a town's response to oppression and occupation. When a deaf boy is shot in the street by a soldier, the townspeople choose to become deaf. A moving challenge to our collective silence and our acceptance of atrocity.

Refugia - Kyce Bello - Refugia are habitats of retreat, where organisms and ecosystems go to try and survive. Kyce Bello takes that idea and explores what it means to be alive now, in a world that is changing, where much of what we love is dying. What does it mean to be a mother now? A child? How do you make plans to survive? How do you bear the weight of guilt? What will carry on? What will be left behind?

An absolutely beautiful and timely collection that has held my hand through all these pandemic days and will go on and on with me through the years ahead. (In fact, I keep a portion of one of these poems in the footer of the blog.)

Fiction:

Less - Andrew Sean Greer - I just loved this. It reminded me of a P.G. Wodehouse novel - if Wodehouse made Bertie Wooster a gay, middle-aged, slightly lost novelist and set him loose in the world without Jeeves. Sweet, funny, and quite brilliant. Nice skewering of the publishing world and writer's egos. It was a charming break from the too serious reading I've been doing.

Weather - Jenny Offill - I kept hearing how strange Offill's writing was, so I put off reading her. My bad. I absolutely loved this, and I love her style. It takes tremendous skill to pull a narrative along in short paragraphs. I thought it was brilliant. And the subject matter - a woman's anxiety about climate insecurity - is imminently relatable.

Writers & Lovers - Lily King - This story of a young woman trying to finish her novel and work through grief is one of my favorites this year. King's descriptions of the inner-anguish of novel writing alone would make this a keeper, but she has also created a protagonist that is easy to like and easy to root for.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk - A strange little murder mystery with a grouchy, complicated, astrology and animal loving protagonist. (Somehow connected in my mind with Ottessa Moshfegh’s Death in Her Hands, which I also enjoyed a lot.)

Black Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse - Fantasy set in pre-Columbian America? YES. Fabulous world creation, characters, intricate and interesting plot, great writing. Crows. Amazing. Can't wait for the next installment.

I’d love to hear any of your favorites, so please feel free to share! (I also love to hear about books you hated and why. Unlike last year (I’m looking at you, Where the Crawdads Sing) I had a pretty good run and don’t have any books I want to burn in the New Year’s bonfire, but if you’ve got one, do tell! )