\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Once the pandemic hit, the local library became one of my most visited (and only) destinations, and I coveted my pile of loaned books like treasure whenever a new lockdown caused the library to close. I regularly scrolled Amazon\u2019s kindle deal page, joined my first ever book club \u2013 which, three books later, has still only taken place on Zoom \u2013 and managed to publish my\u00a0first book, The Adult Orphan Club<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n The unsettled and uncertain mood of global events made some books harder than usual to engage with though. I stop-started often, put quite a few books aside, and often had three on the go at once so I could choose what I was most in the mood for. I went through phases of reading obsessively, only to find that particular books seeped into my subconscious in ways I didn\u2019t like. Nevertheless, I still managed to spend most evenings falling asleep between pages. It did wonders for my sleep pattern, if not for the occasional bruise on my nose from a falling hardback.<\/p>\n Basically, I lost myself in books this year. And I also found myself as a result. So even though I barely blogged in 2020, it\u2019s only right that I publish a paean to the literature which saw me through the weirdest of years.<\/p>\n Number of books you read:<\/strong> Forty eight.<\/p>\n Number of re-reads:<\/strong> Zero.<\/p>\n Number of books you stopped reading:<\/strong> Three. The pandemic made me abandon books I wasn\u2019t enjoying with more decisiveness than usual \u2013 so although I gave them a try, this year I wasn\u2019t captivated enough by the following:<\/p>\n Priestdaddy<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong> by Patricia Lockwood. Topic wise I really enjoyed it, and Lockwood\u2019s imagery is undoubtedly impressive, but the density of language made it too hard to continue wading through. I wonder whether I\u2019d prefer her writing in essay form, or perhaps even poetry?<\/p>\n Blood & Sugar<\/em><\/a><\/span> <\/strong>by Laura Shepherd-Robinson. When the book began I thought this 18th century historical fiction about the deadly sugar trade would work for me, but I wasn\u2019t compelled by the characters and the storyline didn\u2019t seem to hook me in.<\/p>\n Sweetbitter<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong> by Stephanie Danler. Stylistically, the book didn\u2019t work for me, and I couldn\u2019t engage with the lack of plot.<\/p>\n Genre you read the most from:<\/strong> lots of memoir, especially in my favoured topic of grief, and a healthy amount of fiction too. I developed something of a love for Victorian fiction as well.<\/p>\n When it comes to books, 2020 felt like the longest year possible, so I\u2019m answering this question with a three-way tie:\u00a0Ghost<\/strong> Wall<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/span> by Sarah Moss, Everybody Died, So I Got a Dog<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong> by Emily Dean, and\u00a0Such a Fun Age<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong> by Kiley Reid.<\/p>\n I read Ghost<\/strong> Wall<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/span> early on in the year and wish I\u2019d saved it for later. It\u2019s stunning. Creepy. Ethereal. Transportive. Every careful word pulls you deeper into the world of an Iron-Age obsessed father, his family, and a group of re-enactment students. I promise you\u2019ve read nothing else like it.<\/p>\n Quite aside from the fact that Emily Dean finds wonderful humour in a memoir about experiencing multiple deaths, Everybody Died, So I Got a Dog<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>is simply a beautifully written story of someone\u2019s turbulent, loving, dramatic family, in all its ups and downs. I also have quite a few parallels to Dean so often gasped and shouted out loud (we had the same breed of cat for crying out loud \u2013 not to mention the deaths of both our theatrical parents). I basically want to be friends with Emily now.<\/p>\n Such a Fun Age<\/a><\/span><\/strong> <\/em>is one of those books which perfectly toes the line between easy-to-read and intelligent. I had such a strong sense of who these characters were and couldn\u2019t wait to find out what happened to them \u2013 and though I spent much of the book cringing at Alix\u2019s behaviour I loved the steady unspooling of her relationship with Emira.<\/p>\n Rough Magic<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong> by Lara Prior-Palmer. I first spotted this female-narrated memoir about racing horses across the Mongolian steppe in the bookshop at the Hay-On-Wye Festival<\/a>,<\/strong> <\/span>and filed it under \u2018books I know I\u2019ll love\u2019. Unfortunately it felt very self-conscious \u2013 as if an editor had repeatedly asked for strange similes and metaphors to be added on every page. It didn\u2019t read naturally at all and I wasn\u2019t particularly enamoured with the narrator either!<\/p>\n In a good way: How to Murder Your Life<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong> by Cat Marnell. What makes this memoir about the fashion journalism industry in NYC so compelling is Marnell\u2019s total lack of filter! She has no qualms about revealing her base desires, the seedy sides of her addictions, her distinct unlikeability \u2013 and this actually makes me like her all the more. It\u2019s impossible to say how much of Marnell\u2019s memoir is accurate or fabricated but there\u2019s no denying she can tell a good story.