Reading Envy 209: Best Reads of 2020 with Guest Menagerie

Jenny invited past guests and members of the Reading Envy Readers group in Goodreads to contribute their best reads of 2020. In true Reading Envy fashion, books were not necessarily published in 2020. We always like to hear if you read a book because you heard about it on the podcast!

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 209: Best Reads of 2020

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Books discussed: 

Jenny's full list of 5-star reads for 2020
Sovietistan by Erika Fatland
The Empire of Gold by S. A. Chakraborty
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Deacon King Kong by James McBride
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tolkarzcuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
One Hundred Twenty One Days by Michèle Audin, translated by Christiana Hills
The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischwili, translated by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin
Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica translated by Sarah Moses
Mama Day by Gloria Naylor
Milkman by Anna Burns
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel
A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C.A. Fletcher
Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste
Fiebre Tropical by Juliana Delgado Lopera
The Last Best League by Jim Collins
The Mercury 13 by Martha Ackman Lauren
The Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwarz-Bart, translated from the French by Barbara Bray
How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr
Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm ed. by Yarimar Bonilla and Marisol LeBron
Letters: Summer 1926 by Boris Pasternak, Maria Tsvetaeva, and Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from German and Russian by Margaret Wettlin and Jamey Gambrell


Other mentions:

Discussion of The Only Good Indians on the Shelf Wear Podcast
Discussion of Drive Your Plow... on the Book Cougars Podcast
Discussion of Drive Your Plow... on the Book Cougars Goodreads group

 

Stalk us online:

Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy
If you want to hear more from one of the guests who appeared on this episode, go to the episode guide and do a search.

All links to books are through Bookshop.org, where I am an affiliate.

Jenny's Best Reads of 2020

Every year I do a round-up of my 5-star reads. For the podcast's sake, these date from December 2019 through November 2020. On December 29th, the Best of 2020 podcast will post, featuring highlights from my list along with multiple guests sharing their top reads of the year. After December 31, I'll post my stats for the full actual calendar year. I love looking at those, but I could still read 10 books between now and then.

Unlike most book lists, these books are not necessarily published in 2020, simply read in that year.

Cover images are not the same order as below, apologies. If you are interested in my thoughts on any of these specific titles, your best bet is to find it on my Goodreads account - this list is Read2020 and sorted by rating.

Around the World - Middle East focus (plus one that snuck in from Asia 2019)

Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi, translated by Marilyn Booth
Daughters of Smoke and Fire by Ava Homa
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vadney Rattner
Our Women on the Ground by Zahra Hankir, ed.
Headscarves and Hymens by Mona Eltahawy, narrated by Mona Eltahawy
Beirut Won't Cry by Mazen Kerbaj
Home by Various, translated by Various (Two Lines Arabic poetry)


Science Fiction and Fantasy

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Romancing the Inventor by Gail Carriger
Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth
How Long 'Til Black Future Month by N.K. Jemisin
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice, narrated by Billy Merasty
Homesick by Nino Cipri


Horror

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones


Romance

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert
Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert


Western

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

Literary Fiction in Translation

Optic Nerve by Maria Gainza, translated by Thomas Bunstead
A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio, translated by Ann Goldstein
The Eighth Life by Nino Harataschwili, translated by Charlotte Collins & Ruth Martin
That We May Live by Various, translated by Various
Spring by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Ingvild Burkey
The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld; translated by Michele Hutchison
The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke, translated by Jamie Bulloch
Farewell, Ghosts by Nadia Terranova, translated by Ann Goldstein


Literary Fiction - Backlist

The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson, also narrated by Claire Danes
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin, narrated by Bahni Turpin
Mountolive by Lawrence Durrell
Fair Play by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal
Clea by Lawrence Durrell
Tracks by Louise Erdrich
Four Souls by Louise Erdrich
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich


Literary Fiction - Current

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
Hex by Lauren Dinerstein Knight
Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn
The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels
Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell
Polar Vortex by Shani Mootoo
What Happens at Night by Peter Cameron
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste
Memorial by Bryan Washington


