The best books you read in 2020?

Troubled Blood by a mile for me. I have a really happy memory of a long walk into town on a sunny Saturday to pick up some flowers for myself and an M&S pain au raison. Sat reading Troubled Blood, munching my cake and admiring my flowers. Bliss.

I also liked The Bee Keeper of Aleppo and The Moonflower Murders.

Taking notes for Ds1.

Oh and Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver.

I really really loved “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” by Yuval Harari.

Troubled Blood was my favourite. Some other highlights were CCP's incomparable Invisible Women, a collection of short stories called The Beastly Bride ed Terri Windling, If Wishes Were Horses by Susanna Forrest, Once Upon A Time by Marina Warner and Hard Pushed by Leah Hazard.

I'm only after remembering Shadowland by Joseph O'Conner, throughly enjoyed that too

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett was my absolute favourite.

Also enjoyed;

Where the Crawdads Sing
The Beekeeper of Aleppo
American Dirt

Forgot The Keeper of Lost Things, which I adored

Tin Man by Sarah Winman had me in bits
The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn was a good thriller
The Binding
Blackberry & Wild Rose
How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden was fascinating and best non-fiction

Bad Show: The Quiz, The Cough, The Millionaire Major
by Bob Woffinden, James Plaskett

Am reading atm - it is fascinating. I am really enjoying it (Quiz the play then adapted dramatisation was based on some of it). What is new to me is how the syndicates of professional quizzers teamed up to work out how to play the system in terms of getting through...When I think of the few attempts I had at ringing the number, I did not stand an earthly.

A Top 11 for me:

The Warmth of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson.
Home Marilynne Robinson.
Matterhorn Karl Marlantes.
Black Wave Kim Ghattas.
Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe Kapka Kassabova.
My Name is Why Lemn Sissay.
David Copperfield Charles Dickens.
Who They Was Gabriel Krause.
Sing Backwards and Weep Mark Lanegan.
The Life Project Helen Pearson.
The Five Hallie Rubenhold.

I've also read lots of 'whodunnit' books in 2020 after finding 'British Library Crime Classics' and re read lots of Agatha Christie - I've found them comforting some how.

Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo was my stand out book of 2020

Others that stand out because I can still remember them are:
Hamnet by Maggie O’farrell
Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Pine - Francine Toon
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook
Snuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

The realisation that I have forgotten many of the books I’ve read this year - and there were many - is a sobering one!

Milkman - like nothing I've ever read before, and an analytic examination of female oppression and male power.

Caitlin Moran's More Than A Woman - the first few chapters are almost unreadable (three pages on how her husband's sneezes are louder than her sneezes? The insistence that every woman on earth has soft furnishing plans?) but from about chapter 3 onwards it's like a completely different book. The chapters about her daughter's mental illness are required reading for anyone raising teenage girls.

Grayson Perry's Descent of Man.

Other non-fiction books: Other Minds (about octopuses and animal consciousness), Kingdom of Speech (about linguistic theory), The Good Immigrant.

I really enjoyed Followers by Megan Angelo - a cross between Love Island and The Handmaid's Tale!

Betty
City of Girls
Mudlark
The Radium Girls
If I Had Your Face
A Woman is No Man

My favourites this year:
American Dirt
Girl, woman, other
The Nightingale
Americanah

His Only Wife
American Marriage
The Salt Path

All the light we cannot see

The Salt Path - Raynor Winn
The Patrick Melrose series - Edward St Aubyn
All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates
Big Little Lies - Lianne Moriarty

Shuggie Bain - the best book I read all year.

Books I've enjoyed most this year:

The Friendly Ones - Philip Hensher
When Will There Be Good News? - Kate Atkinson
Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout
This Thing of Darkness - Harry Thompson
The World I Fell Out Of - Melanie Reid
The Five - Halle Rubenfold
American Dirt - Jeannine Cummins
The Dutch House - Ann Patchett
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Beekeeper of Aleppo - Christy Lefteri
Leonard and Hungry Paul - Ronan Hession

and not great literature but just for cosy Christmas reading:

Winter Solstice - Rosamunde Pilcher
The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman
All Creatures Great and Small series - James Herriot

Intermittent both the Shetland TV series and the books are great although I regard them almost as two separate things. Dougie Henshall is not at all how I imagined Jimmy Perez when I read the books, but I love him anyway. And genuine Shetland accents are few and far between on the show. Really watchable though.

I've also enjoyed Ann Cleeves' Vera series of books although haven't seen the TV series.

And the Blackhouse trilogy by Peter May, set in the Hebrides is worth a read too.

Two books from my local bookshop’s book group were excellent:

The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley. Billed as a feminist retelling of Beowulf.

The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda. Japanese family poisoned - multiple characters reflect on the events years later.

I've read lots this year and these are my favourites :
Daisy Jones and the Six
The Heart's Invisible Furies
American Dirt
The Heatwave (Kate Riordan)
City of Girls
Little Fires Everywhere
Where the Crawdads sing