<\/p>\n In a bad way: The Binding<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong> by Bridget Collins. I\u2019m begrudgingly glad I stuck with this, but for the first 150 pages I was ridiculously close to stopping. In fact I only continued when I saw various reviewers mention how drastically the book changed later on. The three part structure segments the book in such an odd way, with each part containing totally different styles of writing, and I wish Collins\u2019 editors had pushed for part one to mirror the same level of emotion and plot as the latter two.<\/p>\n The Five<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/span> by Hallie Rubenhold. This careful tracing of the lives of Jack the Ripper\u2019s female victims was a pick for my new book club, and I adored it.<\/p>\n The Jackson Brodie series by Kate Atkinson. A shelf in my dad\u2019s study contains at least six of Atkinson\u2019s books but for some reason I\u2019d never considered reading them. Then someone on Instagram mentioned the Jackson Brodie mystery novels \u2013 and I fell head over heels for Atkinson\u2019s astonishing ability to weave multiple satisfying storylines together. This year I read Case Histories<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong> and One Good Turn<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong>, and I\u2019m saving the final three books in the series for a time when I really need them!<\/p>\n Kate Atkinson. The fact that she has a huge backlist makes the discovery even sweeter.<\/p>\n Probably The Five<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/span>. I love non-fiction but it\u2019s usually in the memoir\/narrative genres. I\u2019m so glad to learn that I enjoy well-researched historical books like this though.<\/p>\n Little Deaths<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/strong> by Emma Flint. I can\u2019t believe this is Flint\u2019s debut; in theory it\u2019s a crime novel but it reads like literary fiction, and while the pace is non-stop it also digs deep into the world of 1960s New York and the way anyone slightly different from the expected norm is treated.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t tend to re-read books, but typically I\u2019m most likely to pick up a grief memoir again. Towards the end of the year I read Claire Bidwell Smith\u2019s The Rules of Inheritance<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong> and was immediately captivated by her spare, simple prose exploring the total devastation of losing both her parents in her twenties. Clearly I\u2019m biased in finding infinite parallels within my own life, but I\u2019m also awed that she managed to parse her emotions so carefully and eloquently.<\/p>\n Wintering<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span> by Katherine May. I\u2019m a sucker for an artistic cover.<\/p>\n Probably Jeannette from The Glass Castle<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/em> \u2013 although that could be because I read it most recently!<\/p>\n Either Wintering<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span> or Once Upon a River<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Chase the Rainbow<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/span> by Poorna Bell. This memoir opened my eyes to living alongside an addict, the confines of modern masculinity and how to come to terms with\u00a0the aftermath of suicide.<\/p>\n When Breath Becomes Air<\/em> <\/strong><\/a><\/span>by Paul Kalanithi. I gulped it down over a few days and finished it while sobbing quietly in a coffee shop in Clapham just before lockdown started.<\/p>\n \u201cLife meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.\u201d \u2015 Katherine May, Wintering<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Shortest<\/strong>: Love<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/strong> by Hanne \u00d8rstavik at 111 pages.<\/p>\n Longest<\/strong>: Once Upon a River<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/span> by Diane Setterfield at 464 pages. That was a weighty paperback to hoist over the covers when I read in bed throughout December!<\/p>\n Oof. The Cement Garden<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/a> by Ian McEwan. As part of my own writing, I was researching books which use homes and houses almost like concrete characters when Cement Garden came up and I got it from the library soon after. Bloody hell though. I was not expecting a concise novella about orphanhood, familial dysfunction and incest\u2026<\/p>\n In Last Act of Love,<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/span> Cathy Rentzenbrink shares her relationship with her cheeky older teen brother who\u2019s hit by a car and spends the remaining few years of his life bedridden and comatose. It\u2019s an incredibly raw story told with love, warmth, and simplicity, and I hold Rentzenbrink in the highest regard because of it.<\/p>\n I was introduced to Maggie O\u2019Farrell and Ottessa Moshfegh in 2019, and was already a keen fan of Will Dean and Ian McEwan. I didn\u2019t love O\u2019Farrell\u2019s Instructions for a Heatwave<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/span> as much as her other books so I think Will Dean\u2019s\u00a0Black River<\/a> <\/em><\/span><\/strong>was probably my favourite.<\/p>\n Plenty of this years reads were first spotted online but I actively borrowed Searching for Sylvie Lee<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/span> from the library because a friend shared it in her IG Story!