My 20 Favorite Books I Read in 2020
“He learned not to mind the silences.”
In the next installment of my Best of 2020 series, I’m tackling my favorite books I read during the year! As always, the list reflects books read during the year, not books published during the year. Too many, mate! Especially during a pandemic when I didn’t want to go out to too many bookstores, I found myself searching the public domain for many of these. I also only included first-time reads, as rereads of 26 Fairmount Avenue and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince are obviously great stories, but they have long been in my life, too. Ultimately, a good story is a good story, though, and I’m glad I found my way to lots of these. The world is filled with talented writers.
As such, I’m also going to orchestrate a shameless plug for a book that I published this year, my very first one! It’s called Paradigms as a Second Language and I’ve been donating all the proceeds from it to the Worcester County Food Bank and the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida! It’s a collection of short stories and personal essays, so if you’re interested in amusing tales of growing up and identity, I highly recommend it!
Additionally, an author who has been on this list before, Nicole Mello, published a novella in 2020, We Meet Them. I haven’t read it yet, but I wanted to give a shoutout to it before it will surely be on this list next year!
Lastly, I’ve never felt quite right about ranking literature. So, as always, this list is presented in alphabetical order by title. Enjoy!
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Political hope in 2020 didn’t begin in earnest until around November 4 or so. But it was still refreshing to read Michelle Obama’s autobiography and be reminded of a national figure who actually knows how to put a sentence together. It’s a standard “I was a child and then I became really important” kind of biography, but it helps that she cared about the story she was telling.
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson
Walter Isaacson is one of the best biographers alive. (He is responsible for the greatest one I’ve read from the genre, the story of Steve Jobs’ life.) His chronicling of Benjamin Franklin’s life and times is not quite at the level of Steve Jobs, but it’s an enriching tale all the same. It helps the reader create a perspective that can almost picture what Franklin might have been like in person.
The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies by Ben Fritz
The film industry endured a great deal of upheaval in 2020, as Netflix finally become the dominant force of moviemaking and the theaters went on full life support after every tentpole film (not Tenet) shifted to 2021 and 2022 release dates instead. Ben Fritz’s book doesn’t quite get to that point of the “future of movies,” but it gets as close as detailing Amy Pascal and Greta Gerwig collaborating for a Little Women adaptation. Couple that with the true scoops of the Sony hacks, the Spider-Man exchange, and Adam Sandler’s exodus from the studio, and it makes for a must-read for any fan of behind-the-scenes pop culture drama.
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
This is obviously a classic among books and what helped make Stephen Hawking the most famous theoretical physicist of all-time. To tackle the scope of the entire universe and its history is no easy task, but Hawking manages to achieve it by condensing the most important information, writing it accessibly, and including easy-to-synthesize diagrams. We can’t all be as smart as Hawking, but he helped provide a guide to match some understandings.
Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie
In 2020, I finally read my first-ever Agatha Christie murder mystery. Somehow, I avoided Murder on the Orient Express spoilers for my entire life ahead of the Kenneth Branagh version in 2017 and I wanted to continue to do the same for the eventual release of Death on the Nile. Therefore, I opted for a Christie that everyone agreed was profoundly twisty. It lived up to the cozy hype.
Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl
I’m no stranger to the tales of Roald Dahl, but I’d only ever seen the film adaptation of Fantastic Mr. Fox. Considering that I sometimes think it’s the greatest movie ever made, it only made sense to finally dive into the source text. And what do you know? It’s one of the best Dahl ever wrote, filled with whimsy and anachronisms and charm on charm on charm.
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Considering I’m currently writing a list about my favorite books, it should be no surprise that a book filled with lists managed to crack my list. This was my first endeavor with the stylings of Nick Hornby and I found that High Fidelity zipped along at quite the lyrical clip while never shying away from condemning and interrogating the psychology of the main character, Rob.
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
The plays of Oscar Wilde were tongue-in-cheek, self-satirical, and clever before Hornby ever came onto the scene. But like Hornby, this was my first exposure to an acclaimed writer. I think I picked a good one to learn more about Oscar Wilde because this was a genuinely hilarious script with dialogue that was just as much fun to keep up with as it was to read.
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
I never rank the books on my annual lists, but this is probably my favorite of the twenty, if I had to pick one. The power goes out at the home of an estranged couple, a botany professor carves a pumpkin, a little girl learns about Calcutta. These are just a few of the sensitive, sensational moments flurried throughout Jhumpa Lahiri’s immaculate collection of short stories. It’s not just the best book I read in 2020; it’s one of my favorite books ever.
