Another year full of books! 88 books to be exact (well, I’m currently reading 2, so 86 completed as of today). It’s really, really hard for me to name favorites. I loved so many of these–some because of the beauty of the writing, some because of the characters, some because the story line resonated with me. Here are a few books published this past year that I think almost any reader would enjoy:
A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum
Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
I love to play book matchmaker, so if you send me an email (kimhooperwrites@gmail.com) and tell me what kinds of books you like, I can tell you which books from this year’s list might interest you.
I hope you had a happy hear of reading. Here’s to a great 2020!
Good ol’ fiction:
A Million Junes — Emily Henry
The Third Wife — Lisa Jewell
The Two-Family House — Lynda Cohen Loigman
Something in the Water — Catherine Steadman
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle — Stuart Turton*
Before I Met You — Lisa Jewell
Everything You Want Me to Be — Mindy Mejia
The Handmaid’s Tale — Margaret Atwood
The Last Time I Lied — Riley Sager
The Silent Patient — Alex Michaelides
A Woman is No Man — Etaf Rum
The Storyteller’s Secret — Sejal Badani
Daisy Jones & The Six — Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Editor — Steven Rowley
The Short and Sincere Life of Ellory James — Wendy Paine Miller
Heroes of the Frontier — Dave Eggers
The Last Mrs. Parrish — Liv Constantine
My Abandonment — Peter Rock
Baby Doll — Hollie Overton
I’m Fine and Neither Are You — Camille Pagán
The Broken Girls — Simone St. James
Where the Crawdads Sing — Delia Owens
Rainbirds — Clarissa Goenawan
Small Great Things — Jodi Picoult
Normal People — Sally Rooney
The Walls — Hollie Overton
How Not to Die Alone — Richard Roper
An American Marriage — Tayari Jones
Life and Other Near-Death Experiences — Camille Pagán
The After Glimpse — Wendy Paine Miller
The Overdue Life of Amy Byler — Kelly Harms
A Job You Mostly Won’t Know How to Do — Pete Fromm
The Language of Flowers — Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Mrs. Everything — Jennifer Weiner
Burial Rites — Hannah Kent
Those Who Wish Me Dead — Michael Koryta
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo — Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Current — Tim Johnston
Ask Again, Yes — Mary Beth Keane
Rabbit Hole — David Lindsay-Abaire**
Chances Are — Richard Russo
The Reckless Oath We Made — Bryn Greenwood
The Runaway — Hollie Overton
Whisper Man — Alex North
Defending Jacob — William Landay
I Am Watching You — Teresa Driscoll
The Monk of Mokha — Dave Eggers
The Mother-In-Law — Sally Hepworth
The Family Next Door — Sally Hepworth
Never Have I Ever — Joshilyn Jackson
State of the Union: A Marriage in Ten Parts — Nick Hornby
The Secrets of Midwives — Sally Hepworth
Mrs. Fletcher — Tom Perrotta
The Wife — Meg Wolitzer
You Think It, I’ll Say It: Stories — Curtis Sittenfeld
The Escape of Light — Fred Venturini
After the End — Claire Mackintosh
The Dutch House — Anne Patchett
A Thousand Splendid Suns — Khaled Hosseini
Look How Happy I’m Making You: Stories — Polly Rosenwaike
One Day in December — Josie Silver
The Great Believers — Rebecca Makkai (currently reading)
Nothing to See Here — Kevin Wilson (currently reading)
*This was a DNF for me. Did not finish. I tried, I really did.
**This is a play, not a novel. I don’t read many plays, but this was recommended to me because of similarities to Tiny. Loved it.
Nonfiction:
All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir — Nicole Chung
Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart — James Doty, MD
To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret — Jedidiah Jenkins
The Only Girl in the World: A Memoir — Maude Julien
One Doctor: Close Calls, Cold Cases, and the Mysteries of Medicine — Brendan Reilly, MD
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South — Radley Balko, Tucker Carrington
No Happy Endings: A Memoir — Nora McInerney
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed — Lori Gottlieb
Once More We Saw Stars: A Memoir — Jayson Greene
The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After — Julie Yip-Williams
Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations — Mira Jacob
The Happiest Toddler on the Block — Harvey Karp
Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood — Michael Lewis
The Brink of Being: Talking About Miscarriage — Julia Bueno
Three Women — Lisa Taddeo
High Achiever: The Incredible True Story of One Addict’s Double Life — Tiffany Jenkins
On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard — Jennifer Pastiloff
The Valedictorian of Being Dead: The True Story of Dying Ten Times to Live — Heather B. Armstrong
The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness — Susannah Cahalan
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me — Adrienne Brodeur
We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast — Jonathan Safran Foer
Sunshine After the Storm: A Survival Guide for the Grieving Mother — Alexa Bigwarfe (editor)
There Is No Good Card for This: What to Say and Do When Life is Scary, Awful, and Unfair to People You Love — Dr. Kelsey Crowe and Emily McDowell
Life Will Be the Death of Me…and You Too! — Chelsea Handler