My Books of 2020

Although I had plenty of time to read this year, since I wasn't busy flitting about, I only managed to knock off 35 books (only 14 of them by women). Though that's better than last year. Maybe 30 to 40 is my natural limit. (She said, eyeing 2021 and wondering how much "better" she can do.) Though really, what is "natural" when it comes to reading? I'm still working, and I do read for a living—so chalk up another ten or so books there. And in truth, I tend not to read for pleasure when I'm reading for work. What will happen when I finally do hang up my spurs? Maybe my "natural" limit will change. 

It's not something that concerns me. It's just interesting to observe.

Anyway, here are my 35 books of 2020 (favorites):

1. Louise Penny, The Brutal Telling (January)
2. Louise Penny, Bury Your Dead (February)
3. Peter Matthiessen, End of the Earth: Voyages to Antarctica
4. E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News
5. Jane Harper, The Lost Man (March)
6. Peter Heller, The River
7. Sarah Manguso, Ongoingness: The End of a Diary (April)
8. Fiona Robinson: The Bluest of Blues: Anna Atkins and the First Book of Photographs
9. Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (May)
10. John M. Barry, The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
11. Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
12. Yuri Herrera, Signs Preceding the End of the World (June)
13. Jason Reynolds, Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks
14. James Brown, The Los Angeles Diaries: A Memoir
15. Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys
16. Castle Freeman Jr., All That I Have
17. Ezra Jack Keats, The Snowy Day
18. Hernán Díaz, In the Distance (July)
19. Lauren Wilkinson, American Spy
20. Michele de Kretser, On Shirley Hazzard (August)
21. Jo Nesbø, The Bat
22. Ben Ehrenreich, Desert Notebooks: A Road Map for the End of Time (September)
23. Mohsin Hamid, Exit West
24. Luis Alberto Urrea, The Devil's Highway: A True Story
25. Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive (October)
26. Halon Habila, Travelers
27. Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen
28. Castle Freeman, Old Number Five
29. Lulu Miller, Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life
30. Binwell Sinyangwe, A Cowrie of Hope
31. Yoko Ogawa, The Memory Police (November)
32. Richard Powers, The Overstory (December)
33. Allie Brosh: Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
34. Ian McGuire, The North Water
35. Patricia Hampl, The Art of the Wasted Day