Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Books I Read in 2020

 It's the annual book blog!  Here's a visual graphic of the books I read in 2020 (thanks Goodreads!).  Scroll down to read my favorites.  

  • Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
  • New Morning Mercies by Paul David Tripp
  • Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami
  • Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  • The Overstory by Richard Powers
  • Tales of the Restoration by David R. Mains
  • Hidden Valley Road by Robert  Kolker
  • Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver
  • The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu
  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
  • Choosing Gratitude by Nancy Leigh DeMoss
  • 1984 by George Orwell
  • Jack by Marilynne Robinson
  • The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
  • Tales of the Resistance by David R. Mains
  • Eventide by Kent Haruf
  • Long Bright River by Liz Moore
  • The Decadent Society by Ross Douthat
  • Tales of the Kingdom by David R. Mains
  • Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano
  • Beyond the Bright Sea by Lauren Wolk
  • A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum
  • Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan
  • Lassen Volcanic National Park by Mike    White
  • Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
  • The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White
  • The Gospel Story Bible by Marty Machowski
  • Encounters with Jesus by Timothy J. Keller
  • The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
  • Plainsong by Kent Haruf
  • Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
  • The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict
  • The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
  • Wow, No Thank You. by Samantha Irby
  • Finding Holy in the Suburbs by Ashley Hales
  • Teach Me To Feel by Courtney Reissig
  • Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
  • Writers & Lovers by Lily King
  • Top Trails by Mike    White
  • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
  • Pride And Prejudice by Evelyn Attwood
  • Auden by W.H. Auden
  • Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
  • How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
  • Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
  • What Your ADHD Child Wishes You Knew by Sharon Saline
  • Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
  • The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  • Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes by Kathleen    West
  • The Souls of Yellow Folk by Wesley Yang
  • Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  • Rabbits for Food by Binnie Kirshenbaum
  • The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
  • The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny


































































First, a few thoughts on this particular year in reading --

How my reading life was different in 2020

The first thing that was different for me was that I got caught up on a lot of backlist titles.  In a normal year, the vast majority of my reading is new releases.  I rely heavily on the library for this content, and then, thanks to library due dates, I fail to get to titles that we own.  This year, due to the pandemic, our local library did not loan out physical books for about half the year, so it "forced" me to get to many of these backlist titles that I sincerely wanted to read, but had been gathering dust on the nightstand table.  So there was less fiction, more heavy stuff, and less new releases in all genres.  (It felt really good to get through much of the backlist, but I am SUPER looking forward to the library opening back up.  I currently have 86 titles on hold, and if the pandemic spike lasts much longer, I'm going to have to rent a U-Haul to pick up all the waiting books :)

The second thing that was different was that there was a LOT of time at home with the kids, so many of the books on this list are middle grade.  With travel and activities all canceled, and with school looking different (particularly in the spring), we had a lot more home based family togetherness than usual.  One of the ways we used this time was to read several middle grade chapter books together.  I read a book a few years ago called "The Read Aloud Family:  Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with your Kids" by Sarah Mackenzie (highly recommend!), and she shifted my mind frame about when and how to read to kids.  Instead of trying to herd them all in when they're happily playing something else, it works really well to read at times when they are already having to sit still.  So we do a lot of read alouds during meals / snacks, and during bath.  Again, this is aided by pandemic life - if dinner was our only time together, we would just use that time to catch up - but when you're eating together six times a day and conversation topics include things like "what's your 4th favorite color", it's nice to sometimes have something else to fill the time.  As life returns to normal, it will be harder to do this as much - but it can still work well on breaks and vacations.  It had never occurred to me to combine eating and read aloud - I hope this tip works well for others! 

Without further ado, here are my favorite reads of the past year:

Favorite Fiction (in random order)

1.  "Jack" by Marilynne Robinson

2.  "Rodham" by Curtis Sittenfeld

3 & 4.   "Plainsong" and "Eventide" by Kent Haruf

5.  "The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu

6.  "Such a Fun Age" by Kiley Reid

7.  "Long Bright River" by Liz Moore

8. "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" by J.K. Rowling

9.  "The Vanishing Half" by Brit Bennet

10.  "The Brutal Telling"  by Louise Penny

Favorite Other

Memoir - "Born a Crime" by Trevor Noah

Christian Living - "New Morning Mercies:  A Daily Gospel Devotional" by Paul David Tripp

Poetry - "Why I Wake Early" by Mary Oliver

Humor - "Wow, No Thank You" by Samantha Irby

Other Non-fiction - "Hidden Valley Road" by Robert Kolker


My favorite thing about this particular annual blog is the conversation it produces, so I would love to hear from you!!:

1.  How was your reading life different this year?

2.  What was your favorite book (or books) you read this year?

3.  If you read any of these same books, what did you think?