The best books you read in 2020?

[southeastdweller]

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?

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.

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.

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

All The Light We Cannot See
The Binding

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

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.

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.

My highlights of the year have been:

The Night Circus
The Wild Silence
All the light we cannot see
The woman in the white kimono
Station Eleven
The True
Leaving Time

Circe.

My favourite read of the year was also
All the Light We Cannot See

Clanlands by Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner
Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge

For me it was the Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel and Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith.

It’s not been a great year reading wise with no real standouts.

An unexpected joy which got me through a very sad week was
The Man Who Went Into the West: The Life of R.S.Thomas - Byron Rogers (recommended on the 50 bookers thread).

Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five was excellent.
I also read, for the umpteenth time, Rebecca, and it was still sublime.

Mine was Olive Kitteridge. Second time of trying I really enjoyed it, First time I tried I didn't get past Chapter 2.

Also:
Olive Again
Rodham
The Brexit Chronicles (Fintan O'Toole)
Trio

I started a lot of books but if wasn't grabbing me I didn't continue with them.

My favourites this year are Nora Webster by Colm Toibin (doesn't sound that great if you read the blurb on the back but is really good, brilliant characterisation),
Wych Elm by Tana French.

Both the above, as it happens, set in Ireland and by Irish authors .

Also Big Sky by Kate Atkinson.

I've read a few Japanese novels this year and loved them. The writing is so simple and yet they are so truthful on love and loss. I suspect it's a bit like the year I read nothing but Irish novels but I highly recommend all of these (and they are all short).

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
The Ten Loves of Mr Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami

Otherwise Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (wonderful graphic memoir) and the Children's Book by AS Byatt (beast of a book full of ideas and history).

I also loved Girl, Woman, Other as well as Hamnet and Mirror and the Light.

Also The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, it's inspired me to read Bel Canto.

I have read 46 books so far this year

Hamnet and Troubled Blood were the best by miles

I’ve read a wide variety of books but the ones that grabbed me this year and stayed with me have been either historical or sci-fi (or both)

The Love Child by Rachel Hore
The House on Silvermoor by Tracy Rees
To Be Taught If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
The Lady Astronaut of Mars series (three books so far) by Mary Robinette Kowal.

All the Light We Cannot See. This thread is good for ideas.

Lily King, Writers and Lovers
Elaine Feeney, As You Were
Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat

The Harpy by Megan Hunter
Grown ups by Marian Keyes
Convenience store woman by Sayaka Murata

Audiobook
Ghosts by Dolly Alderton
The One by John Marrs
Maybe you should talk to someone by Lori Gottlieb

For me Troubled Blood and Tombland (the last Shardlake) were the best page turners.

Also really enjoyed The Dutch House and The Alice Network.

Best non-fiction was A Woman of No Importance.

Troubled Blood was very good.
I liked Girl, Woman, Other and Grown Ups a lot too.