20 Books I Can't-Wait to Read in 2020
Hello, readers!
In the wintertime, I am always transforming myself into a bookworm. I cover myself with a cosy blanket having a tea in a half-litre cup by my side and a good book in my hand. At the end of the year, I often go through books rankings from Goodreads, Time, New York Times or Modern Mrs Darcy to find excellent picks I can follow in the next few months of the new year. I say a few months as during winter, and I fell more keen to read heavy-topic literature, books based on a true story rather than adventures, fantasy or romances.
Here is my list of 20 books I honestly can’t wait to read in 2020.
Hope you find here your winter companion!
The Elephant Whisperer
Lawrence Anthony
Nonfiction | Amazon | Goodreads
Learning about life, loyalty and freedom from a remarkable herd of elephants.
Lawrence Anthony, a conservationist, was asked to accept a herd of ‘rogue’ elephants to his reserve in Zululand. He almost refused this plea, but it was the last chance of this herd’s survival. He creates a bond with elephants and observes the elephant’s family- Nana, who guided the pack, her warrior sister Frankie, always ready to see off any threat, and their children who fought so hard to survive.
The book has a rating of 4.9 on Amazon, which is not so frequent, considering people having very different expectations that are sometimes hard to fulfil. I often go briefly through readers reviews when peaking a book and this one gathered a lot of opinions about how beautifully-written it is; where at first I thought it might be merely dull. I am happy to find it out in 2020.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
Lori Gottlieb
Nonfiction | Amazon | Goodreads
Life from both sides of the couch: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist.
Lori Gottlieb is a compassionate therapist. Throughout the book, we meet four of her patients; the older woman who feels she has nothing to live for; the self-destructive young alcoholic; the terminally ill 35-year-old newlywed; and John, a narcissistic television producer who seems to be a bit of a jerk. She is a patient herself, too, after a sudden breakup.
If you know Modern Mrs Darcy’s website her recommendation is enough for me to become interested in the title 👍 The book stays on the top on many 2019 books rankings too; it would be fullish not to give it a chance.
I read this back in April and it’s really stayed with me: I still think about it, and recommend it, all the time ~ Modern Mrs Darcy
Into the Magic Shop
Dr James Doty
Nonfiction | Amazon | Goodreads
A neurosurgeon’s true story of the life-changing magic of mindfulness and compassion that inspired the hit K-pop band BTS.
Dr James Doty spent his childhood with an alcoholic father and a mother with chronic depression. Despite the hard start, he has become a leading neurosurgeon at Stanford University. Before it happened, at the Cactus Rabbit Magic Shop, he met a woman named Ruth, who he claims has transformed and opened his heart for the success that was yet to come. In the book, he describes visualisation techniques he was thought by her that boosted his self-esteem so he could find a better future for himself. He has learned the science behind mindfulness, how to think fast and keep calm.
Into the Magic Shop imparts some powerful life lessons about how to live better, and inspires us to believe that we all have inside us the capacity to change our own destiny.
Becoming
Michelle Obama
Nonfiction | Amazon | Goodreads
Becoming is Michelle Obama’s memoir starting from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the White House by the side of her husband, Barack. She is experiencing racism, disappointments, her tragedies such as miscarriage which all have shaped her. The book is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman whose story was intended to inspire us to do the same.
With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it — in her own words and on her own terms.
I heard it is better to listen to the book instead of reading it; to listen to it in Michelle Obama’s voice. Because it is a biography (that, to be honest, I hardly find immersive), I was sceptical when it was released and was waiting until others will review it first. It was an absolute bestseller in 2019 after all, on both Amazon and Audible not just because the number of copies sold but also considering its position in the votes ranking. It was simply recognised as a moving and excellent-reading book.
The Water Cure
Sophie Mackintosh
Fiction | Amazon | Goodreads
Grace, Lia and Sky live in an abandoned hotel, on a sun-bleached island, beside a poisoned sea. Their parents raised them there to keep them safe, to make them good. The world beyond the water is contaminated, and men are the contamination. But one day three strangers wash ashore — men who stare at the sisters hungrily, helplessly. Men who bring trouble.
