Bookworm: My Best Books of 2020

2021 is here, and I’m looking forward to turning the page — by starting a brand-new annual reading challenge.

(Of course, like most of us on Earth, I loved watching 2020 finally come to an end for a great many other reasons, too, but let’s keep this convo to books, shall we?)

2021 will be my sixth year doing a reading challenge, something I began in January of 2016. The goal is to read at least as many new-to-me books as the year we’re in. So in 2020, for example, I used #20in20 as the hashtag to document the challenge and give my capsule reviews of each book on social media.

2020 was a year I really broadened my reading horizons with a lot more biographies, history and more diverse authors. Within the 27 books I read in 2020, there were a lot of standouts and several that stayed with me long after I finished reading, like Ta-Nehisi Coates’ lyrical and vivid “The Water Dancer,” and Riley Sager’s truly scary “Home Before Dark,” which legit kept me up all night after I read the Kitchen Incident scene.

“The White Album” was my first Joan Didion read — and not my last, as I loved the vignettes of her truth peppered into each story, the glimpses of who she is and how she was navigating a tumultuous time. I savored learning about Regina Anderson Andrews in Ethelene Whitmire’s “Harlem Renaissance Librarian,” which detailed how integral Regina was to the era, the NYPL and neighborhood arts scene — and her infamous salons in her St. Nicholas Avenue home, which I unknowingly walked by a zillion times when I lived in Harlem/Sugar Hill.

But, like “The Highlander,” there can be only one Best Book of 2020, so without further ado, here’s my Top 5.

Can’t wait to get started on #21in21. Follow along right here on Ink for Blood and Instagram — and join in if you so desire as I love talking about books and getting recommendations!

My best books of 2020

5. “The Paris Hours” by Alex George

I chose this as my April Book of the Month because A) it sounded incredible and B) we were to honeymoon that month in Paris to see our daughter, who was studying abroad, before railfanning northward to Antwerp and Amsterdam, where we would spend the bulk of our trip. Sadly that didn’t happen due to COVID-19, so cracking this one open was bittersweet — and so was closing it because mon dieu, I savored every single page.

It was haunting, devastating and frantic. Alex George’s lines are delicious morsels that paint a vivid, nearly tangible portrait of 1920s Paris. The storytelling was immersive — each chapter is a different vignette of the characters’ lives and are woven together masterfully and intricately. The final act took my breath away and Camilla, Souren, Guillaume and Jean-Paul stayed with me long after I finished reading.

And, I suspect, they will be with me again when I one day do make it to City of Light.

4. “Killers of the Flower Moon” by David Grann

This is page-turning historical non-fiction horror. If you investigate US history beyond the marketable events we’re taught in school and lionize, you find blatant corruption, racism and greed.

Like the Tulsa massacre, which took place around the same time, the Osage murders are horrifying — and yet another example of exactly who we are as a nation. From the moment this land was ripped from Native American hands, we’ve been careening to this exact moment in time.

It was very surreal and unsettling to read this book in 2020. But I’m glad I did, that I cried and raged and laid awake at night haunted by the murders, which David Grann details with stunning prose, precisely because this truth is uncomfortable. It should be. But reading about it is nothing compared to the actual horror the Osage experienced — and what so many Americans are STILL experiencing 100 years later because Americans have yet to evolve enough to understand the meaning of equality.

3. “The Office of Historical Corrections” by Danielle Evans

This razor-sharp and incredible collection of stories about race, culture, being a woman and so much more gets you right in the gut, repeatedly, as Danielle Evans’ writing brings each story vividly to life. I found myself immediately rereading each one because it was hard to move on from them, as eager as I was to devour the next one.

Like in “Flower Moon,” the title novella really hits home how skewed — read: how whitewashed — the US history we’re taught in school is. My heart ached for “Happily Ever After’s” Lyssa and all she had to face that would surely break anyone else, while “Anything Could Disappear” completely wrecked me.

This collection was absolutely riveting and extremely poignant given our current climate. A must must must read.