<\/p>\n No idea!<\/p>\n Such a Fun Age<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span> by Kiley Reid. Well deserving of the accolades, this book covers race, privilege, class and what it means to be \u2018woke\u2019 in the social media era.<\/p>\n There are two: The Water Cure<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/strong> and The Mercies<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong>. Both focus almost exclusively on female characters; both are mysterious, almost mythical, and rather unsettling throughout.<\/p>\n I strangely loved The Water Cure<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/strong> Sophie Mackintosh is really good at deliberately vague yet deeply evocative worlds and I\u2019m intrigued to know whether her novels will be translated to film at some point.<\/p>\n I bought The Mercies<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong> as a 99p Kindle Deal and was swept away by Hargrave\u2019s visceral descriptions of an Arctic whaling village where the men are wiped out by a rogue storm, leaving the women to reestablish themselves in a newly unstable world.<\/p>\n The Penguin Lessons<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/em> by Tom Michell is a gorgeous little book \u2013 I laughed and cried!<\/p>\n Ok. I cry at a lot of books. But the books which made me cry *the most* were memoirs by Emily Dean, Cathy Rentzenbrink, and Claire Bidwell Smith. All grief writers, all women, all extremely good at telling their personal stories.<\/p>\n But also The Penguin Lessons<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/em>. I would never have thought a small Argentine penguin could reduce me to tears?!<\/p>\n Shelf Life<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span> by Livia Franchini. This was my first or second read of the year so it feels like forever ago; it was an impulse borrow from the library and I was swept up in the strangely styled writing and this quiet pulse of desperation throughout.<\/p>\n The Man Who Saw Everything<\/em><\/a> <\/span><\/strong>by Deborah Levy. This was our most recent book club read and certainly not something I\u2019d ever have picked up on reading the blurb, but this book nonetheless blew me away! It starts out relatively tamely, flips a switch halfway through, and suddenly you\u2019re frantically trying to assess what\u2019s happening. The work Levy put into this deceivingly short novel is phenomenal. Highly recommend \u2013 especially if you\u2019re a fan of hunting for Easter eggs in content.<\/p>\n The Glass Castle<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/strong> by Jeannette Wells. I was furious with her parents\u2019 clear inability to care for their four children; mad at Jeannette for still caring about her parents; angry at myself for being so judgemental!<\/p>\n My Goodreads \u2018to-read\u2019 list is absolutely heaving. I\u2019ll be picking up Girl, Woman, Other,<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\u00a0The Vanishing Half<\/a><\/strong><\/span>,<\/em> and Hamnet<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/span> as soon as I can.<\/p>\nPin me for later!<\/em><\/h3>\n
![\"Goodreads](\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/50832104996_f312fdfe21_b.jpg\"\/)
My 2020 Reading List<\/h2>\n
Here\u2019s the full list of everything I read in 2020:<\/h4>\n
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1. Best book you read in 2020?<\/h4>\n
2. Book you were excited about & thought you were going to love more but didn\u2019t?<\/h4>\n
3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read?<\/h4>\n
4. Book you \u201cpushed\u201d the most people to read (and they did)?<\/h4>\n
5. Best series you started in 2020?<\/h4>\n
6. Favourite new author you discovered in 2020?<\/h4>\n
7. Best book from a genre you don\u2019t typically read\/was out of your comfort zone?<\/h4>\n
8. Most action-packed\/thrilling\/unputdownable book of the year?<\/h4>\n
9. Book you read in 2020 that you would be MOST likely to re-read next year?<\/h4>\n
10. Favourite cover of a book you read in 2020?<\/h4>\n
11. Most memorable character of 2020?<\/h4>\n
12. Most beautifully written book you read in 2020?<\/h4>\n
13. Most thought-provoking\/life-changing book of 2020?<\/h4>\n
14. Book you can\u2019t believe you waited UNTIL 2020 to finally read?<\/h4>\n
15. Favourite passage\/quote from a book you read In 2020?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n
16.Shortest & longest book you read in 2020?<\/h4>\n
17. Book that shocked you the most?<\/h4>\n
18. Favourite non-romantic relationship of the year?<\/h4>\n
19. Favourite book you read in 2020 from an author you\u2019ve read previously?<\/h4>\n
20. Best Book You Read In 2020 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else?<\/h4>\n
21. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2020?<\/h4>\n
22. Best 2020 debut you read?<\/h4>\n
23. Best worldbuilding\/most vivid setting you read this year?<\/h4>\n
24. Book that put a smile on your face\/was the most FUN to read?<\/h4>\n
25. Book that made you cry or nearly cry in 2020?<\/h4>\n
26. Hidden gem of the year?<\/h4>\n
27. Most unique book you read in 2020?<\/h4>\n
28. Book that made you the most mad (doesn\u2019t necessarily mean you didn\u2019t like it)?<\/h4>\n
29. One book you didn\u2019t get to in 2020 but will be your Number 1 priority in 2021?<\/h4>\n
30. A 2021 debut you are most anticipating?<\/strong><\/h4>\n