Thursday, December 03, 2020

My Favorite Books Read in 2020

More than in most years, these twelve books gave me succor, escape, pleasure. If I had to pick #1
it would be LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND, Rumaan Alam, which imagined a fate possibly worse than ours, but shielded us from it in the end. Brilliant. 

Here the top twelve are. It would have been easy to pick 20.

Leave the World Behind, Rumaan Alam

Lean on Pete, Willie Vlautin

Hidden Valley Road, Robert Kolker (NF)

Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith

Between Them: Remembering My Parents, Richard Ford (NF)

Before the Poison, Peter Robinson

The Dutch House, Ann Patchett

The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa

Lab Girl, Hope Jahren (NF)

This is the Story of Happy Marriage, Ann Patchett (NF) 

Laughter in the Dark, Vladimir Nabokov

Cary: A Brilliant Disguise, Scott Eyman (NF)

 


3 comments:

Jeff Meyerson said...

The only ones I've read are the Robinson, which I did like better than the last couple of his Banks books, and the Patchett (STORY OF A HAPPY MARRIAGE), which I read before this year.

I'll have to go back and look at my lists, but I don't really remember being all that excited by much that I read this year.

Todd Mason said...

My list would be all the books I read a part of in 2020 so far, even more so than in most years. Charles Platt's slim memoirs are among the few I've finished. Glad you're still making your way through the novels!

George said...

Very nice list! My list is skewed by a lot of silly books I read to get me through the pandemic.