2. “Circe” by Madeline Miller

When I read Madeline Miller’s “Circe” in November, it definitely put the top pick that had held from January in question. That shouldn’t be surprising as this was BOTM’s 2018 Book of the Year winner.

I was obsessed with mythology as a kid and loved reading “The Odyssey” in high school. “Circe” was just as in-depth, transportive and enthralling as those stories, but so much more conversational and descriptive. I felt the fiery fury of Circe’s Titan father Helios, smelled the briny air of her island Aiaia, winced at the cruelty of the gods (so like humans) and ached from Circe’s tangible and relatable loneliness and yearning. I honestly can’t stop thinking about this book.

1. “Daisy Jones & the Six” by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Back in January, I made the bold statement that 2/20, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “Daisy Jones & the Six” would be my Best Book of 2020. I loved loved loved everything about it, and it’s no wonder why it was named BOTM’s 2019 Book of the Year — and why it held onto my top spot all year long.

I love the 1970s, and I’ve always been fascinated with the decade’s sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll scene. There was even a time when, if you asked me what era I would’ve liked to live in other than my own that I would’ve immediately answered “the 1970s so I could be a Led Zeppelin groupie.” I mean, Robert Plant, amiright? Drinking Jack at the legendary Rainbow in LA was a bucket-list item for me, one I happily (and tipsily) crossed off in 2002 while tucked into one of its red leather booths and hoping to absorb its history.

“Daisy” brought that all to life like it was juiciest “Behind the Music” episode ever. The ingenious writing style — what The New York Times called “an oral history” as each band member tells their own narratives interview-style — blew me away, and Daisy proved to be a tough act to follow on the fictional stage and my list.

Honorable mentions

“The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson

Yes, I know I’m 17 years late on this one, but this captivating historical nonfiction tome was most definitely worth the wait.

It melds two stories: the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair — from its initial planning and complications to the site’s successes and demise — and the diabolical evil that was serial killer H.H. Holmes. Erik Larson’s research and descriptive lines are haunting, and while it’s a massive read, it read like a novel I couldn’t put down.

“Magic Lessons” by Alice Hoffman Paris Hours” by Alex George

I had never read Alice Hoffman before or even saw the movie version of her “Practical Magic,” but she’s definitely someone I plan to read again — and soon.

I lost myself in her bewitching, lyrical prose as she unfolds this beautifully heartbreaking and all-too-familiar story of love, mothers and daughters, redemption and the seemingly never-ending fight of women for equality and against the suffocating claws of religion enforced by men who do not hold themselves to their own standards.

My complete 2020 reading list

1. “The Glittering Hour” by Iona Grey
2. “Daisy Jones & the Six” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
3. “The Sun Down Motel” by Simone St. James
4. “The Masterpiece” by Fiona Davis
5. “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov
6. “American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins
7. “A Good Neighborhood” by Therese Anne Fowler
8. “The Nest” by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
9. “The Paris Hours” by Alex George
10. “We Should All Be Mirandas” by Chelsea Fairless & Lauren Garroni
11. “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson
12. “The Knockout Queen” by Rufi Thorpe
13. “Regina Anderson Andrews: Harlem Renaissance Librarian” by Ethelene Whitmire
14. “Logan’s Run” by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson
15. “Killers of the Flower Moon” by David Grann
16. “The White Album” by Joan Didion
17. “All the Ugly and Wonderful Things” by Bryn Greenwood
18. “Home Before Dark” by Riley Sager
19. “The Shadows” by Alex North
20. “Calypso” by David Sedaris
21. “The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes” by Elissa R. Sloan
22. “The Water Dancer” by Ta-Nehisi Coates
23. “Magic Lessons” by Alice Hoffman
24. “Circe” by Madeline Miller
25. “Winter Counts” by David Heska Wanbli Weiden
26. “The Office of Historical Corrections” by Danielle Evans
27. “My Friend Anna” by Rachel DeLoache Williams