2020 allowed me a lot of time to read. I generally read a lot but because we have been stuck inside, I’ve been reading even more! Now that we are into 2021, I want to share my favorite reads of 2020!
These are in no particular order and are all over the board in terms of genre. Hope you enjoy!
Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
Anyone who identifies as a feminist would be well-served by reading Mikki Kendall’s brilliant debut essay collection, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot. In this searing indictment of mainstream feminism in the United States, Kendall examines how a movement that purports to represent over half the planet’s population has, in fact, consistently overlooked women of color, trans women, differently abled women and other marginalized people. She elevates the experiences of those who are too often excluded, while also giving voice to how violence, hunger, poverty, education, housing, reproductive justice and more are all feminist issues.
— Ericka Taylor, book critic
The City We Became: A Novel by N.K. Jemisin
If your hometown was a person, what would she look like? What kind of shoes would they wear? How would he smell? What would you do if you came face to literal face with New York City? This is the world that N.K. Jemisin imagines in her fantasy novel The City We Became. This year, we need all the fantasy we can get, and Jemisin offers a multidimensional version of the world just outside your front door. New York’s five boroughs each become human avatars and walk through a world that is recognizable as our own yet wholly different, as they are under attack from a supernatural – and betentacled – enemy.
— J.C. Howard, assistant producer, TED Radio Hour and How I Built This
Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid
It’s tempting to call Kiley Reid’s debut, Such A Fun Age, a novel about race and privilege – but that might not capture how smooth and funny a read it is. It’s the story of a young black babysitter, Emira, and her white employer, Alix. The two women are both sophisticated and well drawn – Alix becoming borderline obsessed with the younger, cooler woman who babysits her daughter, Emira dealing with the complex power dynamic between her and her employer. It’s funny and contemporary and will ring true for anyone living in the year of our Lord 2020. At a time when race and class are topics that have hopefully become a part of our lives in a more honest way, Such A Fun Age is a kind of contemporary novel of manners, and it’s also a reminder that those manners exact a higher toll on some Americans than others.
— Barrie Hardymon, senior editor, Weekend Edition
The Vanishing Half: A Novel by Brit Bennett
To be American is to self-invent, and if you think you’re not part of that, talk to a grandparent. In The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett’s novel about Black identical twins who can pass as white, nearly everyone is self-invented. Stella Vignes leaves her Louisiana town and crosses the color line; she marries a white man, has a white daughter, then mistreats them to keep her secret. (It’s a testament to Bennett’s writing that Stella is not unlikeable.) Stella’s niece and foil, Jude, is unwilling and unable to pass. Instead, she reinvents herself as something deeply satisfying: a happy, successful adult. The past always catches up, though, and when the family reunion comes, it’s spectacular. To reinvent yourself is to add and subtract, as Bennett makes clear. This book adds.
— Noel King, host, Morning Edition and Up First
Neon Girls: A Stripper's Education In Protest And Power by Jennifer Worley
This sex worker memoir begins as a typical babe in the woods tale about a young woman drawn to the adult industry for extra cash, but it quickly turns into something more galvanizing and urgent. A graduate student who danced at San Francisco’s storied Lusty Lady peep show during its 1990s heyday, Jennifer Worley confronted the controlling, exploitative rules of management by organizing her fellow strippers – many of them radical lesbians – into the world’s first unionized strip club and, later, worker-owned co-op. Neon Girls is lively and crucial – a slice of queer urban history and a necessary rethinking of sex work as a site of collective labor struggle.
— Sascha Cohen, book critic
A Promised Land by Barack Obama
Barack Obama began his literary career with Dreams From My Father, recalling the struggles of his youth while still in his early 30s. Now in A Promised Land, approaching 60, he recalls how his most audacious dreams came true in 2008 and details his first 30 months as U.S. president – from the Great Recession through Obamacare to the killing of Osama bin Laden. Obama continues the story he began telling before the world was listening. Whatever one’s deepest feelings about this man, they are likely to be brought to the surface by this book: We hear his voice in every sentence.
— Ron Elving, senior editor and correspondent, Washington Desk
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
In her most revealing and powerful memoir yet, the activist, speaker, bestselling author, and “patron saint of female empowerment” (People) explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet others’ expectations and start trusting the voice deep within us.
When You See Me by Lisa Gardner
#1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner unites three of her most beloved characters—Detective D. D. Warren, Flora Dane, and Kimberly Quincy—in a twisty new thriller, as they investigate a mysterious murder from the past…which points to a dangerous and chilling present-day crime.
The End of Her by Shari Lapena
Stephanie and Patrick are adjusting to life with their twin girls. Then Erica, a woman from Patrick’s past, appears and makes a disturbing accusation. Patrick had always said his first wife’s death was an accident, but now Erica claims it was murder. Stephanie isn’t sure what, or who, to believe.
The Guest List by Lucy Foley
On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.
