What a year. I’ve documented a lot of it in this blog, but now it’s time to write an annual post which has nothing whatsoever to do with the pandemic (ostensibly), namely my list of what I read during the year. The list comes with its usual caveat that poetry volumes, for some reason which remains obscure even to me, are not included. This is a list of novels, non-fiction, memoirs, the wide range of prose which caught my eye when I was often supposed to be doing something else. I love lists. I love reading yours. And I love providing you with mine. Maybe you’ll find one or two here that might catch your eye, too. You’ll see a certain amount of necessary escapism found its way into my reading this year…more than usual. And the heavy hand of history and current events also intruded, but that led me to read some things which I might not have read before, and that is always a good thing. Plus, I found the time to fill a few glaring holes, books or authors I had been meaning to read but hadn’t gotten around to.

Enjoy. Happy holidays. Stay safe. Let’s all make it to next year’s list healthier, happier and even more productive than we are today.

1. George Orweill, Burmese Days
2. Carl Sunstein, Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide
3. Sebastian Barry, Days Without End
4. Peter Sagal, The Incomplete Book of Running
5. Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer
6. Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
7. Jonathan Coe, Middle England
8. Lawrence Ingrassia, Billion Dollar Brand Club
9. Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams
10. Anthony Trollope, Miss MacKenzie
11. Hadley Freeman, House of Glass
12. Boris Akunin, The Diamond Chariot
13. Tara Westover, Educated
14. Boris Akunin, Special Assignments
15. Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style
16. Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want To Talk About Race
17. Louise Erdrich, The Round House
18. Patricia Averback, Resurrecting Rain
19. Brian Doyle, Reading in Bed
20. Bess Kalb, Nobody Will Tell You This But Me
21. Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
22. Will Hermes, Love Goes To Buildings on Fire
23. Siegrid Nunez, A Memoir Of Susan Sontag
24. Bill Browder, Red Notice
25. Jennifer Smith Turner, Child Bride
26. Yaa Gyosi, Homegoing
27. George Szirtes, The Photographer at Sixteen
28. Marilynne Robinson, Jack
29. Brian Doyle, One Long River of Song