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Original poster

The best books you read in 2020?

132 replies

southeastdweller · 03/12/2020 09:16

They don't necessarily need to have been published this year.

I really loved these books:

  1. Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo
  2. Clothes and Other Things That Matter - Alexandra Shulman
  3. 84 Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff
  4. Talking Heads - Alan Bennett
  5. Eating for England - Nigel Slater

What have been your favourite books this year?

OP posts:
shumway · 03/12/2020 16:11

Asylum Road by Olivia Sudjic, Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier, Jillian by Halle Butler, The Liar's Dictionary by Eley Williams, Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett, Black Light by Kimberly King Parsons, How To Walk on Water by Rachel Swearingen.

Hellohah · 03/12/2020 14:38

The best book I've read this year (by a country mile) was Beartown by Fredrick Backman.

Honorable mentions go to:
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Sweetpea by C.J.Skuse
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
The Shetland Series by Ann Cleeves.

Teapot13 · 03/12/2020 14:32

Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
The Night Watchman by Louise Erderich
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Dundundunnn · 03/12/2020 13:24

All The Light We Cannot See
The Binding

Greenbks · 03/12/2020 13:23

Home going- yaa gyasi
Where the crawdads sing- delia owens
Pachinko- Min Jin lee
The snow child- Eowyn Ivey
All who go do not return- Shulem deen

tripfiction · 03/12/2020 13:14

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell because it is so evocative of era and place and reminds us that pandemics are cyclical

Daughter by Lucy Fricke and Little Faith by Nikolas Butler (winner of the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards, Fiction With A Sense of Place 2020) - both have fallen under the radar. As has "Dear Child" by Romy Hausmann. All truly excellent.

pippistrelle · 03/12/2020 11:14

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

I've had a funny old year with books. I've consumed a lot but hardly any have grabbed me. This one did - it just seemed the right book to be reading at this time - captured the claustophobic, not-knowing essence of the year.

The other book that kept me gripped was Disloyal by Michael Cohen. One self-serving creep's description of working for another. Accidentally insightful.