2020 in Books
Writing this blog post, in those timeless days between Christmas and New Year, it's easy to feel as if I haven't achieved much this year. However, I have actually achieved two things this year that I'm very happy with: I achieved a Distinction in my Master's (in Renaissance Literature), and I read over a hundred books this year.
In a nutshell, here's what my 2020 in books looked like:
Academic Books
I started the year with Dante's love poems, La Vita Nuova, but I also read the works he's better known for, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. I'm really pleased I took the opportunity to read and study Dante's Comedy, but I can absolutely see why most people stop reading after the Inferno. Another classic I'm pleased my Master's allowed me to tick off the list is Don Quixote, which was a slog but also an absolute blast. I also read Gargantua.
I'm also pleased that I ticked off some more Shakespeare this year: All's Well That Ends Well, The Two Noble Kinsmen, Antony and Cleopatra, The Comedy of Errors, The Merry Wives of Windsor, King John, Troilus and Cressida, Coriolanus, The Tempest, Titus Andronicus, and Love's Labour's Lost.
I also read some plays by Shakespeare's contemporaries: The Virgin Martyr and The Fatal Dowry (Massinger), Englishmen For My Money; Or, A Woman Will Have Her Will, A Knack to Know an Honest Man: 1596, The Jew of Malta (Marlowe), A Knack to Know a Knave: 1594, Antonio and Mellida (Marston), A Woman Killed with Kindness (Heywood), Eastward Ho! (Jonson), The Miseries Of Enforced Marriage, 1607, and The Witch of Edmonton (Dekker). Unfortunately, only one of the plays I read was by a woman, Love's Victory by Lady Mary Wroth.
I don't tend to read entire books when it comes to secondary reading, but I did read Shakespeare and the Drama of his Time, and Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800.
Classics
I also caught up on some classics in my free time, including Little Women, Wuthering Heights, Brave New World, Dubliners, and David Copperfield. I especially loved the last two.
I discovered Jane Austen this year, in the form of Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. I also found new favourites in Iris Murdoch, reading The Sea, The Sea (my favourite thus far), Under the Net, The Black Prince, and The Sandcastle, and Patricia Highsmith, reading Carol and The Talented Mr. Ripley.
I also reread (and fell in love with all over again) Jane Eyre.
Black Lives Matter
The discourse around the BLM protests this year made me realise (with much embarrassment) how white my reading is, so I made more of a deliberate effort this year to read books by BAME authors. I fell in love with James Baldwin, and read three more classics: Giovanni's Room, If Beale Street Could Talk, and Go Tell It on the Mountain.
I also read The Sellout, which I hadn't heard of before but really loved, Half of a Yellow Sun, Queenie, and Streets of Darkness. I didn't read as much poetry as I would have liked this year, but I did read Surge, and Milk and Honey. The latter wasn't for me, but I'm glad to have finally tried it.
For non-fiction, I finally read Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race and It's Not About the Burqa, which had been on my to-read list since they were published. I also read Don't Touch My Hair, The Good Immigrant, and Afropean: Notes from Black Europe. These are all fantastic books, but I especially loved Afropean. Inspired by the BLM discourse, I also read The End of Policing.
Crime Fiction
Streets of Darkness wasn't the only new crime-fiction series I discovered this year. I read Missing, Presumed, after coming across Remain Silent and realising it is actually the third in a series. I also read Murder as a Fine Art, The Pinocchio Brief, To Catch A Rabbit, The Various Haunts of Men, and A Dark Matter (my last book of the year). These are all series I would love to continue reading.
I completed the Millennium trilogy with The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. I also continued beloved crime fiction series with The Killings at Kingfisher Hill, the latest Poirot story from Sophie Hannah, and JD Robb's Golden in Death and Shadows in Death. I returned to the Kopp sisters with Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions and Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit, which made me wonder why I ever left them in the first place, and I also read Will Carver's Nothing Important Happened Today and the brilliant Hinton Hollow Death Trip.
I also read Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse, The Last, Day of the Accident, The Godfather, and The Hunting Party. The latter is particularly well suited to this time of the year, if you're looking for something seasonal to read.
Page to Screen
I love reading a book and then watching an adaptation of it. I did that with several books this year, including Little Women (dir. Greta Gerwig), Pride and Prejudice (first the BBC then the film adaptation), Sense and Sensibility, The Talented Mr Ripley, The Pale Horse, and The Godfather. I also reread Jane Eyre before watching the film adaptation (while I'm waiting for No Time To Die, since both are directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga).
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch was the first book I read purely for pleasure in 2020, and I followed it with the BBC adaptation. I also read and then watched Normal People and Fingersmith (I watched The Handmaiden).
