The best books you read in 2020?

Girl, woman, Other
The Silence of the Girls
The Mirror & the Light
Heartburn
Thursday Murder Club
Americanah

@YakkityYakYakYak they are all on my list to read. Some on my shelf all ready.
Many areas have libraries that are doing a click and collect service and it’s brilliant. Search for the book in the library catalogue and they deliver them to your local library for collection.

American Dirt by Jeanne Cummins - I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that evoked so much emotion, I felt deeply connected to the main characters throughout. I’ll never forget this book.

Other great books I’ve read this year are:
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Know my Name by Chanel Miller

Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, which I absolutely loved. It's a very different novel from the Philip Roth-style story you initially think you are reading. Feminist and cuttingly insightful.

The Mirror and the Light by Hillary Mantel, which is so, so brilliant! Her talent is astounding.

Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth. I just love and admire her art so much. I think it was written not long after her split from Thurston and the details of that, the multiple chances she gave him, was painful to read. But she is and always will be an icon. Now sitting alongside Patti Smith on my bookshelf!

I am not your Babymother by Candice Brathwaite. Loved this! I've heard Candice talk and she is so real and humane and this book delivered. It made me rethink, made me so much more aware of my own privilege and - I hope - has made me a better ally.

I’ve read a lot this year - I’m working through Oprah Winfrey book club and there has been some crackers:
The Twelve tribes of Hattie Ayana Mathis
Olive Kitteridge. Elizabeth Stroud
The Dutch house
The signature of all things Elizabeth Gilbert
I’ve noted some of your recommendations and already ordered on Amazon. I’ve rediscovered this year that reading real books is my happy place. If I can get half an hour a day minimum I’m happy for the rest of the day.

Read so little this year but my favourites were The Outrun by Amy Liptrot and Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne.

The Invisible Life of Addie laRue (audio)
More than a Woman
American Dirt
Such a Fun Age
The Silence of the Girls
Born a Crime
On Earth we're Briefly Gorgeous
Days Without End (audio)
Normal People
Song of Achilles (again)
The Dutch House (read by Tom Hanks - fab)
Where the Crawdads Sing (audio)

It's been a good year!!

I can't say it's felt like a vintage year, but some stand out:

The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel. Love love love the whole series and want more (and yes I know there can't be more!). She is unmatched, IMO.

Days Without End, Sebastian Barry. Read A Thousand Moons too, which is not as great but a worthy read still.

The Shell Seekers. Do not know how I got to my 40s without having read Pilcher. This is MAGNIFICENT.

Apeirogon, Colum McCann. Almost unbearably sad and brutal in parts, but stunningly good.

Precious Bane, Mary Webb. A real oddity. Beautiful about nature; perceptive about people.

The Salt Path
The Old Ways
Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops
The Crow Road (again)
A Chip Shop in Poznan

Piranesi.

Again.

I haven't done much reading this year, but for me The Binding and Slade House.

*3. 84 Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff

1. Talking Heads - Alan Bennett*

84 Charing Cross Road has been on my list for year and I read Talking Heads for my A level English (more years ago than I care to remember )

I've read lots of good books this year, but harder than some years to pick the absolute standouts. Overall I'd say non fiction would be:
Mindf#ck by Christopher Wylie (about Cambridge Analytica)
& Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal which reminded me how good a writer Jeanette Winterson can be.
Fiction my two top are both SF:
Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

American Dirt Jeanine Cummings
Asta's Book Barbara Vine
Where the Crawdad's Sing Delia Owens
The Golden Rule Amanda Craig
Machines Like Me Ian McEwan
Troubled Blood Robert Galbraith

The Five was excellent. I also thought American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld and All The Remains by Prof Sue Black were very good.

Hamnet
The Forty Rules of Love
Ask Again, Yes

It hasn't been an amazing year for reading..

I've enjoyed
The Words in my Hand Guinevere Glasfurd
The Library Book Susan Orlean
The Ninth Child Sally Magnusson
The Most Fun we Ever Had Claire Lombardo
The Life Project Helen Pearson
I'm enjoying looking at everyone's lists

Just finished reading the package by sebastian fitzek..very apt for these times.
Totally absorbing
.

Oh and I also reread Normal People after watching the adaptation and still love it.

I love this thread each year, I always add some to my list because of it. Like many others, I haven't read nearly as much as I thought I would this year but I have had some crackers:

Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell
Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid
American Dirt - Jeanne Cummins
Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart
Writers and Lovers - Lily King I think @SlightDrizzle also mentioned this and you are the only other person I know that has read it this year, well apart from my sister but I bought it for my sister. I've chosen it for my book group lucky dip present.
The Glass Hotel - Emily St John Mandel

I really enjoyed
Invisible Girl - Lisa Jewell
Magpie Lane - Lucy Atkins
Little Darlings - Melanie Golding

My favourite reads of the year have been:

The Idiot by Elif Batuman - understatedly witty. The sort of wit that if you try to explain why you are laughing nobody would get it.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I’d never read it before and don’t remember loving Jamaica Inn but I loved this. Everything about it, I couldn’t put it down.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. I just found the prose so beautiful and the characters jumped off the page even though he didn’t really spend a lot of time drawing them if that makes sense.

I’ve actually had a good reading year with lots that I have enjoyed and to have 3 standouts is quite unheard of for me.

Girl,Woman,Other by Bernadine Evaristo - loved it!

My top reads have been:
The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Normal People by Sally Rooney
The Five by Hallie Rubenhold
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo