So, I usually read about 80-ish books a year. This year: 107. I think it’s safe to say that reading has been my pandemic coping mechanism. The 107 breaks down to 60 fiction, 46 nonfiction, and 1 graphic novel. I’m excited for a new reading year, but it’s probably a good sign if I don’t read as many books in 2021 😉 I’d love to hear your favorite reads this year. I have so many. I’m always happy to play book matchmaker if you tell me what you like to read.
Happy New Year!
Good ol’ fiction:
Fleishman is in Trouble — Taffy Brodesser-Akner
The Light After the War — Anita Abriel
You Were There Too –– Colleen Oakley
City of Girls — Elizabeth Gilbert
Dear Edward — Ann Napolitano
The End of Miracles — Monica Starkman
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society — Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows*
Such a Fun Age — Kiley Reid
If Only I Could Tell You — Hannah Beckerman
The Mother’s Promise — Sally Hepworth
In an Instant — Suzanne Redfearn
This Won’t End Well — Camille Pagán
My Lovely Wife — Samantha Downing
My Dark Vanessa — Kate Elizabeth Russell
The Girl Before — Rena Olsen*
Before Anyone Else — Leslie Hooton
Writers & Lovers — Lily King
The Things We Keep — Sally Hepworth
In Five Years — Rebecca Serle
Bad Moms — Nora McInerney
The Immortalists — Chloe Benjamin
American Housewife: Stories — Helen Ellis
All Adults Here — Emma Straub
The Child Finder — Rene Denfeld
The Other Family — Loretta Nyhan
A Good Marriage — Kimberly McCreight
The Cactus — Sarah Haywood
The Hate U Give — Angie Thomas
Homegoing — Yaa Gyasi
The Music Shop — Rachel Joyce*
The Vanishing Half — Britt Bennett
Behold the Dreamers — Imbolo Mbue
The Most Fun We Ever Had — Claire Lombardo
Florence Adler Swims Forever — Rachel Beanland
A Burning — Megha Majumdar
The Keeper of Lost Things — Ruth Hogan*
The Nix — Nathan Hill
The Knockout Queen — Rufi Thorpe
Eleanor & Park — Rainbow Rowell
Pachinko — Min Jin Lee
Exit West — Mohsin Hamid
A Star Is Bored — Byron Lane
Tangerine — Christine Mangan
The Death of Vivek Oji — Akwaeke Emezi
Far From the Tree — Robin Benway
This Tender Land — William Kent Krueger
The Expatriates — Janice Y.K. Lee
Leave the World Behind — Rumaan Alam
Transcendent Kingdom— Yaa Gyasi
A Good Neighborhood — Therese Anne Fowler
Girl, Woman, Other — Bernardine Evaristo
Little Bee — Chris Cleave
Memorial — Bryan Washington
Well-Behaved Indian Women — Saumya Dave
The Last Story of Mina Lee — Nancy Jooyoun Kim
Long Bright River — Liz Moore
Father of the Rain — Lily King
White Ivy — Susie Yang
The Office of Historical Corrections — Danielle Evans
One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Nonfiction:
Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis — Ada Calhoun
Excavation: A Memoir — Wendy C. Ortiz
Can You Ever Forgive Me? Memoirs of a Literary Forager — Lee Israel
Hold On, But Don’t Hold Still: Hope and Humor from My Seriously Flawed Life — Kristina Kuzmic
What God Is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss by and for Native Women and Women of Color — Shannon Gibney and Kao Kalia Yang (editors)
The Other Half of Asperger Syndrome: A Guide to an Intimate Relationship with a Partner who has Asperger Syndrome — Maxine C. Aston
Poor Your Soul: A Memoir — Mira Ptacin
The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man’s Quest to be a Better Husband — David Finch
Ask Me His Name: Learning to Live and Laugh Again After the Loss of My Baby — Elle Wright
Modern Loss: Candid Conversations About Grief. Beginners Welcome. — Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner
All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership — Darcy Lockman
Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself — Melody Beattie
22 Things a Woman Must Know if She Loves a Man with Asperger’s Syndrome — Rudy Simone
Pretending to be Normal: Living with Asperger’s Syndrome — Liane Holliday Willey
Untamed — Glennon Doyle
Ayurveda: Idiot’s Guide — Sahara Rose Ketabi
All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood — Jennifer Senior
The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You — Elaine N. Aron, PhD
Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect — Jonice Webb
Running on Empty No More: Transform Your Relationships With Your Partner, Your Parents, and Your Children — Jonice Webb
A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother — Rachel Cusk
What I Told My Daughter: Lessons From Leaders On Raising the Next Generation of Empowered Women — Nina Tassler, editor
Between the World and Me — Ta-Nehisi Coates
Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, and Advice for Living Your Best Life — Ali Wong
The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children — Dr. Shefali Tsabary
If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood — Gregg Olsen
The Highly Sensitive Person In Love — Elaine N. Aron
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness — Austin Channing Brown
The Hot Young Widows Club: Lessons on Survival from the Front Lines of Grief — Nora McInerny
The Highly Sensitive Parent — Elaine N. Aron
Intimations: Six Essays — Zadie Smith
The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir — Michele Harper
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming — David Wallace-Wells
White Fragility — Robin DiAngelo
The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster — Sarah Krasnostein
How We Love: Discover Your Love Style, Enhance Your Marriage — Milan and Kay Yerkovich
H is for Hawk — Helen Macdonald*
That’s Mental: Painfully Funny Things That Drive Me Crazy About Being Mentally Ill — Amanda Rosenberg
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family — Robert Kolker
Hollywood Park: A Memoir — Mikel Jollett
Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life — Christie Tate
Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity — Steve Silberman
Notes on a Silencing: A Memoir — Lacy Crawford
An Outsider’s Guide to Humans: What Science Taught Me About What We Do and Who We Are — Camilla Pang
The Silicon Syndrome: How to Survive a High-Tech Relationship — Jean Hollands
Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness — Catherine Cho
Other:
Us — Curtis Wiklund (graphic novel; a year’s worth of drawings inspired by his life with his wife)
*DNF. This just wasn’t my thing.
Hello and happy new year! You must be a very fast reader, which books were your favourites? Top three or four?
Mine were Dear Edward and A Gentleman in Moscow. Any suggestions for future reads?
I really loved City of Girls, The Most Fun We Ever Had, A Good Neighborhood, Behold the Dreamers, and The Nix. Those were probably my favorites this year, but I enjoyed so many!
It was a delightful surprise to see that you included The End of Miracles: A Novel in your 2020 reading. For an author, that is THE reward for writing: giving pleasure to readers, showing them new psychological worlds.
Loved the book. I’ve co-written a book to help women through pregnancy loss (I had 4 losses myself), so I’m always looking for novels that touch on that subject. Thank you!