GTFO, 2020. 

That’s it for my commentary on the year. Now, onto books.

Since many things now are different than they were in the Before Times, so is this blog. Forget chronological. Now we do this by category. Random and silly – and yes, imperfect – categories. If you also follow me on Instagram, some blurbs repeat from what I posted there (but I’m banking on either you not remembering what I wrote or Insta’s algorithm not having shown you the post, and who are we kidding, both are highly likely.) I put my honourable mentions in each category instead of tacking on the extra list at the end.

Also, big change, since my star ratings are a thing of the past, these are not necessarily just the quote-unquote five-star books. They’re my absolute faves, the ones that blew me away, but also, some that I just really enjoyed a hell of a lot and the ones I feel like writing about now. 

There are a TON of books below. Sorry/notsorry… I read 162 books this year and would recommend about 140 of them. So, be glad I got things pared down this much. Feel free to skip categories that don’t interest you, and/or jump to the TL;DR short list. 

LET’S JUST GET THE ONE THAT MAKES ME RANT OUT OF THE WAY FIRST

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, by Shoshana Zuboff
(681 pages, published 2018)

You are being surveilled right now. Not by Big Brother – worse, by Big Tech. They’re watching. Every search term you Google. Everything you write in your Yahoo email. Every photo or update or comment you read or like or post or like on Facebook. Every purchase you make on Amazon. Every show you watch on Netflix. Every step and heartbeat recorded by your Fitbit. Everything you say in the presence of Siri (or your Samsung TV). Every item in the path of your Roomba. Every article you click on Twitter. Every Uber ride you take – including where you go after you get out of the car. Even if you don’t use any of the above (and I used one named example per category but you can bet it’s every company), there are sensors in the world that detect when you walk by with a phone in your pocket, facial recognition to know when you enter places, and trackers on store shelves to know what your eyeballs are looking at. They’re watching, they’re listening, they’re recording, AND they’re selling whatever they collect – without your knowledge, over and over and over again. THAT’S how these companies are reaping astronomical profits, beyond fathoming by us mere mortals. Think it’s not a big deal? Think it doesn’t affect you? Wait until a landlord won’t rent to you, a financial institution won’t lend to you, a company won’t do business with you, an insurer won’t cover you, an employer won’t hire you, a school won’t admit you, or government or law enforcement denies you your freedom or your rights – because of your presumed financial information, health status, lifestyle, political opinions, or whereabouts that were scraped from your digital footprint. Never mind people you don’t want knowing your damn business knowing all of your damn business. An employer can’t ask you if you’re pregnant, but what if they backdoor their way to finding out if you looked up pregnancy symptoms or shopped for baby stuff? (I know no one here is getting pregnant anytime soon, but you get the point. Replace “pregnant” with anything in your own life.)

And that’s not even the worst part!!! Once it gathers, sells and buys all this intel, Big Tech uses it to perfect their prediction models, and uses those to direct how you behave, what you think, and what you buy. They are completely eliminating your decision rights. They only show you what they want to show you, and they show it in such a way that nudges you. You don’t make decisions any more, algorithms do. Have fun playing Pokémon Go, did you? That was developed as a massive experiment to see if tech could control people’s movements out in the world. Feeling stressed and anxious? That’s the algorithms pushing ever more polarizing and extreme content on you, and fomenting that discomfort, because you’re more profitable that way. Now you’re mad, right? Well, we agreed to all of this, ALL OF IT, because we’re addicted to our devices, we like cool gadgets and don’t want to feel left out, we’re lazy and seek convenience, we fall for marketing, and we don’t read those terms of use before clicking “Agree.” Big Tech’s greatest trick of all: they made it seem like this was all inevitable, when it wasn’t.

P.S.: FWIW, according to the book, at the moment, Apple seems to steal less of you than Google/Android.

P.P.S.: I find it funny that people are wary of the government’s covid app, which is WAY less intrusive than any of the above that they use without batting an eye. One purchase on Amazon generates something like 150,000 data points, but sure, wouldn’t want to grant the covid app access to truly anonymous data in an effort to save lives. 

P.P.P.S.: That’s the longest one, I promise.

THESE PUT THE “LIT” IN LITERARY FICTION

The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett
(343 pages, published 2020)

This generated a TON of buzz before it arrived, since Bennett’s debut novel The Mothers was so good. Does her sophomore offering live up to the massive hype? Oh yes!! Me, I liked it better. (Readers seem to be split on which one they prefer.) It’s a story spanning decades and generations, of twin sisters and their disparate worlds – one is a Black woman in the Jim Crow south, and one escapes that life and passes for White.

Girl, by Edna O’Brien
(240 pages, published 2019)

“I was a girl once, but not any more. I smell. Blood dried and crusted all over me, and my wrapper in shreds. My insides, a morass. Hurtled through this forest that I saw, that first awful night, when I and my friends were snatched from the school.” And so begins this novel of the Chibok schoolgirls, kidnapped by Boko Haram. This left me in absolute pieces.

The Great Believers, by Rebecca Makkai
(421 pages, published 2018)

Chicago. 1980s. Boystown. AIDS. Published in 2018, I’m sure I would have loved it just as much had I read it pre-covid, but it resonates even more now. “It seemed such an alien concept now, to have a normal day. To walk around oblivious, just participating in the world.” Ain’t that the f’ing truth.

Praise Song for the Butterflies, by Bernice McFadden
(264 pages, published 2018)

There’s a dreamlike quality to the writing in this decade- and continent-spanning tale of ritual servitude – AKA being sold into slavery as a religious sacrifice – in West Africa. The country and religious shrine depicted are fictional, but the tradition is very real, and ongoing.

Apeirogon, by Colum McCann
(463 pages, published 2020)

One Israeli, one Palestinian, two dead daughters, endless shared grief. Weaving together the real and the imagined, this is magnificent.

Transcendent Kingdom, by Yaa Gyasi
(264 pages, published 2020)

It’s not often that the descriptor for the book is right there in its title. But so it is with this triumph of a creation – a story of a scientist, of her faith, of her family torn apart by addiction… of humanity. This was one of the most highly anticipated books of the year, after Gyasi’s runaway hit debut, Homegoing. The books are very different from each other, but both stellar. Her talent is just beyond. Beyond!!

Find Me, by André Aciman
(260 pages, published 2019)

Breathtaking. Again. The story of Elio and Oliver continues. If you haven’t read Call Me By Your Name, do so, then read this. I want to live in the pages of these books with their gorgeous prose.

What Are You Going Through, by Sigrid Nunez
(210 pages, published 2020)

If you don’t like books where not much *happens* this is not for you. If you like books with simple storylines and spare, elegant writing that reflect on facets of humanity – in this case, aging, suffering, friendship, choice, empathy, fate – then you will want to immerse yourself in this one.

The Office of Historical Corrections, by Danielle Evans
(269 pages, published 2020)

It’s not often you see a collection of short stories on my list. But this one is subversively brilliant. The young woman protagonist in each story is not what she seems on the face of things, or she straddles two worlds, or she is slowly transforming as she rolls down a slippery slope. The storylines are gripping as they unfurl both the action and these dualities.

Utopia Avenue, by David Mitchell
(574 pages, published 2020)

There were two competing forces in my brain going into this one. I love David Mitchell’s books and he’s not just an automatic read for me, he’s an automatic be-waiting-outside-the-bookstore-before-it-even-opens-on-publication-day. But, the thought of a novel about a 1960s English psychedelic/folk/rock band did not really appeal. I shouldn’t have been worried – it was bloody brilliant, mate.

Almost made the list:

• Ask Again, Yes, by Mary Beth Keane
• The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
• Luster, by Raven Lalani
• Weather, by Jenny Offill
• Normal People, by Sally Rooney
• Queenie, by Candace Carty-Williams
• The Prettiest Star, by Carter Sickels
• The Illness Lesson, by Clare Beams
• Kaddish.com, by Nathan Englander
• Valentine, by Elizabeth Wetmore

CANLIT IS THE MOST LIT

The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel
(302 pages, published 2020)

In this one, the author of Station Eleven combines a luxury hotel in the middle of literally nowhere, a massive Ponzi scheme, international shipping routes, and a ghost story. It sounds like it shouldn’t all work – but somehow, it does!

Misconduct of the Heart, by Cordelia Strube
(400 pages, published 2020)

Here goes my usual Cordelia Strube preamble: how she is not a household name in Toronto or in Canadian literary circles is beyond me. Once again she uses a seemingly silly plot to explore issues of rape, familial estrangement, elder care, addiction and more. So it’s not silly at all.

