Books. Are. MAGIC!
[02]: Joy Soldier
Hello friends!
Last January I set a goal to read 50 books this year. As a mere mortal, I had no inkling that the world as we knew it would halt, my office would become the $15-mid-March-OfferUp- procured desk jammed next to my bed, or that I’d leave my job. All setting up for BIG READING ENERGY IN 2020.
As a better reader than accountant, it took me longer than it should have to export my Goodreads and cross-reference against my bookshelf to compile the list below of the 60 books I read this year. Quick highlights (below) and longer ponderings (below below) can be skipped if you want to get right to the list.
Tl;dr: Highlights
My three favorite books this year were:
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides (Fiction)
Untamed by Glennon Doyle (Self-Help/Memoir)
My favorite bookstores to support are: Books Are Magic, Three Lives & Company, McNally Jackson, The Strand, Literati Bookstore, 2 Dandelions, and Source Booksellers.
Some Ramblings on Reading:
Thank you for entertaining my childhood aspirations to be a book editor which was really a guise to be able to read all the time and talk about books. And look at us now! The year is 2020 (for briefly longer, good riddance), there are no parties to make excuses not to go to, so we can just… read.
I personally had a mini-Renaissance, returning to my book-kid roots and reading more fiction and memoirs than I have since grade school. In years past, I’ve admittedly over-indexed on self-help and business books, so this is a great re-righting of the ship. Makes sense that in a year when we weren’t able to live out our own stories that we would escape into those of others, both real and pretend. When it comes to escapism versus reality, maybe it is a matter of “both, and” (more here on this from NPR).
This is also the year that I discovered my real love language is actually just sending books to, and receiving books from, people that I love or have crushes on. The caveat here is that it must be a book that I will like and it must be from a person that I like. This was a delightful way to receive Little Weirds, Zero to One, and a book of short stories; and to gift 9 copies of Untamed in mid-March.
On a tangential note, many of the memoirs I read this year discussed therapy at length (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, Group). To my surprise and dismay, reading about therapists doesn’t actually have the same benefits as going to therapy itself. As such, I took the advice that Lori Gottlieb’s title suggests and started talking to someone.
The author I’m most grateful to have discovered this year is Melissa Febos. I’m eagerly anticipating her next book, Girlhood, out in March. Coming across Melissa Febos in The Sewanee Review is potentially the best thing to happen to my 2020. I also learned that many of the authors I deeply admire are all friends and were published in The Sewanee Review in the early days of their careers (Melissa Febos, Stephanie Danler, Lisa Taddeo, Garth Greenwell, & more). A bit like running into your college professors at a bar and realizing they’re all best pals!
A book that has stuck with me through the years in concept, (though the characters have largely escaped me), is The Little Paris Bookshop. If I remember correctly, the protagonist was a bookseller who would “prescribe” specific books to cure his customers of the specific emotional hardship that was taxing them. That being said, one of my greatest joys is recommending books. No, I’m not claiming to be a book doctor. Though if you tell me what you are looking for and I’d be delighted to share a title or two that might do the trick.
As Emma Straub says: Books. Are. Magic!!!
Without any further ado, I present to you, 60 books in 2020!
60 Books in 2020 (A-Z):
Please buy local if you choose to buy!
Abandon Me: Memoirs; Melissa Febos
All Adults Here; Emma Straub
American Dirt; Jeanine Cummins
Becoming; Michelle Obama
Beloved; Toni Morrison
Between the World and Me; Ta-Nehisi Coates
Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies; Tara Schuster
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators; Ronan Farrow
Cleanness; Garth Greenwell
Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love; John M. Gottman
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine; Gail Honeyman
Everything I Know About Love; Dolly Alderton
Flights; Olga Tokarczuk
Good Morning, Destroyer of Men's Souls; Nina Renata Aron
Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction; Tracy Kidder
Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life; Christie Tate
Home; Toni Morrison
Home Body; Rupi Kaur
How to Change Your Mind; Michael Pollan
I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman; Nora Ephron
I'm Supposed to Protect You From This; Nadja Spiegelman
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption; Bryan Stevenson
Less; Andrew Sean Greer
Little Weirds; Jenny Slate
Luster; Raven Leilani
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone; Lori Gottlieb
Middlesex; Jeffrey Eugenides
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore; Robin Sloan
My Year of Rest and Relaxation; Ottessa Moshfegh
Rules of Civility; Amor Towles
Small Fry; Lisa Brennan-Jobs
State of Wonder; Ann Patchett
Stray; Stephanie Danler
Such a Fun Age; Kiley Reid
Talking to Strangers; Malcolm Gladwell
The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World; Dalai Lama XIV
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting; Milan Kundera
The Defining Decade; Meg Jay
The Education of an Idealist; Samantha Power
The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell; Robert Dugoni
The Faithful Gardener; Clarissa Pinkola Estés
The Glass Castle; Jeannette Walls
The Light We Lost; Jill Santopolo
The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone; Olivia Laing
The Moment of Lift; Melinda Gates
The Other Side: A Memoir; Lacy M. Johnson
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake; Aimee Bender
The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative; Vivian Gornick
The Surrender Experiment; Michael A. Singer
The Undying; Anne Boyer
The Vanishing Half; Brit Bennett
The Water Dancer; Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Year of Magical Thinking; Joan Didion
Uncanny Valley; Anna Wiener
Untamed; Glennon Doyle
What I Loved; Siri Hustvedt
Whip Smart: A Memoir; Melissa Febos
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me; Adrienne Brodeur
Women and Desire; Polly Young-Eisendrath
Zero to One; Peter Thiel
From you, my dear readers, I would love to know:
What books did you love this year?
What is on your list for next year?
What bookstores do you love to support?
Can’t wait to hear from you!
With joy,
Sarah
P.S. Want to caveat that there were three weeks when I was in between jobs and all I did was read. If you are my new employer and you are reading this, I promise I’m doing the job I am being paid to do!!!
Did you get this email forwarded to you? Would love welcome you to Joy Soldiers!
Fantastic list - Thank you for sharing your inspiring journey powered by curiosity!
I loved reading The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger and look forward to reading the Art of Gathering by Priya Parker.
And stopping by my neighborhood bookstore, McNally Jackson Seaport, was such a treat.