The book appeared on a few ‘best in 2019’ lists. I was intrigued by its description as I enjoy reading dystopian novels, and even more interested when I saw such mixed reviews on Amazon. For some, it’s one of the best books read in 2019, for others disappointing and not worth the price. Can’t wait to have my own opinion about it.
The Familiars
Stacey Halls
Fiction | Amazon | Goodreads
Fleetwood Shuttleworth is 17 years old, married, and pregnant for the fourth time. She is a mistress at Gawthorpe Hall but as she still has no living child, her husband Richard is anxious for an heir. When Fleetwood finds a letter she isn’t supposed to read from the doctor who delivered her third stillbirth; she is dealt the crushing blow that she will not survive another pregnancy.
Then she crosses paths by chance with Alice Gray, a young midwife. Alice promises to help her give birth to a healthy baby and to prove the physician wrong.
The Familiars explores the role of women, the role of medicine and the role of friendship — all of which play a part in this evocative story of young Fleetwood Shuttleworth who has to come to terms with her impending motherhood, death, and the insidious role of the patriarchy. ~LJBentley
It seems so beautiful story full of women friendship, hope and adventure. Have it my library for some time now, and it is time to pick it up on some cosy, blanket evening.
The Nickel Boys
Colson Whitehead
Fiction | Amazon | Goodreads
The story is about Elwood Curtis ho was abandoned by his parents and brought up by his loving, strict and clearsighted grandmother. He enrols The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide ‘physical, intellectual and moral training’ which will equip its inmates to become ‘honourable and honest men’. It turns out that in reality, the place is full of physical, emotional and sexual abuse where corrupt officials and tradesmen make a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear ‘outback’.
This book appeared on many 2019 years rankings I have seen and again recommended by Modern Mrs Darcy. The topic seems to be hard and emotional, but I have a hope that there will be any kind of good (preferably — happy) ending after all. It seems like one of the books that stay in your memory for long.
The testaments
Margaret Atwood
Fiction | Amazon | Goodreads
After reading an absolute great The Handmaid’s Tale, I can’t wait to pick another Atwood’s book. The action takes place fifteen years after the events from the first book. Gilead still remains on power, but it is beginning to rot from within. The book is the story of three radically different women whose lives converge with potentially explosive results. Two from them have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The third woman wields power through the ruthless accumulation and deployment of secrets.
Dear Readers: Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in ~Margaret Atwood
The Education of an Idealist
Samantha Power
Nonfiction | Amazon | Goodreads
The Education of an Idealist is Samantha Power’s story from Irish immigrant to war correspondent and presidential Cabinet official. In 2005, her critiques of US foreign policy caught the eye of newly elected Senator Barack Obama, who invited her to work with him on Capitol Hill and then on his presidential campaign. She served for four years as Obama’s human rights adviser, and in 2013 took one of the world’s most powerful diplomatic positions, becoming the youngest ever US Ambassador to the United Nations.
Her highly personal and reflective memoir … is a must-read for anyone who cares about our role in a changing world ~Barack Obama
Brain On Fire: My Month of Madness
Susannah Cahalan
Nonfiction | Amazon | Goodreads
The book author, Susannah Cahalan, was happy twenty-four-year-old when she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. One day she woke up in a hospital, with no memory of what had happened or how she had got there. Within weeks, she would be transformed into someone unrecognisable, descending into a state of acute psychosis, undergoing rages and convulsions. Everything she had taken for granted about her life, and who she was, was wiped out. It is also the story of how a brilliant Dr Najar finally proved that Susannah’s psychotic behaviour was caused by a rare autoimmune disease attacking her brain.
At first, I was looking at the second book from this author and wanted to put it on the list, but it was related to the story described here, so I needed to shift them. The book seems to be a very personal but yet so universal book. It will be very emotional reading, but the story moved me so much I want to find out how this brave girl has got her life back.
One Day: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America
Gene Weingarten
Nonfiction | Amazon | Goodreads
On New Year’s Day 2013, two-time Pulitzer Prize–winner Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to, literally, pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That day — chosen entirely at random — turned out to be Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day. Weingarten spent the next six years, proving that there is no such thing.