Ridgerunner, by Gil Adamson
(443 pages, published 2020)

Me, on reading the jacket blurb: Ugh, I don’t want to read this, it’s totally not going to be my thing, I’ll suck it up cuz it’s a Giller finalist

Me, two paragraphs in: Wowwwwwwwwwwwww 

This follows characters from Adamson’s previous novel, set 20 years prior, but reading Outlander is not a prerequisite for immersing yourself in this gorgeous literary western about a thief, his abandoned son, and a do-good nun. 

Polar Vortex, by Shani Mootoo
(280 pages, published 2020)

I love the pace at which this tension builds in this one, about a lesbian couple whose routine of contentedness is upended by a visit from one’s former friend…but is he really friend, or enemy? It questions our ability to perceive things as they really are when it comes to friendship, love and betrayal. This was my fave of the Giller finalists. 

THE GREAT DIVIDE: BLACK AND WHITE

How to be an Anti-Racist, by Ibram X. Kendi
(305 pages, published 2019)

Ibram Kendi is having a moment. This is the more day-to-day, how-to companion to Stamped From the Beginning, his stupendous history of racism, but denser and more academic than this. (I read this in February, and good thing too, because by summer you couldn’t get your hands on it.) Racism is not quite what you think it is; neither is anti-racism. It’ll blow your mind, no matter how woke you think you are.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson
(662 pages, published 2010)

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson
(496 pages, published 2020)

Ten years old now, The Warmth of Other Suns is a deep and personal narrative of the Great Migration. From WWI to 1970, over six million Black Southerners left the land they worked, their people, their homes – and the oppressive boot of Jim Crow – for destinations North and West. This mass movement entirely recast the demographics, politics, economics, infrastructure, and culture of the United States, across the South the migrants fled and in the far-flung arrival cities. The book enjoyed a resurgence this year after it was announced that Caste would be hitting shelves in the summer. Wilkerson says right in Caste that it explains a lot, but it doesn’t explain everything. Oh but I think it goes a long way. When we speak of issues of race, what we usually mean is caste, the structure that goes unnamed in America but that undergirds all of society; it is a shorthand that dictates in a flash what one person expects of and how he or she or they will treat another. It keeps groups in their fixed hierarchy that don’t ever budge. This caste system is not directly acknowledged like India’s, or excoriated in hindsight like Nazi Germany’s – both of which Wilkerson also includes for context – but it very much exists, and it’s going to take a lot of work to eliminate. I will recommend this one to every person I encounter until the end of time.

Both books are beautifully written. Both are endlessly fascinating but necessarily full of pain. Caste essentially serves as a primer on how 73 million people voted for you-know-whom. 

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, by Robin DiAngelo
(154 pages, published 2018)

“Racism is a structure, not an event.” Written for White progressives, because racism isn’t what we tend to think it is. The concepts in here are vital to anti-racism and allyship.

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, by Renni Eddo-Lodge
(249 pages, published 2017)

Black people have been telling us forever how things really are for them. And we said, we can’t possibly be racist, we don’t see colour. Then we said, Things are great now, we’re post-racial. Then we said, Hmmm, we’re starting to get the feeling there are some inequities in society, and a few bad apples, but it’s not our fault. Then this summer we said, Whoa, our bad, we get it now, we’re privileged, we exist in White supremacy, we’re going to “do better.” And we declared ourselves allies and bought all the anti-racism books. (Literally, they were sold out.) And now… has anything changed???

The title is ironic, because of course in publishing a book by that name the author has ended up speaking to legions of White people about it. Eddo-Lodge is a Londoner so she writes of racism and White privilege in Britain – a good reminder that systemic racism is everywhere; nowhere is “better” than the U.S. She writes smartly about the intersection of race and feminism and class, too.

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, by Patrisse Kahn-Cullors
(257 pages, published 2018)

America: where torch- or gun-toting White people shouting racist slogans or storming state capitols are allowed to carry on because they are just exercising their first amendment rights, while unarmed Black people marching – or, god forbid, kneeling during the anthem – to seek an end to police brutality and centuries of injustice and oppression are arrested, beaten, tear-gassed, and labelled “thugs” and “terrorists.” More than the fascinating origin story of Black Lives Matter, this is a moving memoir of life in Black skin.

