In 2019, I read the most books I have ever read in one year - 35. This was in large part due to my daily commute to and from the office which gave me a guaranteed uninterrupted stretch of reading time at the beginning and the end of each working day. I seemed to plow through books at lightening speed, devouring one good pick after another. I remember thinking in January of 2020 that I was sure to read as much or possibly even more in the year ahead given the same commute and my forever growing, never shrinking, would like to read in my lifetime, list.
But then, I never saw 2020 coming.
When the world changed and we were all sent to our respective homes in mid-March for what I (naively) thought would be a brief couple of weeks, I thought to myself that perhaps I would treat the whole event as a sort of snow-day. Yes, I was fortunate enough I'd be able to work remotely but beyond that? I would just read and read and read some more until this whole virus disappeared and life went back to normal. Ha! How innocent we were back then.
Well, spoiler alert - the virus has not disappeared and life certainly didn't go back to normal come April. Of course I have not had a commute beyond walking from my bedroom to the desk in my living room since March. And I certainly did not read nearly as voraciously as I'd expected, particularly over the spring. In fact, for many months I could not seem to focus on anything at all - books were picked up and set back down again after only a page had been read; I even struggled to focus on that single page. My mind was just all over the place. Like so many of us, I was distracted by the going from bad to worse news and the uncertainty of just about everything in our orbit. I could not focus, I could not concentrate. I worried my love of reading had come to a sudden and screeching unexpected halt. I remember talking to a friend on the phone in April and before I even brought it up, she volunteered how little she had been reading in the wake of the pandemic. She is a voracious reader in her own right and often puts my own book list to shame. Talking to her about this new unfocused phenomenon gave me such a sense of relief that it wasn't just me! No one else seemed able to hold their attention om much of anything else either.
Eventually I just relented and stopped forcing myself to focus. Deep down I knew I would never stop loving to read; I just needed to cut myself some slack. I'd pick up books again when I was ready. And while I still didn't read as much as I'd hoped or as clearly as I'd anticipated, I did still read in this new normal; doing my best to carve out time to turn off the tv and the news and my phone and just sit quietly with a book. Naturally, this was easier said than done but closing out the strangest year of my life with 24 reads is a decent showing I'd say. Right on brand, 2020 was overall a dud in the book department. Along with the above-mentioned reading frustrations, it seemed that more often than not the books I did finally pick up and stick with just...well, more flops than hits this year. So it goes.
2020 Reads:
Olive, Again - Elizabeth Strout
The Testaments - Margaret Atwood
A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara
The Giver of Stars - Jojo Moyes
Places I Stopped on the Way Home - Meg Fee
We are the Luckiest - The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life - Laura McKowen
Disappearing Earth - Julia Phillips
Nothing to See Here - Kevin Wilson
Dear Edward - Ann Napolitano
Born Standing Up - Steve Martin
City of Thieves - David Benioff
Before We Were Yours - Lisa Wingate
The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett
The Royal We - Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
Recursion - Blake Crouch
Father of the Rain - Lily King
Evening - Susan Minot
Sula - Toni Morrison
The Patron Saint of Liars - Ann Patchett
Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V.E. Schwab
Weather - Jenny Offill
Untamed - Glennon Doyle
It's funny to review this list now; looking back at books I read before March truly feels like an entire lifetime ago.
Favorites of the year?
Nothing to See Here - totally quirky and definitely one of the stranger premises of any book I've ever read, I really liked this one. It was the first novel I was able to actually focus on and enjoy during the pandemic. It was a nice diversion this spring - a light-hearted read with heart.
City of Thieves - this one I'd borrowed from a friend ages ago and finally pulled off my shelves this year. Another story that managed to captivate me during a wildly unfocused time and I still find myself wondering about a few of the characters now and then.
Father of the Rain - my favorite yoga teacher recommended this book to me via one of her streaming classes. I got it from the library over the summer and loved it from the get-go. This was probably my favorite book of the entire year. It's heartbreaking and sad but in that good heartbreaking and sad kind of way that I love the most.
Least favorites?
Well, like I said above I had more duds than good ones this year so pretty much everything else on the list, ha. Just kidding. Most of my chosen reads were just 'meh'...but I strongly disliked the following:
Untamed - I know, I know, everyone is obsessed with this book and Glennon Doyle. Not me. I loathe the feeling of being preached at from someone who claims to have their whole world figured out and who is suddenly living a perfect and happy existence. I'm sure that's not how she intended her words to come across but that's how I read them. Stop preaching Glennon! Hard pass on this one.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - this was the book I selected for my very own book club, with the hopes that it would be a fun novel for all of us to curl up with and get lost in after a hellish year. The rest of my book club didn't seem to mind it as much as I did but I hated it. I thought the writing was terrible and while the premise of the book is intriguing - so many directions the author could have gone with this storyline! - it just felt like the same damn chapter on repeat. I was thrilled when I finally read the last page of this one and could close this book forever. Do not recommend.
I've got 100 pages left of the book I'm reading right now, a novel I am quite enjoying and one I thought might close out 2020...but as today, this last day of the year unfolds, it is looking like it will be my first finished book of 2021 instead. Let's hope this is an omen of good reads to come throughout 2021.
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