What I read in 2020

My goal for 2020 was to read at least 52 books (one per week). Instead, I read more than twice that many -- 118 -- though not as many as last year's scary total of 123. I guess that's one positive thing about 2020: it was a good year to curl up with a good book. In 2021, I plan NOT to try to read so many. I want to read long books, serious books, and presidential biographies (which tend to be both long and serious). I also want to read lots of fun books: mysteries and scifi and even fantasy. I also think I might do the Classics Challenge again, with a different theme. So I'll just set my goal at 52 again and see what happens.

Here is a review of what I read in 2020, by category.

Children's Books. Almost everything on this list I read aloud to the kids, though we did also read a few adult books together and I read a few of these on my own. I really liked a lot of these books, but I'm going to call out Holes by Louis Sachar, because it's a wonderful book, and the twins and I all loved it. Another surprise was Treasure Island. Rocket Boy chose it as our bedtime book when he was here in September and it was so much fun! I couldn't believe how many references to it there are in popular culture, many of which I had never fully understood before. On the other hand, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (also Rocket Boy's choice) was a dud -- neither twin enjoyed it much and it took us forever to drag ourselves through the book.

I also liked the rest of the Track series by Jason Reynolds, especially Patina (we started with Ghost last year) and it was also fun to see how the twins reacted to some classics from my youth (Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret was particularly baffling to them). Also, they enjoyed finishing the Golden Compass trilogy (we started it last year). I had never read the last volume, The Amber Spyglass. They wanted to hear every word of that very long book.

• Patina by Jason Reynolds 
• The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis 
• Sink or Swim: A Novel of World War II by Steve Watkins 
• Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool 
• The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman 
• The Boy Who Became Buffalo Bill: Growing up Billy Cody in Bleeding Kansas by Andrea Warren 
• Sunny by Jason Reynolds 
• The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman 
• Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume 
• Lu by Jason Reynolds
• Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
• Little Men by Louisa May Alcott (read by myself)
• The Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene (Walter Karig), co. 1933 (read by myself)
  
• By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Holes by Louis Sachar
• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars
• The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
• The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis
• My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
• The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
• There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar
• The Gypsy Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
• The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
  

Books for the Book Group. I liked several of these, so it's hard to choose a favorite. I got Rocket Boy to read Full Body Burden after I did, because it's such an important book for people who live around here to read (he thought so too). I think I'm going to go with Nervous Conditions as my top choice, because not only was it a good book, it was a book I expected to hate. It's about Africa, how depressing, I thought. But it isn't depressing, it's funny and interesting. Eventually I'd like to read the sequels.

• January: The Overstory by Richard Powers (fiction)
• February: Full Body Burden: Growing up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats by Kristen Iversen (memoir, history)
• March/April: Rough Beauty: Forty Seasons of Mountain Living by Karen Auvinen (memoir)
• May: A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (travel, memoir)
• June/July: Circe by Madeline Miller (fiction/retold myth)
• August: American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson (fiction/thriller)
• September: Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (fiction)
• October: (See Classics Challenge below: Classic by a Woman Author)
• November: A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende (fiction/historical)
• December: American Gods (10th Anniversary Edition) by Neil Gaiman (fiction/fantasy)
  

Books for the Classics Challenge.This was really fun to participate in for the second year. I decided on a theme of the Civil War and more specifically, the impact of slavery on the lives of African-Americans. This gradually morphed into mostly books by authors of African descent (8 of the 12). I wrote a separate blog post for each of these, the links to which are in this post. My favorite was The Conjure-Man Dies, with Home to Harlem a close second. I was also very glad to read Uncle Tom's Cabin, because even though it's a bit of a potboiler, I've been reading references to it my entire life without recognizing them (similar to Treasure Island, discussed above). 

Now I'm trying to decide whether or not to participate in the 2021 version -- I want to, but I also want to read more recent books by Black authors. I suppose I could design my own challenge with modern books. On the other hand, I have to do more with my life than just read!