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown
(185 pages, published 2018)

That title doesn’t lie. We’ve built a society where the onus is on Black people to fight for that dignity, to act a certain way around us to achieve it, and it’s work for them, every single day. We will never ever ever truly know what that’s like. 

The Skin We’re In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power, by Desmond Cole
(320 pages, published 2020)

A painful but eye-opening roam through a year in Toronto, from a perspective I can never experience, but strive to understand. Shines a light on racism in Canada. It’s here, and it’s not racism-lite – I don’t know why anyone around here thinks that’s the case. Maybe it’s the same reason Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, George Floyd are well-known names, but we don’t remember Andrew Loku, Jermaine Carby, Michael Eligon, Abdirahman Abdi – all killed by police here. We’re too glued to the ongoing reality show to the south. 

Almost made the list:

• The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart, by Alicia Garza

ANOTHER GREAT DIVIDE: MEN AND WOMEN

Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl, by Jeannie Vanasco
(360 pages, published 2019)

Boy rapes girl. Girl carries on with her life. Girl confronts boy 14 years later and interviews him and makes him own it and writes a book about it. 

Formation: A Woman’s Memoir of Stepping Out of Line, by Ryan Leigh Dostie
(368 pages, published 2019)

Rape memoir, cult memoir, war memoir, PTSD memoir. All in one book.

Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Women and Girls, by Elizabeth Renzetti
(304 pages, published 2018)

Good idea to immerse myself in a work about our perpetual state of misogyny? Surprisingly – and luckily – it’s funny. I loved this from the first couple of pages and thought right away every woman needs to read it. Then I thought every young girl should read it. Then I thought no no no to hell with that, every MAN needs to read it. Every. Last. One. Of. Them.

Almost made the list:

• Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, by Caroline Criado Perez

YET ANOTHER GREAT DIVIDE: INDIGENOUS AND SETTLER

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, by Alicia Elliott
(240 pages, published 2019)

In this touching memoir-in-essays, Tuscarora writer Alicia Elliott explores not only Indigenous issues but also race, class, colonization, body image, domestic violence, sexism, mental illness, etc. (You know, all my favourite topics.)

Five Little Indians, by Michelle Good
(304 pages, published 2020)

Let’s never forget that for over a century our government ripped Indigenous children from their families, locked them away for the duration of their childhoods, forced them to abandon their languages and any shreds of their traditional knowledge and customs, kept them malnourished, and left them in the “care” of priests and nuns who raped and abused them. Michelle Good, a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation, achingly and beautifully captures in this novel the experiences and lingering trauma of five residential school survivors.

One Drum: Stories and Ceremonies for a Planet, by Richard Wagamese
(192 pages, published 2019)

I suppose this is the last new Richard Wagamese we’ll ever get. His unfinished manuscript, sharing the ceremonies that helped him navigate his life, published posthumously. As always when it comes to Wagamese, it’s gorgeous.

Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, by Jessica McDiarmid
(332 pages, published 2019)

In these pages are the heartbreaking stories of women and girls who disappeared along Highway 16 in British Columbia over recent decades (and still going on, after the book was published). Most are First Nations. Reminding us that Canada’s genocide against Indigenous peoples is not confined to the history books. How does this happen? The now-familiar systemic problems. Racism, of course. Poverty. Addiction. The legacy of residential schools, a faulty child welfare system. The state of policing, the nature of news, and the confluence of the two. The culture of the RCMP. The callousness of governments. The vastness of northern B.C., the sparseness of populations and services there. 

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
(391 pages, published 2013)

Robin Wall Kimmerer combines her Indigenous heritage and biology training to write gorgeous vignettes about the natural world and our place in it, and what it means to be part of these societies we’ve built – the ones here originally and the ones that came later. The book begins with the origin legend of Turtle Island, and it’s beautiful.

From the Ashes, by Jesse Thistle
(368 pages, published 2019)

Thistle recounts how he survived his parents, the foster system, the streets, addiction, prison – and one accident that should have killed him – to turn his life around and embrace his Métis-Cree heritage. It’s a searing memoir. 

