What an inherently troubling phrase! Books I loved in 2020. That is: books I managed to finish in 2020. Books that seemed oddly relevant in 2020 despite being written and edited before the pandemic year. Books that either provided escape from or insight into ten months of social isolation and near constant anxiety in 2020.
Nevertheless, these were the books I loved in 2020.
Fiction
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
Creatures by Crissy Van Meter
Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James
The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark
Weather by Jenny Offill
The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
All Systems Red and Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
The Plague by Albert Camus
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Nonfiction
Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Allison
Voices of Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich
Tree Story by Valerie Trouet
May they bring you what they brought me: joy, reflection, or at least the pleasure of sharing an experience with another reader.
Sara Davis 