I actually reversed the pattern for both Carol and If Beale Street Could Talk, both of which I happened to have already watched. I still prefer my usual order, but I did enjoy alternating it for a change.
I reread and rewatched the entire Twilight series (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn) during a particular stressful period on my Master's course. I also watched a few different Shakespeare productions this year, my favourite being the NT production of Antony and Cleopatra starring Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo.
Short Stories
I read some excellent short story collections this year, including Best British Short Stories 2019, Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Café, and one of my favourite books of 2020, The Middle of a Sentence.
I found some comfort reading in a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories selected by Arthur Conan Doyle himself, Favourite Sherlock Holmes Stories. I also read two books which I received as presents, the beautiful Russian Stories for my birthday, and the witty Fairy Tales for Millennials: 12 Problematic Stories Retold for the Modern World for Christmas (2019).
I absolutely loved Full Throttle, a collection of short stories by Stephen King's son, but was also very impressed by Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers.
I also read the translated novella Fever Dream.
Fiction
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead and The Discomfort of Evening were two other translated books I read this year, both of which are well suited to the winter season.
I loved Everything Under, and have no idea why I left it on my to-read shelf for so long. I also finally read The Silence of the Girls, which I got for Christmas (2019), Frankissstein: A Love Story, which had been on my to-read list since it was published, and Leonard and Hungry Paul, which absolutely lived up to its reputation. If you're looking for something uplifting to read and haven't yet read Leonard and Hungry Paul, I highly recommend it.
The Mars Room, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and Autumn had also been on my to-read list for some time. While I enjoyed all three, none of them blew me away.
I received The Beekeeper of Aleppo for my birthday, and took advantage of an offer to download a free copy of The New Guy, which I read during a bout of insomnia. I also read, and absolutely adored, Meddling Kids.
Non Fiction
I was hoping to read some more non-fiction towards the end of the year, once my academic studies were over, but the temporary closure of my local library made this difficult. However, I was pleased I finally read The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper and Mary Beard's Women & Power: A Manifesto, which was even better than I was expecting.
I also read Notes from a Small Island, which I bought for my Dad for Christmas (2019) and then borrowed, and Long Live Latin: The Pleasures of a Useless Language and How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy, which I was given for Christmas (2019).
I read two Formula 1 biographies this year, in between watching races, Niki Lauda: The Biography and Damon Hill: My Championship Year. I also read The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin and Funny You Should Ask . . .: Your Questions Answered by the QI Elves. I particularly enjoyed the latter.
In a nutshell, here's what my 2020 in books looked like:
Academic Books
I started the year with Dante's love poems, La Vita Nuova, but I also read the works he's better known for, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. I'm really pleased I took the opportunity to read and study Dante's Comedy, but I can absolutely see why most people stop reading after the Inferno. Another classic I'm pleased my Master's allowed me to tick off the list is Don Quixote, which was a slog but also an absolute blast. I also read Gargantua.
I'm also pleased that I ticked off some more Shakespeare this year: All's Well That Ends Well, The Two Noble Kinsmen, Antony and Cleopatra, The Comedy of Errors, The Merry Wives of Windsor, King John, Troilus and Cressida, Coriolanus, The Tempest, Titus Andronicus, and Love's Labour's Lost.
I also read some plays by Shakespeare's contemporaries: The Virgin Martyr and The Fatal Dowry (Massinger), Englishmen For My Money; Or, A Woman Will Have Her Will, A Knack to Know an Honest Man: 1596, The Jew of Malta (Marlowe), A Knack to Know a Knave: 1594, Antonio and Mellida (Marston), A Woman Killed with Kindness (Heywood), Eastward Ho! (Jonson), The Miseries Of Enforced Marriage, 1607, and The Witch of Edmonton (Dekker). Unfortunately, only one of the plays I read was by a woman, Love's Victory by Lady Mary Wroth.
I don't tend to read entire books when it comes to secondary reading, but I did read Shakespeare and the Drama of his Time, and Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800.
Classics
I also caught up on some classics in my free time, including Little Women, Wuthering Heights, Brave New World, Dubliners, and David Copperfield. I especially loved the last two.
I discovered Jane Austen this year, in the form of Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. I also found new favourites in Iris Murdoch, reading The Sea, The Sea (my favourite thus far), Under the Net, The Black Prince, and The Sandcastle, and Patricia Highsmith, reading Carol and The Talented Mr. Ripley.
I also reread (and fell in love with all over again) Jane Eyre.
Black Lives Matter
The discourse around the BLM protests this year made me realise (with much embarrassment) how white my reading is, so I made more of a deliberate effort this year to read books by BAME authors. I fell in love with James Baldwin, and read three more classics: Giovanni's Room, If Beale Street Could Talk, and Go Tell It on the Mountain.