OK CLEARLY WE AS A SOCIETY HAVE A LOT OF GREAT DIVIDES BECAUSE HERE’S ANOTHER ONE: CIS AND TRANS, NON-BINARY, GENDER-NON-CONFORMING, OR GENDERQUEER 

This One Looks Like a Boy: My Gender Journey to Life as a Man, by Lorimer Shenher
(304 pages, published 2019)

My heart aches for people living with gender dysphoria. Shenher writes his life story – his transition of course, but also about his work as a cop, investigating the disappearance of women and girls in Vancouver at the hands of Robert Pickton, and the PTSD resulting from that. I appreciate his including a bit of insight about the privilege society grants him as a man vs the sexism he knows women experience – which became even more clear once he was on the other side of the table.

Almost made the list:

• Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More, by Janet Mock

MEMOIRS TO MOVE YOU

Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication and Music, by James Rhodes
(304 pages, published 2015)

This is one of the most staggering captures of humanity in ink and wood pulp that I have ever read. It is both gritty and sublime at the same time. The book includes a chapter-by-chapter classical playlist (curated by Rhodes and available on Spotify), and a fuck-ton of trigger warnings. Rhodes’s story is one of childhood atrocity and its aftermath, and he had to fight all the way to the Supreme Court of the U.K. to win the right to publish it.

No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America, by Darnell Moore
(243 pages, published 2018)

I am the most atheistic person you know, and yet reading this felt divine. Moore writes of anguish, and the process of emerging from it, with absolute grace. 

Mighty Justice: My Life in Civil Rights, by Dovey Johnson Roundtree (with Katie McCabe)
(304 pages, published 2019)

Dovey Johnson Roundtree was a pillar of the civil rights movement, yet hardly anyone knows her name. She broke barriers for Black people and barriers for women, from the military to courtrooms to the church. Such a fascinating life – and she lived to 104!

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True (as Told to Me) Story, by Bess Kalb
(224 pages, published 2020)

This is so special. The love story of a grandmother and granddaughter, written by the latter in the words of the former. The two of them are a joy to read. Especially the transcripts of conversations and voicemails. They prove that nobody in the world loves you like your grandmother loves you. Woven into their story is also an interesting history of fleeing pogroms, immigrating, and assimilating.

The Beauty in Breaking, by Michele Harper
(304 pages, published 2020)

I didn’t so much read this as feel it viscerally. As this ER doc recounted some of her cases and experiences my heart was in my throat or I silently raged or I bawled. BAWLED. She also weaved in some of her personal history, with takes on violence and systemic racism.

The Choice: Embrace the Possible, by Edith Eva Egar
(360 pages, published 2017)

Holocaust memoir slash psychology of healing guide. Powerful is an understatement. Recommended by Bill Gates AND my book group. (Two comparable forces in the world for sure!)

In the Dream House, by Carmen Maria Machado
(251 pages, published 2019)

We don’t tend to think of it this way, but domestic violence and psychological abuse happen between romantic partners of the same sex, too. This is beautifully written, with a unique structure – there’s even a choose your own adventure segment. 

They Said This Would Be Fun: Race, Campus Life and Growing Up, by Eternity Martis
(256 pages, published 2020)

Martis sheds a light on what really goes on in Canadian universities and university towns. Think they’re bastions of intellectualism and liberal thought? Nope. The racism, rape culture and violence she lived through shatter that myth. 

Almost made the list:

• We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir, by Samra Habib
• Solitary: Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement – My Story of Transformation and Hope, by Albert Woodfox
• Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, by Jose Antonio Vargas 
• Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church, by Megan Phelps-Roper

ESSAYS AREN’T JUST FOR SCHOOL

You Can’t Touch My Hair and Other Things I Still Have to Explain, by Phoebe Robinson
(285 pages, published 2016)

Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay, by Phoebe Robinson
(336 pages, published 2018)

Phoebe Robinson is like a sociology professor turned personal life coach presenting as a stand-up comic. Her observations about serious issues (racism) and slightly less serious issues (standing jeans vs sitting jeans) are profound, hilarious, and spot-on. I listened to these on walks, which meant ending up prostrate on the sidewalk from laughing so hard. I promise you, you need her in your life.

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower, by Brittney Cooper
(288 pages, published 2018)

Cooper writes about feminism, sexism, race, economic inequality, intersectionality, Black exceptionalism, and respectability politics. She champions “Black humanity and possibility,” and explores the harnessing of a lot of societal rage. I wish I could take one of the professor’s classes but no way I’m smart enough so I’ll settle for reading more of her in future.