One Day asks and answers the question of whether there is even such a thing as “ordinary” when we are talking about how we all lurch and stumble our way through the daily, daunting challenge of being human.
Fifty Things that Made the Modern Economy
Tim Hartford
Nonfiction | Amazon | Goodreads
Who thought up paper money? How did the contraceptive pill change the face of the legal profession? Why was the horse collar as crucial for human progress as the steam engine? How did the humble spreadsheet turn the world of finance upside-down?
The world economy defies comprehension. A continuously-changing system of the immense complexity it offers over ten billion distinct products and services. It delivers astonishing luxury to hundreds of millions. It also leaves hundreds of millions behind, puts tremendous strains on the ecosystem, and has an alarming habit of stalling. Nobody is in charge of it. Indeed, no individual understands more than a fraction of what’s going on.
How can we make sense of this bewildering system on which our lives depend?
The book I just need to read. I decided that 2020 will be the year I will catch up on with my economic knowledge. I found several books that I can learn from, and this is one of them. I believe that in simple words it will help me to understand how has it started, where we are now, and where we might be going next.
City of Girls
Elizabeth Gilbert
Fiction | Amazon | Goodreads
In 1940 nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris arrives in New York with her suitcase and sewing machine. She soon finds gainful employment as the self-appointed seamstress at the Lily Playhouse, her Aunt Peg’s Manhattan revue theatre. There, Vivian quickly becomes the toast of the showgirls, transforming the trash and tinsel only fit for the cheap seats into creations for goddesses. Then, the legendary English actress Edna Watson comes to the Lily to star in the company’s most ambitious show ever. Vivian is entranced by the magic that follows in her wake. But there are hard lessons to be learned, and bitterly regrettable mistakes to be made. Vivian learns that to live the life she wants, she must live many lives, ceaselessly and ingeniously making them new.
Just a magical story it seems to be!
The Little Book of Feminist Saints
Julia Pierpont
Nonfiction | Amazon | Goodreads
The book contains short, vibrant and surprising biographies with stunning full-colour portraits of secular female ‘saints’: champions of strength and progress. These women broke ground, broke ceilings and broke moulds — including
Maya Angelou — Jane Austen — Ruby Bridges — Rachel Carson — Shirley Chisholm — Hillary Clinton — Marie Curie & Irene Joliot Curie — Isadora Duncan — Amelia Earhart — Artemisia Gentileschi — Grace Hopper — Dolores Huerta — Frida Kahlo — Billie Jean King — Audre Lorde — Wilma Mankiller — Toni Morrison — Michelle Obama — Sandra Day O’Connor — Sally Ride — Eleanor Roosevelt — Margaret Sanger — Sappho — Nina Simone — Gloria Steinem — Kanno Sugako — Harriet Tubman — Mae West — Virginia Woolf — Malala Yousafzai
Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine
Hannah Fry
Nonfiction | Amazon | Goodreads
You are accused of a crime. Who would you rather determine your fate — a human or an algorithm?
An algorithm is more consistent and less prone to error of judgement. Yet a human can look you in the eye before passing sentence. Welcome to the age of the algorithm, the story of a not-too-distant future where machines rule supreme, making important decisions — in healthcare, transport, finance, security, what we watch, where we go even who we send to prison. Hannah Fry takes us on a tour of the good, the bad and the downright ugly of the algorithms that surround us. In Hello World, she lifts the lid on their inner workings, demonstrates their power, exposes their limitations, and examines whether they are an improvement on the humans they are replacing.
Probably the nowadays ‘must-read’ book. I have some knowledge of how the algorithms are built and how they work but haven’t made my opinion yet to what extent I want to be surrounded by it and as said who I would prefer to determine my fate. I hope to find some clues there.
Nightingale Point
Luan Goldie
Fiction | Amazon | Goodreads
On an ordinary Saturday morning in 1996, the residents of Nightingale Point wake up to their normal lives and worries.
Mary has a secret life that no one knows about, not even Malachi and Tristan, the brothers she vowed to look after.
Malachi had to grow up too quickly. Between looking after Tristan and nursing a broken heart, he feels older than his twenty-one years.
Tristan wishes Malachi would stop pining for Pamela. No wonder he’s falling in with the wrong crowd, without Malachi to keep him straight.
Elvis is trying hard to remember the instructions his care worker gave him, but sometimes he gets confused and forgets things.
Pamela wants to run back to Malachi, but her overprotective father has locked her in, and there’s no way out.
It’s a day like any other until something extraordinary happens. When the sun sets, Nightingale Point is irrevocably changed and somehow, through the darkness, the residents must find a way back to lightness, and back to each other.
To be honest, the description was not that made me pick the book on this list. The reviews were in vast majority defining it as a great book, with an excellent plot and authentic characters and that it’s hard to put it down. I hope I will find it thought-provoking too.
Big Little Lies
Liane Moriarty
Fiction | Amazon | Goodreads
Three mothers, Jane, Madeline and Celeste, appear to have it all . . . but do they? They are about to find out just how easy it is for one little lie to spiral out of control.
Single mum Jane has just moved to town. She’s got her little boy in tow — plus a secret she’s been carrying for five years. On the first day of the school run, she meets Madeline — a force to be reckoned with, who remembers everything and forgives no one — and Celeste, the kind beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare, but is inexplicably ill at ease. They both take Jane under their wing — while careful to keep their secrets under wraps.
But a minor incident involving the children of all three women rapidly escalates: playground whispers become spiteful rumours until no one can tell the truth from the lies.
For a long time, I postpone watching the great (from what I heard) HBO series under the same title, until I read the book. I want to have the characters defined in more details as it usually is the book before I form any assumptions based on the main actresses’ play. To add, I absolutely loved ‘What Alice Forgot’ book written by Liane Moriarty.
In Your Defence: Stories of Life and Law
Sarah Langford
Nonfiction | Amazon | Goodreads
Sarah Langford is a barrister. Her job is to stand in court representing the mad and the bad, the vulnerable, the heartbroken and the hopeful. She must become their voice: weave their story around the black and white of the law and tell it to the courtroom. These stories may not make headlines, but they will change the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary ways. They are stories which, but for a twist of luck, might have been yours.
With remarkable candour, Sarah describes eleven cases which reveal what goes on in our criminal and family courts: these are tales of domestic fall out, everyday burglary, sexual indiscretion, and children caught up in the law. They are sometimes shocking, and they are often heart-stopping. She examines how she feels as she defends the person standing in the dock. She also shows us how our attitudes and actions can shape not only the outcome of a case but the legal system itself.
Educated
Tara Westover
Nonfiction | Amazon | Goodreads
Tara Westover and her family grew up preparing for the End of Days, but, according to the government, she didn’t exist. She hadn’t been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she’d never set foot in a classroom, and any medical records because her father didn’t believe in hospitals. As she grew older, her father became more radical, and her brother more violent. At sixteen, Tara knew she had to leave home. In doing so, she discovered both the transformative power of education and the price she had to pay for it.
The book was on many lists of best 2018 books. I was picking it from the shop bookshelf several times already but every time I was deciding to buy it as a kindle version, never did it though. The book, I think, will be extraordinary addictive, considering it’s based on a true story.
Women of the Dunes
Sarah Maine
Fiction | Amazon |Goodreads
Libby Snow spent her childhood hearing stories and legends from long ago. Now an archaeologist, her job is to dig deeper into the past, but her excavation at Ullaness, on Scotland’s west coast has a very personal resonance. For the headland of Ullaness holds not only the secrets of the legend of Ulla, the Norsewoman, but also begins the strange story of Ellen.
Libby’s grandmother passed on these tales — of love, betrayal and loss — but the more Libby learns at Ullaness, the more twisted the threads become. When human remains are discovered in the dunes, it becomes clear that time, and intention, have distorted accounts of what happened there. Is it too late to uncover the truth? Or is Libby herself in danger of being caught up in this tangled web of fable and deceit?
Hope you enjoyed and find something for your next reading evening!