Master Letters of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
I’m sure the publication of Emily Dickinson’s personal letters can be debated, but I am perpetually awed by her poetry, as any human being with a heart should be. It’s hard to heap praise on someone who is a part of the canon of praise, but it’s for good reason. Dickinson was a master of words like none other.
Matt & Ben by Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers
Moving into a more comedic space, I was finally able to read the writing that put Mindy Kaling on the map. Her college stage production (which she co-wrote with Brenda Withers, who starred as Matt Damon in the play, while Kaling portrayed Ben Affleck) details and satirizes the creation of Good Will Hunting and all the mysticism that came with it. I won’t spoil anything, but Kaling and Withers are clearly comedic geniuses.
Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare
Like Dickinson, it’s not really all that revelatory to say that William Shakespeare was a talented writer who wrote awe-inspiring plays and sonnets. I try to read one Shakespeare play every year and in 2020, I definitely wanted to steer towards his comedies. Throw in some profound moments of compassion and Measure for Measure was built for an escapist read in a troubling tenure.
The October Country by Ray Bradbury
The October Country, another collection of short stories, was recommended to me by my friend, Caleb, to read during October. He has good taste! The stories were more macabre than the typical Ray Bradbury sci-fi style, but that just made it all the more perfect for an autumn experience. My favorite short story from the anthology was “The Lake,” but I also appreciated how some characters made return appearances in other narratives.
The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History by Andy Greene
Of course, this book made the list. If there’s one thing I love to read, it’s a riveting oral history with complicated tales involving talented people. The SNL oral history, Live from New York, is an excellent example of this. Andy Greene (of Rolling Stone) revisited everyone involved with the creation of The Office, from Michael Schur to John Krasinski to Melora Hardin. What earns it a spot on the list, beyond this, though, is the fact that it managed to teach me things about The Office, even when it felt like I’d already learned everything there was to know about the show.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
I’m not trying to be the wise guy who thinks it’s some groundbreaking idea to put Jane Austen’s magnum opus, Pride and Prejudice, on a list of stellar books. But I’d never read it before! My English curricula growing up never delved into the comedies of manners or enchanting costume dramas all that much. Fortunately, Pride and Prejudice was still out there for me to be dashed and dallianced by its grand romances of the centuries gone by. One of the greats for a reason!
The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis
The Problem of Pain is a philosophical text from the man behind The Chronicles of Narnia. It was a recommendation from my friend, Julianna, and, like Caleb, she has good taste! Sometimes, you just find a worthwhile treatise on the meaning behind some of life’s more complicated aspects and it really goes a long way to soothing your soul’s anxiety over those problems. I appreciated the wisdom this one had to offer.
Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between) by Lauren Graham
Many celebrity memoirs can come across as a lot of fluff. For every Bossypants, there’s some poorly-edited, scantily-written narrative meant to pump out sales and capitalize on the culture. Fortunately, Lauren Graham’s tome was more in line with the best of the genre. She penned a number of hilarious witticisms throughout the book, along with the much-appreciated tell-all sections about her time on the set of Gilmore Girls. A must-read for any fan of Stars Hollow.
Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977–2002) by David Sedaris
Always love a great David Sedaris book; he’s one of my favorite authors of all-time! When I saw him read in Boston in 2016, he mentioned he was working on a collection of his diaries and he read us a few of them, which were obviously hysterical and dryly amusing. It was a no-brainer that I’d love a five hundred (plus) page collection of these diary entries from twenty-five years of his life. It makes me want to begin my own journaling again!
This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work by Tiffany Jewell
There’s no doubt that This Book Is Anti-Racist is the most important book I read in 2020. Tiffany Jewell tackles a number of difficult topics, from intersectionality to historical oppression to institutional racism, and synthesizes them clearly and accessibly for audiences of all kinds. It’s a great introduction to anti-racist literature and makes for a good book to include in schools, as well.
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Lastly, it must be pretty obvious why anyone read The Turn of the Screw in 2020. Mike Flanagan’s Netflix series, The Haunting of Bly Manor, was based on the 1898 gothic horror novella, of course! Granted, it took the original story in a new direction, but they both have exceedingly engaging merits. This paired well with the aforementioned Bradbury in autumn and was a spooky journey back to time gone by. That’s the power of literature.
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