The Groom Will Keep His Name: And Other Vows I’ve Made About Race, Resistance, and Romance, by Matt Ortile
(336 pages, published 2020)

Based on the title and look of the cover, which has a cutesy drawing of a dude on a wedding cake, I was expecting a lighthearted romp. Nope… instead I got some gut-punch passages about immigrating, sex, model minorities, marriage, impermanence, family, and navigating the BS that is the U.S. as a gay Filipino man. So there you go, don’t judge books by their covers.

Almost made the list:

• Untamed, by Glennon Doyle
• Wow, No Thank You, by Samantha Irby
• Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, by Jia Tolentino

SOME PEOPLE CAN SEE THE FUTURE

Suicide Club, by Rachel Heng
(339 pages, published 2018)

Are you one of those people intrigued by the idea of living 200 years? 300? A thousand???? Not me, noooooo way. But I did love reading this prime speculative fiction that imagines that world. 

The Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler
(329 pages, published 1993)

It’s the 2020s, California. Climate change and a failing economy have led to a pretty much complete societal collapse. Economic slavery is a thing, and so is racism, STILL. The story starts on the eve of a presidential election, where one candidate is promising to take the country back to the good ol’ days, which, given the state of things, is impossible. Sounds like current events, huh?! Nope, speculative fiction written in 1993. The prescience of some writers, man. On the bright side, things IRL aren’t as dire as the vivid dystopia depicted on these pages. A few scraps of weekly groceries don’t cost a thousand dollars and we don’t hear whispered tall tales of cannibalism. Yet.

Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back, by Mark O’Connell
(272 pages, published 2020)

Information that would have been USEFUL TO ME NINE MONTHS AGO. Just kidding. This investigative non-fiction does examine preppers and Mars seekers and an unlivable wasteland, but at its core it’s not so much about the hows of the end of the world. Rather, it asks what kind of civilization and people do we want to be before then.

Almost made the list:

• Radicalized, by Cory Doctorow

WHO READS PANDEMIC BOOKS DURING A PANDEMIC????

The Pull of the Stars, by Emma Donoghue
(295 pages, published 2020)

In 2018, Donoghue’s interest in the Spanish flu pandemic was piqued by its centennial. Little did she know her novel of three days in a maternity-influenza ward in 1918 Dublin would hit so close to home when the book rolled out in 2020. It’d be a gripping read at any time though. 

Zone One, by Colson Whitehead
(332 pages, published 2011)

This is what pop culture had us believe a pandemic would look like, before one actually hit. You know, where you suddenly develop mad survivalist skills and roam your former hometown that is now a ghost town where there is danger (and zombies) around every corner. (Compared to that, I’ll take sitting on my couch for two years, thanks!) But don’t mistake this for a run-of-the-mill plot-driven thriller; Whitehead delivers more than that, delving into characters and social issues. Every book of his is so different, you don’t know what you’re going to get when you crack open page 1. This is my fave of his yet.

Almost made the list:

• The Down Days, by Ilze Hugo

HASHTAG OWNVOICES (AKA, READ LATINX) (AKA, NOPE TO AMERICAN DIRT)

Tell Me How it Ends: An Essay in 40 questions, by Valeria Luiselli
(128 pages, published 2017)

A look inside the lives of child asylum seekers and the system that sweeps them up. The extreme violence and poverty they are fleeing, the horrors they face along the route, and the coldness – literal and figurative – with which they are received by U.S. Border Patrol and too many citizens. Excuse me while I curl into a ball and weep. 

The House of Broken Angels, by Luis Alberto Urrea
(326 pages, published 2018)

Hang out in San Deigo for a while with this outrageous family if you want to feel better about your own. And then maybe a tad jealous of theirs. 

The Undocumented Americans, by Carla Cornejo Villavicencio
(208 pages, published 2020)

Peek into the lives of the estimated 11 million undocumented people in the U.S. Lives you and I can’t even imagine. Not being able to seek medical treatment, get a driver’s license, travel. A jolt of terror at the sight of any uniform. Remaining always unseen, which maybe makes you feel less human. Being reviled by conservatives and expected to fit a fixed narrative by liberals, both a kind of racism. Having no social safety net, despite paying taxes and working damn hard, yes, even harder than the workaholic White people you serve… growing or picking food, manicuring hands and lawns, cleaning homes and offices, constructing or delivering everything and anything, even hauling toxic debris out of Ground Zero. Wanting to get those papers, wanting to contribute, but with no real options for doing so. I probably use the phrase “eye-opening” way too many times when writing my blurbs, but this truly is. It even gave me a new aspect of 9/11 to ponder.