• Classic with Nature in the Title: The Pathfinder or The Inland Sea by James Fenimore Cooper, 1840
• Classic in Translation: Georges by Alexandre Dumas, 1843
• 19th Century Classic: Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852
• Classic with a Person's Name in the Title: Clotel; or, the President's Daughter by William Wells Brown, 1853
• Classic by a Person of Color: Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black by Harriet E. Wilson, 1859
• Classic Adaptation: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, 1868/69
• Classic About a Family: Iola Leroy by Frances E. W. Harper, 1892
  
• Classic with a Place in the Title: Home to Harlem by Claude McKay, 1928
  
• Genre Classic: The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem by Rudolph Fisher, 1932
  
• Classic by a Woman Author: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, 1937
• Abandoned Classic: Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner, 1936
  
• 20th Century Classic: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, 1952
  

Mystery/Thriller. A long list this year, partly because of all the Black mysteries I read, and partly because of my discovery of the Simon Serrailler mysteries by Susan Hill. I read the entire series up through #10, published in 2020. I didn't actually love them that much, but I kept wanting to read the next one. Each book's mystery is usually not completely solved -- sometimes it's solved in the next book, sometimes it isn't. This annoyed me, but kept me engaged. The coronavirus contributed to this list too, since I needed a lot of escapist reading. In 2021 I plan to read more mysteries by Black authors (I have a pile of them already).

• The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey
• The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman 
• The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill 
• After I'm Gone by Laura Lippman
• Dread Journey by Dorothy B. Hughes
• The Pure in Heart by Susan Hill 
• The Risk of Darkness by Susan Hill
• Death Notes by Ruth Rendell
• The Vows of Silence by Susan Hill
• The Black Sleuth by John Edward Bruce
• A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes
• Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
• Dead Time by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• The Shadows in the Street by Susan Hill
• The Betrayal of Trust by Susan Hill
• The Wedding Game by Susan Holtzer
• A Question of Identity by Susan Hill
• The Soul of Discretion by Susan Hill
• The Comforts of Home by Susan Hill
• The Benefit of Hindsight by Susan Hill
  

Mystery with a Fantasy/Supernatural Aspect. I didn't read as many of these as I expected to this year, but I did read several books by Phil Rickman. I think my favorite was Midwinter of the Spirit. Some of the later books seem to be the same story over and over, and in some, his conservative politics come out rather strongly. But they're still fun, and just the right amount of spooky. I have three more lined up to read in 2021.

• The Wine of Angels by Phil Rickman
• Midwinter of the Spirit by Phil Rickman
• A Crown of Lights by Phil Rickman 
• The Cure of Souls by Phil Rickman 
• The Lamp of the Wicked by Phil Rickman
• The Prayer of the Night Shepherd by Phil Rickman
• The Smile of a Ghost by Phil Rickman
  

Science Fiction. I started out the year planning to read a lot of books by Ursula K. Le Guin, and then I quickly got tired of her. In addition to those listed here, I also read A Wizard of Earthsea (fantasy, not sci fi) to the twins, but they didn't like it and neither did I. I still plan to read a few more of her books, and I'm glad I read all of these, but I've lost my desire to read everything she ever wrote. One thing that was interesting was re-reading The Left Hand of Darkness. When I first read that novel, back in 1984, the concept of a people without a permanent sex just blew me away. But in 2020 (in the age of transgender, genderqueer, etc.) it didn't even seem that interesting. We've come a long way in 36 years. One piece I did enjoy reading this year was her short story about the same world, "Coming of Age in Karhide," which explains what really goes on in a kemmerhouse.

• Rocannon's World by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Birthday of the World and Other Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Planet of Exile by Ursula K. Le Guin
• City of Illusions by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
  

Fantasy. Nothing this year, other than what I read to the kids, for the book group, etc. It's not a genre I particularly enjoy, although I expect to read some next year. It seems weird to me that it is so extremely popular among middle-grade readers.

General Fiction. This is a pretty random group of books (and of course the list really includes several others that are up above under what I read for my book group and the Classics Challenge). Several of these were read alongside books I read for the Classics Challenge, but although The Marrow of Tradition blew me away, I think my favorite this year was a very recent novel, Olive, Again, which I didn't think I would like, but it's very good. Very thoughtful about what aging is like.

• Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay
• An Unsuitable Attachment by Barbara Pym 
• An Academic Question by Barbara Pym 
• The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf, translated by Susan Bernofsky
• March by Geraldine Brooks
• Innocence by Penelope Fitzgerald
• Zotz! by Walter Karig (read to the twins)
• The Sport of the Gods by Paul Laurence Dunbar
• The Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. Chesnutt
• Cane by Jean Toomer
• Quicksand by Nella Larsen
• The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman
• Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
  

Christmas Books. I decided I would not read any stupid Christmas books this year, only good ones, and then I started the season by reading an absolutely dreadful one (Simplify Your Christmas). The author, Elaine St. James, doesn't want to recapture the joy of the holidays, she wants to toss it away and replace it with the joy of conducting fake "Native American" rituals involving burying pencils with ribbons on them (instead of arrows) in some natural area which surely does not need to have pencils with ribbons buried in it. It's the stupidest book, not to mention that it's very dated. Stay away, stay away. The other three books I read (all collections of stories) were good, though. I think the Willis book was my favorite -- who knew that science fiction and Christmas would make a good mix?

• Simplify Your Christmas: 100 Ways to Reduce the Stress and Recapture the Joy of the Holidays by Elaine St. James
• The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories edited by Martin Edwards
• A Treasury of African-American Christmas Stories, vol. II, edited by Bettye Collier-Thomas
• A Lot Like Christmas (stories) by Connie Willis
  

Memoir/Biography. Always a favorite category, and I enjoyed everything I read in it. The book I found most engrossing, though, was The Past Is Myself, which is a memoir of the author's life in Nazi Germany. She was Anglo-Irish, married to a German, and some of their friends were killed by the Nazis, but she and her husband and their three sons survived. The book came out in 1968, so I guess it's been mostly forgotten, but it's quite fascinating. Rocket Boy's mom lived through the Nazi years in Aalen, near Stuttgart. She was born in 1925, so she would have been in her teens during the worst of it. I thought about her as I read the book, and I also thought about our own wanna-be Hitler, Mr. Trump.

• The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon by Donald Hall
• Ursula K. LeGuin: The Last Interview and Other Conversations edited by David Streitfeld
• Now the Drum of War: Walt Whitman and His Brothers in the Civil War by Robert Roper
• Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life by Hermione Lee
• Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott
• Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow: The Courtship and Marriage of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Ruth Moore by Eleanor Alexander
• The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women by Mo Moulton
• The Past Is Myself by Christabel Bielenberg
• The Fixed Stars: A Memoir by Molly Wizenberg
• Mother Winter by Sophia Shalmiyev
  

Presidential Biography. I can't believe I didn't finish anything in this category this year! How am I ever going to reach the 21st century, if I can't make any progress through the 19th? One of my New Year's resolutions is to break through this reading logjam and complete four presidential biographies in 2021. We shall see.
 

General Non-Fiction. As always, just a grab-bag of books, no guiding framework to my choices -- except maybe the two ghost-hunting books. I was going to read more of those, but they're so silly (and probably belong in the fiction category). Your Neighborhood Gives Me the Creeps was better than average, maybe even a bit too scary. One book I wished I hadn't read was The Secret Life of Cows, even though it was very interesting, because I subsist primarily on dairy products, and although I always try to buy the most cow-friendly stuff I can, this book made me think I probably shouldn't be buying any. NOT something I wanted to know! The nonfiction book I enjoyed the most was Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which is just wonderful for anyone who's ever been in therapy, is contemplating therapy, or wants to understand something about how therapy works (or all of the above). I read it in hardback from the library, but I might also buy the paperback to keep.

• The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara W. Tuchman
• Average is the New Awesome: A Manifesto for the Rest of Us by Samantha Matt
• The Great Taos Bank Robbery & Other Indian Country Affairs by Tony Hillerman
• Ghost Hunting by Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson
• Your Neighborhood Gives Me the Creeps: True Tales of an Accidental Ghost Hunter by Adam Selzer
• Early: An Intimate History of Premature Birth and What It Teaches Us About Being Human by Sarah DiGregorio
• Life Lessons from the Cat: 101 Tales of Family, Friendship, and Fun (Chicken Soup for the Soul) edited by Amy Newmark
• Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb 
• I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
• Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
• The Secret Life of Cows by Rosamund Young