I also read The Sellout, which I hadn't heard of before but really loved, Half of a Yellow Sun, Queenie, and Streets of Darkness. I didn't read as much poetry as I would have liked this year, but I did read Surge, and Milk and Honey. The latter wasn't for me, but I'm glad to have finally tried it.
For non-fiction, I finally read Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race and It's Not About the Burqa, which had been on my to-read list since they were published. I also read Don't Touch My Hair, The Good Immigrant, and Afropean: Notes from Black Europe. These are all fantastic books, but I especially loved Afropean. Inspired by the BLM discourse, I also read The End of Policing.
Crime Fiction
Streets of Darkness wasn't the only new crime-fiction series I discovered this year. I read Missing, Presumed, after coming across Remain Silent and realising it is actually the third in a series. I also read Murder as a Fine Art, The Pinocchio Brief, To Catch A Rabbit, The Various Haunts of Men, and A Dark Matter (my last book of the year). These are all series I would love to continue reading.
I completed the Millennium trilogy with The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. I also continued beloved crime fiction series with The Killings at Kingfisher Hill, the latest Poirot story from Sophie Hannah, and JD Robb's Golden in Death and Shadows in Death. I returned to the Kopp sisters with Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions and Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit, which made me wonder why I ever left them in the first place, and I also read Will Carver's Nothing Important Happened Today and the brilliant Hinton Hollow Death Trip.
I also read Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse, The Last, Day of the Accident, The Godfather, and The Hunting Party. The latter is particularly well suited to this time of the year, if you're looking for something seasonal to read.
Page to Screen
I love reading a book and then watching an adaptation of it. I did that with several books this year, including Little Women (dir. Greta Gerwig), Pride and Prejudice (first the BBC then the film adaptation), Sense and Sensibility, The Talented Mr Ripley, The Pale Horse, and The Godfather. I also reread Jane Eyre before watching the film adaptation (while I'm waiting for No Time To Die, since both are directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga).
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch was the first book I read purely for pleasure in 2020, and I followed it with the BBC adaptation. I also read and then watched Normal People and Fingersmith (I watched The Handmaiden).
I actually reversed the pattern for both Carol and If Beale Street Could Talk, both of which I happened to have already watched. I still prefer my usual order, but I did enjoy alternating it for a change.
I reread and rewatched the entire Twilight series (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn) during a particular stressful period on my Master's course. I also watched a few different Shakespeare productions this year, my favourite being the NT production of Antony and Cleopatra starring Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo.
Short Stories
I read some excellent short story collections this year, including Best British Short Stories 2019, Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Café, and one of my favourite books of 2020, The Middle of a Sentence.
I found some comfort reading in a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories selected by Arthur Conan Doyle himself, Favourite Sherlock Holmes Stories. I also read two books which I received as presents, the beautiful Russian Stories for my birthday, and the witty Fairy Tales for Millennials: 12 Problematic Stories Retold for the Modern World for Christmas (2019).
I absolutely loved Full Throttle, a collection of short stories by Stephen King's son, but was also very impressed by Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers.
I also read the translated novella Fever Dream.
Fiction
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead and The Discomfort of Evening were two other translated books I read this year, both of which are well suited to the winter season.
I loved Everything Under, and have no idea why I left it on my to-read shelf for so long. I also finally read The Silence of the Girls, which I got for Christmas (2019), Frankissstein: A Love Story, which had been on my to-read list since it was published, and Leonard and Hungry Paul, which absolutely lived up to its reputation. If you're looking for something uplifting to read and haven't yet read Leonard and Hungry Paul, I highly recommend it.
The Mars Room, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and Autumn had also been on my to-read list for some time. While I enjoyed all three, none of them blew me away.
I received The Beekeeper of Aleppo for my birthday, and took advantage of an offer to download a free copy of The New Guy, which I read during a bout of insomnia. I also read, and absolutely adored, Meddling Kids.
Non Fiction
I was hoping to read some more non-fiction towards the end of the year, once my academic studies were over, but the temporary closure of my local library made this difficult. However, I was pleased I finally read The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper and Mary Beard's Women & Power: A Manifesto, which was even better than I was expecting.
I also read Notes from a Small Island, which I bought for my Dad for Christmas (2019) and then borrowed, and Long Live Latin: The Pleasures of a Useless Language and How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy, which I was given for Christmas (2019).
I read two Formula 1 biographies this year, in between watching races, Niki Lauda: The Biography and Damon Hill: My Championship Year. I also read The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin and Funny You Should Ask . . .: Your Questions Answered by the QI Elves. I particularly enjoyed the latter.
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