Rereads

Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash
Normal People by Sally Rooney


Graphic Novels and Comics

Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, illustrated by Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, & Harmony Becker
Apsara Engine by Bishakh Kumar Som


Nonfiction- Memoir

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones
A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt
Eat a Peach by David Chang and Gabe Ulla, narrated by David Chang
My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland


Nonfiction - Other

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
Writing Wild by Kathryn Aalto
On Lighthouses by Jazmine Barrera, translated by Christine MacSweeney
My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem
Tides by Jonathan White
The Selected Works of Audre Lorde by Audre Lorde
Just Us by Claudia Rankine
Oak Flat by Lauren Redniss; narrated by Lauren Redniss, Darrell Dennis, Kyla Garcia, Kimberly Guerrero, Hillary Huber, Ann Marie Lee, Elizabeth Liang, Crystie Lightning


Poetry

Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz
An American Sunrise: Poems by Joy Harjo
13th Balloon by Mark Bibbins
Homie by Danez Smith
Junebat by John Elizabeth Stintzi
How to Fly (in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) by Barbara Kingsolver
Blizzard: Poems by Henri Cole
Together in a Sudden Strangeness Alice Quinn, ed.

Reading Envy 176: Best of 2019

Jenny divulges her top reads of 2019 and shares the top reads of sixteen other readers. All of us focus on books we read in 2019; they may or may not have been published in 2019. That's how regular readers work! If you listen past that section, there will also be some discussion of the Best of the Decade in reads and reading experiences.

Thanks to all of you who participate, interact, and listen to the podcast! You have made this a marvelous year and decade.  Best wishes in the new year. The next episode will be all about reading goals, so feel free to share your 2020 reading goals with me and I might mention them.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 176: Best of 2019 with Jenny and Menagerie.

Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner
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Books Mentioned:



Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
Castle of Water by Dane Kuckelbridge
Lent by Jo Walton
Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson
Against Memoir by Michelle Tea
Brute: Poems by Emily Skaja
The Library of Small Catastrophes by Alison C. Rollins
Halal if You Hear Me edited by Safia Elhillo and Fatimah Asghar
Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trolloppe
The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett
The Way to the Sea by Caroline Crampton
The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Tu by Patricia Grace
The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink
All Among the Barley by Melissa Harrison
East West Street by Philippe Sands
The Great Believers by Rebekah Makkai
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
The Shape of the Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vasquez
Birdie by Tracey Lindberg
They Will Drown in Their Mother's Tears by Johannes Anyuru
The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose
Cantoras by Caroline de Robertis
The Deeper the Water, the Uglier the Fish by Katya Apekina
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Very Marrow of Our Bones by Christine Higdon
The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
Metro 2035 by Dmitry Glukhovsky
In the Distance by Hernan Diaz
Mortality by Christopher Hitchens
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Nobber by Oisin Fagan
Women Talking by Miriam Toews
When Chickenheads Come Home To Roost by Joan Morgan
Our Women on the Ground edited by Zahra Hankir
The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal
Sefira and Other Betrayals by John Langan
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami
The Book of Night Women by Marlon James
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Fired Up by Andrew Johnston
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy
This Tilting World by Colette Bellous


Other Mentions:

Jenny's Full Best of 2019 List
Jenny's Best of the Decade List
Safia Elhillo and Fatimah Asghar reading at The Strand
Shedunnit Podcast


Related Episodes:

Episode 142 - Borders and Bails with Shawn Mooney
Episode 150 - Rife with Storytelling with Sara 
Episode 154 - Is If If with Paula
Episode 157 - Joint Readalong of Gone with the Wind with Book Cougars
Episode 159 - Reading Doorways with Lindy
Episode 160 - Reading Plays with Elizabeth
Episode 163 - Fainting Goats with Lauren
Episode 166 - On Brand with Karen
Episode 167 - Book Pendulum with Reggie
Episode 173 - Expecting a Lot from a Book with Sarah Tittle 
Episode 174 - Cozy Holiday Reads and TBR Explode 4
Episode 175 - Reading on Impulse with Marion Hill


Stalk me online:

Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy