Top Five Picks From Your 2020 Reading

[Maggie]

This was a good reading year. I liked most of the books I read and gave more 4 and 5 stars than I usually do. My top five are:

The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
Old Man Goriot by Honoré de Balzac
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

A special nod to Euripides' plays. I read several of them this year, and I was kept up till 3-4am on quite a few nights reading his plays. I can't choose just one to add to the list though, most of them are fantastic. I read some of Sophocles' and Aeschylus' plays too, but I liked Euripides' most. Looking forward to reading more of them in 2021!

And the one book I'm happiest to knock off my TBR list: Ulysses by James Joyce

[Brian E]

My top five reading experiences this year:

Milkman by Anna Burns
The Vic Brown Trilogy: A Kind of Loving, The Watchers on the Shore & The Right True End by Stan Barstow
Stoner by John Williams
Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig
They Were Found Wanting - They Were Divided by Miklós Bánffy

Also, while I didn't rate any of the four novels in the series, The Master of Hestviken by Sigrid Undset as a 5 star read, the 4 books as a whole made for a great reading experience.

[Pamela]

A good reading year for me too, with quite a few 5* reads. My top 5 were:

The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo
The Crime Of Father Amaro by Eça de Queirós
Look At Me by Anita Brookner

Oh yes, and The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes. So that’s a top 6 but I really wouldn’t want to leave one of those out.

[Cynda]

Piyangie wrote: "Cynda wrote: "Similar thing happened for me with Ulysses. I can try again in 2022."

That's the time I'm planning to try it too. :) I've not tried it before, but always thought (I don..."

Piyangie, reading the Odyssey first will help. A familiarity with the Odyssey will provide a clue to the underlying framework. An underlying framework always helps me.

I had to stop reading Ulysses because I simply had ran out of time. I chose to meet as many of my reading challenges and committments as possible.

Maybe we will have opportunity to read Ulysses together. That would be good.

[Luffy Sempai]

I recommend the Rieu translation for both Greek epics. If possible.

[Piyangie]

Luffy wrote: "I recommend the Rieu translation for both Greek epics. If possible."

His didn't work for me, for The Iliad, Luffy. I recently read Alexander Pope's translation which I liked.

[Luffy Sempai]

Jolly good :)

[Piyangie]

Cynda wrote: "Piyangie wrote: "Cynda wrote: "Similar thing happened for me with Ulysses. I can try again in 2022."

That's the time I'm planning to try it too. :) I've not tried it before, but alwa..."

I would like that too, Cynda. It's always nice to read it with a group or buddy read. That way, it's a lot more enjoyable and can also learn a lot.

[Luke]

Pamela wrote: "A good reading year for me too, with quite a few 5* reads. My top 5 were:

The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa
Lonesome Dove by [aut..."

I was hoping to fit in that Vargas Llosa work into this year's challenges, but alas. So many works by Nobel laureates that have waited too long on my shelves, too little tome.

Kathleen wrote: "Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
Deep River (Shusaku Endo)
The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Ernest Hemingway)
Transcendent Kingdom (Yaa Gyasi)
The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton)"

I've been hoping to return to Endo at some point, as I'm fairly certain I didn't much know what I was doing when I read him some years back. I did, though, end up really liking 'Deep River,' so that's a potential future reread.

[Scott]

Maggie, we had similar reading experiences, I guess. I read plays by Sophocles and Aeschylus to complete reading all of their surviving plays-- but I like Euripides as well. I also finally finished Ulysses this year, after many starts-and-stops over a decade. I just started reading Balzac, and Pere Goriot was the first I read.

[Philina]

Oh boy, this is difficult, because I've read many books I liked this year. Therefore, I'll give you the top five in two categories:

Top Five Classics
Middlesex
South Riding
The Call of the Wild
A Princess of Mars
And Then There Were None

(Not counting re-reads of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Die Physiker, Winnetou I)

Top Five Others
Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher
The Sun Sister
Scythe
The Ancestor
Er ist wieder da

(Not counting re-read of Der Schwarm)

[Maggie]

Scott wrote: "Maggie, we had similar reading experiences, I guess. I read plays by Sophocles and Aeschylus to complete reading all of their surviving plays-- but I like Euripides as well. I also finally finished..."