Afterlife, by Julia Alvarez
(256 pages, published 2020)

One protagonist, three strands: grieving her recently deceased husband, searching for a missing sister, aiding undocumented neighbours.

Almost made the list:

• Children of the Land, by Marcello Hernandez Castillo
• Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli 

SO DAMN INTERESTING

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, by Robert Kolker
(400 pages, published 2020)

One family. Twelve children. Six schizophrenia diagnoses. One-and-a-half centuries of mental illness treatments and research. Fifty-four years journeying towards compassion and gratitude. Incredible story.

The Lost Family: How DNA Testing Is Uncovering Secrets, Reuniting Relatives, and Upending Who We Are, by Libby Copeland
(294 pages, published 2020)

Imagine the fortitude of customer service reps at a consumer genetic genealogy service. Basically every day, people call you up to yell that their results aren’t right and they know what their heritage is and your company’s science sucks. But here’s the thing: the science is never wrong. Genetic surprises happen A LOT. Way more than you’d think. (Remember that if you ever plan on spitting into one of those test tubes.) And that has consequences for families and society. This is a fascinating dive into the culture of “seekers,” the science of genetic genealogy, the meaning of ethnicity, and where all this info can lead us – all interlaced with one woman’s quest to solve an extraordinary family mystery.

Almost made the list:

• Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, by John Carreyrou
• This Is Not the End of Me: Lessons on Living from a Dying Man, by Dakshana Bascaramurty
• Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love, by Dani Shapiro
• Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom, by Katherine Eban

HOW DOES THIS THING WORK? (AND BY “THIS THING” I MEAN THE HUMAN BODY)

The Body: A Guide for Occupants, by Bill Bryson
(450 pages, published 2019)

It’s amazing how one can inhabit a body for [insert # of years here] and not really and truly know how it functions. This is a little bit biology, a little bit anthropology, all for regular peeps. There was a lot in here that blew my mind, but especially this: “All the richness of life is created inside your head. What you see is not what is but what your brain tells you is, and that’s not the same thing.” 🤯

The Lady’s Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness, by Sarah Ramey
(432 pages, published 2020)

If you are a woman, read this book. If you have any interest in wellness, or in medical memoirs, read this book. If you have, or love someone who has, a chronic, unidentified, or autoimmune condition, DROP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND READ THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW. If you are a dismissive (probably male, but not always) doctor, or tend not to believe that someone is sick because he or she or they don’t “look” sick, check yourself, find your empathy, and read this.

“HELLO? IS THIS MY SWEET BARACK? BARACK OBAMA, I MISS YOU.”*

A Promised Land, by Barack Obama
(768 pages, published 2020)

Yes, he gets his own category. No, I did not just assume the book would be brilliant and automatically write it into this list before it even hit shelves.** Did it live up to the hype? Oh yes, it’s magnificent. A masterpiece. The writing is glorious. It’s an outstanding glimpse behind the curtain at the road to the White House, life inside it, and how decisions are made on infinitely complex issues where the choices are between bad and worse. His humanity, his compassion, his humility, his intellect and his humour come through. It’s not a flawless book and he wasn’t a flawless president, but he knows that.

*The category title is a line from a 2017 SNL sketch featuring the phenomenal Kate McKinnon playing a distraught Angela Merkel.  

**Of course I did. 

THE SHORT LIST

I tried to sum up and narrow down my absolute faves:

• Instrumental, by James Rhodes
• No Ashes in the Fire, by Darnell Moore
• Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson
• A Promised Land, by Barack Obama
• The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett
• Transcendent Kingdom, by Yaa Gyasi
• No, You Can’t Touch My Hair and Everything’s Trash, by Phoebe Robinson
• Apeirogon, by Colum McCann
• Nobody Will Tell You This But Me, by Bess Kalb
• Five Little Indians, by Michelle Good
• Really, the entire literary fiction category 🤷🏻‍♀️

Happy (maybe?!) New Year, all!