BOOKS 2020

1. Red at the Bone—Jacqueline Woodson
2. Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theories and Their Surprising Rise to Powers—Anna Merlan
3. Scream of the White Bear—David Clement-Davies
4. Fall Back Down When I Die—Joe Wilkins
5. Doomwyte—Brian Jacques
6. The Library Book—Susan Orlean
7. The Testaments—Margaret Atwood
8. Good Omens—Terry Pratcheet and Neil Gaiman
9. Round Ireland with a Fridge—Tony Hawks
10. Under the Banner of Heaven—Jon Krakauer
11. The Kiss Quotient—Helen Hoang
12. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck—Mark Manson
13. How to Change Your Mind—Michael Pollan
14. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—Michelle McNamara
15. The Bluest Eye—Toni Morrison
16. The Mysterious Affair at Styles—Agatha Christie
17. Mildred Pierce—James Cain
18. She Said—Jodi Kantor
19. White Fragility—Robin DiAngelo
20. The Courage to be Disliked—Ichiro Kishimi
21. The Plague—Albert Camus
22. I’m Still Alive—Kate Alice Marshall
23. Dubliners—James Joyce
24. Such a Fun Age—Kiley Reid
25. Atomic Habits—James Clear
26. All Systems Red—Martha Wells
27. Everything I Never Told You—Celeste Ng
28. Religion for Atheists—Alain de Botton
29. Decisive—Heath Chip
30. All My Puny Sorrows—Miriam Towes
31. The Fifth Season—NK Jemison
32. This is Your Brain on Music—Daniel Levitin
33. The Obelisk Gate-NK Jemison
34. Blowout—Rachel Maddow
35. The Stone Sky—NK Jemison
36. Born a Crime—Trevor Noah
37. Devil in the White City—Erik Larson
38. It Didn’t Start With You—Mark Wolynn
39. Shrill: Notes from a Load Woman
40. Unfollow—Megan Phelps-Roper
41. Dear Girls—Ali Wong
42. Priestdaddy—Patricia Lockwood
43. Wildlife Damage Management—Russel Reidinger
44. In the Garden of Beasts—Erik Larson
45. The Hidden Life of Trees—Peter Wohlleben
46. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—Ken Kesey
47. Blonde Roots—Bernardine Evaristo
48. I Have Something to Tell You—Chasten Buttigieg
49. How Long ‘Til Black Future Month?—NK Jemison
50. Rebecca—Daphne du Maurier
51. Leave the World Behind—Rumaan Alam
52. The Umbrella Academy, Volume I—Gerard Way
53. Shortest Way Home—Pete Buttigieg
54. Beloved—Tony Morrison
55. Gideon the Ninth—Tamsyn Muir
56. The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle—Stuart Turton
57. Memorial—Bryan Washington
58. Anxious People—Fredrik Bachman
59. On Immunity—Eula Biss
60. The Searcher—Tana French
61. Teaching a Stone to Talk—Dillard Annie
62. Your Money or Your Life—Vicki Robin
63. The Cousins—Karen MCManus
64. Rakkety Tam—Brian Jacques

 
Favorites

1. The Library Book. This is simply a biography of one library. That sounds dry but it’s a journey, I assure you!
2. Mildred Pierce. I love every adaptation of this story. I can finally confirm that the source material is great too!
3. The Fifth Season. Earth bending meets the apocalypse. This and its sequels are the best works of fantasy I’ve read in years.
4. Born a Crime. A personal account of growing up mixed-race in South Africa during apartheid.
5. Shrill: Notes from a Load Woman. Funny and thought-provoking.
6. Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westburo Baptist Church. Title says all.
7. Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts, both by Erik Larson. Both true, both terrifying.
8. The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Imagine Doctor Who getting stuck in an Agatha Christie novel!!
9. On Immunity. A suddenly prescient primer in inoculation. 

 
Disappointments

1. The Kiss Quotient. So…… I thought this was going to be about a woman struggling with mental illness and/or disability as she tries to form relationships, similar to Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (which I enjoyed). And it’s exactly that…..but a romance novel. It wasn’t for me. 
2. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. I tried to read more in the psychological field. This book capitalizes on the F word without much substance.
3. It Didn’t Start With You. Too often this felt like one of those reality shows where a "psychic" speaks to the dead and unearths covert family stories to impress the viewer. The author overwhelmingly relies on anecdotal evidence to back up his thesis of inherited trauma. Inherited trauma may be a real phenomenon and play a role in treating mental health afflictions. But the lack of peer reviewed publications set off my pseudoscience alarm-bells. The author excessively points to events in the lives of great-great grandparents to explain the insomnia, anxiety, and even suicidal behavior of his patients, where there likely are far more direct issues at play. Surely he's aware of them as a therapist. But their omission in the narrative implies that stress behaviors can be solely blamed on an ancestor with a tragic backstory--a foolhardy and dangerous assertion. Yes, mental health issues can be inherited (ODC, depression, etc). But events? If inherited family trauma is truly a part of gene expression, and is potent enough to manifest over multiple generations, show me the data, not just stories. 
4. The Hidden Life of Trees. "The Hidden Life of Trees" takes complex biological concepts and puts them in layman's terms. This would be great if the terms didn't range from misleading to false. The author repeatedly disobeys a cardinal rule of science: calling supportive data "proof" and making wayward conclusions. "Tree canopies don't overlap each other. This shows that trees are friends." "Trees send each other chemical signals. Therefore they have olfactory systems." No and no. Not since "It Didn't Start with You" (which relied on anecdotal evidence) has a book so actively pissed me off. Tree ecology and the networks they use to communicate is a fascinating science. The author's personifications and verdicts insult his references and the science itself. Pseudoscience is a plague on credible, hard earned data. There is a way to explain tree relationships without calling them "friends who can smell each other." No, I don't think misleading conclusions about trees are going to harm the average reader. Deceit wasn't the authorial intent. But those seeking to learn about root networks should start with a Google Scholar search before reading these failed oversimplifications.
5. Rebecca. This book is fabulous, and was an ending away from making the favorite list. Without giving too much away, I’m frustrated in the same vein as I am with Jane Eyre.