What a coincidence! I didn't think I'd find someone else reading Euripides and Ulysses and Balzac in the same year! What did you think of Ulysses? And are you planning to read more Balzac? I liked Pere Goriot and I've started on a (very slow) project to read as much of the Human Comedy as I have the stamina for.

[Cynda]

Scott wrote: "Maggie, we had similar reading experiences, I guess. I read plays by Sophocles and Aeschylus to complete reading all of their surviving plays-- but I like Euripides as well. I also finally finished..."

I want to read more of Euripides' plays. Because he writes of women, writes of them well. I have had to age/mature before I could tolerate the pain described in The Trojan Women. Now I am ready to reread some of his plays and read others.

[Sam]

Paradise Toni Morrison
Seasonal series Ali Smith https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf
Natural History Carlos Fonseca
Wolf Hall Trilogy 3 Books Collection Set By Hilary Mantel Hilary Mantel

Cheated a bit here by counting series as one book. My favorites of each series was:
Winter
Bring Up the Bodies

[Nike]

Lynn wrote: "My top five are in no particular order. Just by accident 4/5 are female authors. Two books are not considered "classics", because they are too recent. I see I really gravitated to sentimental writi..."

Thankyou for explaining what DNF stands for, it is a new expression for me. (Maybe because I always finish every book I start.)

[Nike]

Piyangie wrote: "My top five (in no particular order)

The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Inferno by Dante Alighieri (reread)
Emma by [author:Jane Aust..."

"The Tale of Two Cities" has been on my to-read-list for quite some time now and I WILL read it 2021, it's both on my Bingo board as well as on my buffet and please - kick me if I haven't read it during the first six months 😄

[Brina]

I have a book like that too, A Fine Balance. I keep putting it off. We can remind each other.

[Nike]

Jesus wrote: "My top five in no particular order:


The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
[book:Steppenwol..."


"The Unbearable Lightness of Being: is such a beautiful book! And the movie also.
I will read "Steppenwolf" during 2021.

[Nike]

Kathleen wrote: "Great, Lynn! It amazes me that 2020, despite everything, was such a good reading year. Here are my top five:

1. East of Eden by John Steinbeck. About as perfect a book as ..."

I know that i loved "East of Eden" when I read it as very young but I don't remember much so I plan to reread it soon. Probably 2022!

[Nike]

My Top 5 for 2020 is:
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway and the fifth will probably be one that I'm currently reading:
The Vegetarian by Han Kang.

[Maggie]

Brina wrote: "I have a book like that too, A Fine Balance. I keep putting it off. We can remind each other."

I added A Fine Balance to my goodreads TBR list in 2010 and I still haven’t read it yet! We’ll get to it in 2021 together!

[Luke]

I'll finally be getting to some 2010 additions myself with this group's challenges, Maggie. It's a good feeling.

[Angie]

Oh, I forgot to mention DNFs. I did have a couple of notable ones:

The Stand by Stephen King
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

I want to stress that I did not DNF them because of poor quality. I chose to table them for now because both are mentally draining. The King book is pretty dark, especially considering the current state of things. I was well over half done when I finally had to tap out. I won't say what scene did me in, but it was a rough one. As for Steinbeck... I just can't read about people who are on a march of poverty-induced misery right now. I have too many stressors in my personal life that books like these are not good for my mental health. I intend to go back to both books when I'm in the right headspace.

[Julie]

My top five reads from 2020 (so far):

The A.B.C. Murders / Death on the Nile
Ready Player One
Noughts & Crosses
Alfabet og Sommerfugledalen
The Magnificent Ambersons

Yes that's two Agatha Christie books - I put them together to give room for one more ;)

No DNF's this year (I always soldier on, that's how I made it through Ulysses a couple of years ago)

[Brina]

Julie, Agatha Christie kept me sane this year. I read 10 cases. One of these days, I will figure out whodunnit before she reveals her twist at the end. I always love your lists and as usual so diverse :)

[Luffy Sempai]

Angie wrote: "Oh, I forgot to mention DNFs. I did have a couple of notable ones:

The Stand by Stephen King
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

I want..."

