I read 80 books this year. That makes it an above-average year for me. I’m not posting this to brag. I know people who have read many more books; I know people who have read far fewer books. I’m putting it here because it feels worth recording in some way.
Most of these books were great. Some of them were incredible. Some of them sucked. Most of them were written before 2020, some well before 2020; I am usually lagging behind a bit for my dependence on the trusty ol’ library ebooks.
Giving this a handful of brain cells before I go off to bed, it looks like fiction beat out nonfiction by 58 to 32. Most of the nonfiction was about technology, race, or both. It’s kind of tough to isolate top genres for fiction, though I’d say I picked up more sci-fi than usual for me. Women, nonbinary people, and people of color definitely beat out the cis white males, which was somewhat intentional but, let’s be honest, pretty easy to do when you’re looking for something good to read. (I briefly picked up Joshua Cohen’s 2015 Book of Numbers this year which had me recoiling in horror with its pretentious MFA bro-iness by page 30 or so.)
If I had to pick a number one book that was actually written in 2020, I’d go with Such a Fun Age, which I think actually came out on December 31, 2019 but let’s just let it slide, lol. Darkly witty, deeply awkward, and unflinchingly accurate, it was a perfect tale for our times, even moreso as I gobbled up its clever soapyness in a lonely quarantined world.
I’m not sure what my 81st book read in 2020 will be, but I’m feeling pretty drawn to Wendy Liu’s Abolish Silicon Valley, awaiting me in print form (my library’s copy, no less). As shitty as this year was, I’m grateful I had the time and stability to read as much as I did, and for the fact that my brain still finds so much solace in the written word. Books got me through, folks. Whatever got you through was the right thing for you.
Top 8 2020 releases (that I’ve read so far):
Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid
My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell
Memorial Drive, Natasha Trethewey
Lakewood, Megan Giddings
A Black Women’s History of the United States, Daina Ramey Berry and Kali N. Gross
Cemetery Boys, Aiden Thomas
Upright Women Wanted, Sarah Gailey
Pretty Things, Janelle Brown
Top 6 fiction:
Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid
My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell
The Girl in the Road, Monica Byrne
Caucasia, Danzy Senna
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
The Pisces, Melissa Broder
Top 5 nonfiction:
Automating Inequality, Virginia Eubanks
Dark Matters: On the Blackness of Surveillance, Simone Browne
Memorial Drive, Natasha Trethewey
Race After Technology, Ruha Benjamin
Superior, Angela Saini
Top 5 that taught me the most:
The Charisma Machine, Morgan Ames
The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson
This Land is Their Land, David J. Silverman
A Black Women’s History of the United States, Daina Ramey Berry and Kali N. Gross
The End of Policing, Alex S. Vitale
Top 5 that will probably have the most significant and/or lasting impact on me:
Ghost Wall, Sarah Moss
Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado
Fun Home, Alison Bechdel
Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber
How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell
5 best audiobooks:
Catch & Kill, Ronan Farrow
Invisible Women, Caroline Criado-Perez
Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan
Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell
Weapons of Math Destruction, Cathy O’Neil
The complete list:
- Invisible Women, Caroline Criado-Perez
- Ghost Work, Mary L. Gray and Siddharth Suri
- Artifical Unintelligence, Meredith Broussard
- Weapons of Math Destruction, Cathy O’Neil
- Sorry I’m Late (I Didn’t Want to Come), Jessica Pan
- Permanent Record, Edward Snowden
- Automating Inequality, Virginia Eubanks
- The Clockmaker’s Daughter, Kate Morton
- How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell
- How to Be an Anti-Racist, Ibram X. Kendi
- The Charisma Machine, Morgan Ames
- Fun Home, Alison Bechdel
- A Woman is No Man, Etaf Rum
- Hunger, Roxane Gay
- Race After Technology, Ruha Benjamin
- Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, Jaron Lanier
- Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
- Pretty Things, Janelle Brown
- Dark Matters: On the Blackness of Surveillance, Simone Browne
- The Story of Arthur Truluv, Elizabeth Berg
- Confession Club, Elizabeth Berg
- Pull of the Moon, Elizabeth Berg
- Night of Miracles, Elizabeth Berg
- Caucasia, Danzy Senna
- The Giver, Lois Lowry (reread)
- Are Prisons Obsolete?, Angela Davis
- The End of Policing, Alex S. Vitale
- The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides
- The Chain, Adrian McKinty
- Emergent Strategy, adrenne maree brown
- Superior, Angela Saini
- Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan
- Hollow Kingdom, Kira Jane Buxton
- Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble
- Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov (reread)
- Memorial Drive, Natasha Trethewey
- The Murmur of Bees, Sofia Segovia
- The Butterfly Lampshade, Aimee Bender
- Uncanny Valley, Anna Wiener
- The Yellow House, Sarah Broom
- My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell
- A Place For Us, Fatima Farheen Mirza
- Britt-Marie Was Here, Fredrik Backman
- The Pisces, Melissa Broder
- Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler (re-read)
- Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler (re-read)
- Redefining Realness, Janet Mock
- The Dearly Beloved, Cara Wall
- Get a Life Chloe Brown, Talia Hibbert
- Upright Women Wanted, Sarah Gailey
- The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson
- Today We Go Home, Kelli Estes
- Lakewood, Megan Giddings
- The Whale & the Reactor, Langdon Winner
- Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid
- A Black Women’s History of the United States, Daina Ramey Berry and Kali N. Gross
- So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo
- I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, Erika Sanchez
- Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell
- The Book of Unknown Americans, Cristina Henriquez
- The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett
- The Color of Water, James McBride
- Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
- The Dark Reign of Gothic Rock, Dave Thompson
- Ghost Wall, Sarah Moss
- Her Body & Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado
- Cemetery Boys, Aiden Thomas
- Catch & Kill, Ronan Farrow
- Freshwater, Akwaeke Emezi
- Pet, Akwaeke Emezi
- Luster, Raven Leilani
- Elizabeth is Missing, Emma Healey
- The Girl in the Road, Monica Byrne
- Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi
- Wow, No Thank You, Samantha Irby
- The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (reread)
- This Land is Their Land, David J. Silverman
- Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber
- Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart
- On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
- Ring Shout, P. Djeli Clark
