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?

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!!

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

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.

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.

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

@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.

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

Americanah
American Dirt
Kolymsky Heights
Half of a Yellow Sun

These were all on Audible and I think the narration on each is partly why I enjoyed them so much.

American Dirt - loved this.

Hamnet. Superb.

Dark Tides by Phillipa Gregory. Part of a series.

Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Song of the Girls By Pat Barker

I've just finished, The Confession, by Jessie Burton, and really enjoyed it. Great to hear what everyone else has been reading.

Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel
Bring up the bodies Hilary Mantel
The Mirror and the Light Hilary Mantel
A place of greater safety Hilary Mantel
Conversation with Friends Sally Rooney
Ordinary People Sally Rooney
Somebody's Mother Somebody's Daughter (an emotive read to say the least) by Carol Ann Lee
Plain Sight Dan Davis
Hangover Square Patrick Hamilton
The end of the affair Graham Green
Just Ignore Him Alan Davis
Killing for Company Brian Masters
One of our own Carole Ann Lee
White House Farm Murders Carol Ann Lee
Thomas Cromwell Tracey Borman

Elizabeth is Missing
Before the Coffee gets Cold
The Only Plane in the Sky - 9/11 from lots of people’s perspectives
Just finishing Michael Palin’s book about North Korea. Really interesting.

The one I enjoyed most was He by John Connolly. It’s hard to describe but basically it’s a fictional retelling of the life of Stan Laurel. It’s both beautiful and slightly disturbing. I just loved the way it’s written.

Mine were

The World I fell out off Melanie Reid
The patron saint of lost souls Menna Van Praag
The complete Uxbridge English dictionary by Graeme Garden
Little fires everywhere Celeste Ng
Mythos Stephen Fry
Swell Jenny Landreth
The Sealwoman's Gift Sally Magnusson
Fierce Bad Rabbits Clare Pollard
Rough Magic Lara Prior-Palmer
Queens of the KIngdom: The woman of Saudia Arabia speak
In your defence Sarah Langford
The January Man Christopher Somerville
Names for the Sea Sarah Moss
Three hours Rosamund Lupton
A honeybee heart has five openings Helen Jukes

15/163. Not such a great year for reading!

It's nice to see all these recomendations. I have a few bought ready to read but I personally have found it a hard year to read anything emotional or challenging so have found myself rereading old safe books. Lots of Terry Pratchett, some Madeline Miller etc. Looking forward to reading a lot of good books in 2021.

Thank you so much for this thread! Have found reading such a struggle this year, but books I read and enjoyed include:

Joan Didion - The Year of Magical Thinking
David Nicholls - Us
Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies

Another vote for The Salt Path. And The Five. Also The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.

I read Khaled Hosseini's books for the first time this year; A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Kite Runner and And the Mountains Echoed. I loved them all. I also enjoyed Stacey Hall's The Foundling and I'm currently reading and thoroughly enjoying Hungry by Grace Dent.

It's not been a great year for new reading but I enjoyed Such A Fun Age. I read a bunch of fantasy books, a genre I've not really got into before. In crime, I think Jane Casey's Maeve Kerrigan books get better and better. I did read a fair number of pretty disposable novels, none of which I can recommend, just to distract from the general awfulness of 2020, and I completely failed to read The Mirror and the Light, despite having loved the previous two, but I'm hoping to give that a go over Christmas.

This was the year I borrowed far more library books than I actually read, just because I found concentrating so hard. (Last year I thought Station Eleven, The Silence of the Girls and Fleishman is in Trouble were all brilliant.) I comfort re-read most of Mary Stewart's romantic thrillers and Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan novels.

In non-fiction, Prairie Fires, about the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, was absolutely fascinating, as was Lady in Waiting, in a completely different way.

My top read of the year has been Troubled Blood, in preparation for which I read all the previous Galbraiths, and I love them even more now. But Troubled Blood is the best yet.

@3kidsareenough I admire your dedication to H Mantel . I’ve started A Place of Greater Safety twice, I get quickly confused by all the character names and give up! Perhaps I’ll give it another go this Christmas.

I’m re-reading Charlotte Gray, it’s been 15 years and I’m enjoying it.

I've tried and given up on A Place of Greater Safety in the past too. Might try it again over the hols. I am hot and cold with Hilary Mantel; I LOVE the Cromwell novels, The Giant O'Brien, Eight Months on Ghazzah Street and Fludd, and liked her memoir, but didn't get/couldn't finish Beyond Black.

I went through a similar phase with Donna Tartt a year ago A Place of Greater Safety is one I found I had to really try with but once I got over half way it clicked for some reason and took off, I couldn't put it down then, I think the characters started to stick in my head more, I didn't have to keep looking at the front of the book to remind myself who they were. i have beyond black on my to read list too. I really must get her memoir. Total fan girl now

3kids, thank you, you've convinced me; I'll try it again on my hols!

Silver Sparrow and An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
The Vanishing Half and Mother’s by Brit Bennett
Troubled Blood
Where the Crawdads sing
American Dirt
The Underground Railroad
Three Women

Let me know how you get on with it intermittenparps