I too DNFed The Stand this year. But for different a reason from yours. I found it insipidly uninspired writing.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Top five for 2020:


The Terror by Dan Simmons


Moneyball by Michael Lewis


The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman


The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins


East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Honorable mention:


Books of Blood: Volumes One to Three by Clive Barker

[Cynda]

I have to rewrite list. I forgot two other books on my lifetime bucket list that I read this year.

🌺 Inferno by Dante Alighieri
🌺 The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
🌺 The Oresteian Trilogy by Aeschylus
🌺 Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O'Neill
🌺 Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Addams

I wanted to make sure that if I died of covid that I would have read some of my bucket read books. (I read more than I listed here.)

Looks like we may have some more covid time yet. I am assessing what is going next on my lifetime list as "read."

[Lynn, New School Classics]

Angie wrote: "Oh, I forgot to mention DNFs. I did have a couple of notable ones:

The Stand by Stephen King
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

I want..."

Avoiding stressful books is very understandable now! I focused more on light and happy books this past year.

[Gavin]

Here's mine!
1-Death's End
2-The Fall of Hyperion
3-The Complete Tales and Poems
4-The Fountainhead
5-Hopscotch

[Scott]

Hi Maggie: I'd like to read the entire Human Comedy. Our university library has the whole series, in English. But I'm working on another reading challenge at the moment, so it will have to wait. I really enjoyed Balzac, though.

[Marilyn]

Top five fiction:
The Curlew's Cry
Iza's Ballad
Time of Drums
The Greengage Summer
Fortunes of War: The Balkan Trilogy

Short story collection:
Monday or Tuesday

Nonfiction:
Killers of the Dream

[Lynn, New School Classics]

Philina wrote: "Oh boy, this is difficult, because I've read many books I liked this year. Therefore, I'll give you the top five in two categories:

Top Five Classics
Middlesex
[book:South Riding|10307..."


I really love The Call of the Wild and the Burrough's Barsoom series. So far I have read three from the series. We have similar tastes in books again.

[Lynn, New School Classics]

Scott wrote: "Hi Maggie: I'd like to read the entire Human Comedy. Our university library has the whole series, in English. But I'm working on another reading challenge at the moment, so it will have to wait. I ..."

I also really like Honoré de Balzac. Eugénie Grandet and Letters of Two Brides were both five stars books in my opinion.

[Brian E]

Marilyn wrote: "Top five fiction:
The Curlew's Cry
Iza's Ballad
Time of Drums
The Greengage Summer
Fortunes of War: The Balkan Trilogy"

Its good to know these are your favorites. I've read 3 Hungarian authors this year and hope to read Magda Szabó next year. While I presumed I'd read The Door, Iza's Ballad does look appealing.
I read my first Rumer Godden, Black Narcissus, a few weeks ago and enjoyed it enough that I might try to see if The Greengage Summer will engage me. I also have the Olivia Manning trilogy in my Amazon cart for a possible future read

[Kirsten]

The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing
Breeding Ground by Sarah Pinborough
The Institute by Stephen King
Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

[Jaena4]

My top five of this year (not counting rereads of perennial favorites):
The Institute - Stephen King
Adam Bede - George Eliot
Among Others - Jo Walton
All Systems Red - Martha Wells
Every Man Dies Alone - Hans Fallada

Every Man Dies Alone is definitely in my top 25 ever books. It was amazing! Also, All Systems Red was my best teaching book this year - it went over like gangbusters!

[Nike]

Brina wrote: "I have a book like that too, A Fine Balance. I keep putting it off. We can remind each other."

Yes, Brina! =) Good idea =)

[Brian E]

Jaena4 wrote: "Every Man Dies Alone is definitely in my top 25 ever books. It was amazing! ."
I've read and enjoyed Fallada's Little Man, What Now? and plan to read Every Man Dies Alone someday as several GR friends rate it as 5 stars ( and one GR friend rated it as 1 star).
For those interested, Every Man Dies Alone is also titled as Alone in Berlin.

[Wreade1872]

...Lets see, many of my 5-stars were for rereads this year but
Beyond Life by James Branch Cabell
You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place
Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente despite its flaws.
Ok we're down to 4-stars now but many of my treasured books are still flawed and i rate them based on quality rather than personal enjoyment, so lets add my second Woolf ever...
To the Lighthouse and The Black Hawks by David Wragg; a fantasy adventure which was surprisingly good... also a debut i think.