2020, what a year! Despite the global pandemic, race riots, & a tumultuous presidential election, some things remained the same. Thankfully, I still sought & gained comfort & joy by reading; whether that was with hardbacks, paperbacks, kindle, or listening to audiobooks. Below is the list of books I read & my top five favorites:
- Lost & Wanted, Nell Freudenberger
- Britt-Marie Was Here, Fredrik Backman
- Everything Changes, Jonathan Tropper
- Catch & Kill: Lies, Spies, & a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, Ronan Farrow
- The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
- If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, & An Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood, Gregg Olson
- An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business & How You Can Take It Back, Elizabeth Rosenthal
- Come Home To Me, Liz Talley
- Know My Name, Chanel Miller
- Tell Me Lies, JP Pomare
- In An Instant, Suzanne Redfearn
- Wall of Silence, Tracy Buchanan
- My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell
- Notorious RBG: The Life & Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik
- Unspeakable Things, Jess Lourey
- Three Women, Lisa Toddeo
- Stories We Never Told, Sonja Youreg
- Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell
- Under The Water, Paul Pen
- Where The Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens
- The Other Woman, Sandie Jones
- Small Great Things, Jodie Picoult
- Chasing The Dead, Tim Weaver
- Everything is Horrible & Wonderful, Stephanie Wittels Wachs
- An Exit Interview With My Grandmother, Lily Meyersohn
- What Christians Believe, C.S. Lewis
- Hunger, Roxane Gray
- My Ex-Life, Stephen McCauley
- My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry, Fredrik Backman
- Sold On A Monday, Kristina McMorris
- Beartown, Fredrik Backman
- Us Against You, Fredrik Backman
- And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer & Longer, Fredrik Backman
- The Good Girl, Mary Kubica
- The Dark Bones, Loreth Anne White
- A House In The Sky, Amanda Lindout & Sara Corbett
- Anxious People, Fredrik Backman
- The Rules of Magic, Alice Hoffman
- How We Change (And Ten Reasons Why We Don’t), Ross Ellenhorn
- Eat A Peach, David Chang
- A Single Swallow, Zhang Ling
- The Murmur of Bees, Sofia Segovia
- How To Slowly Kill Yourself & Others, Kiese Laymon
- Resistance, Tori Amos
- Emotional First Aid, Guy Wench
- Bloodline, Jess Lourey
My favorite five, in no particular order of favorites:
Nonfiction
“It was a consensus about the organization’s comfort level moving forward that bowed to lawyers & threats that hemmed & hawed & parsed & shrugged that sat on multiple credible allegations of sexual misconduct & disregarded a recorded admission of guilt. That language of indifference without ownership upheld so much silence in so many places. It was a consensus about the organization’s comfort level moving forward that protected Harvey Weinstein & men like him that yawned & gaped & enveloped law firms & PR shops & executive suites & industries that swallowed women whole.”
Memoir
“DA: ‘Did you have any intention of kissing the defendant?’ I looked up at Brock, his eyes already on me. I stared back. The thing about victims is that they wake up. Maybe you thought I’d never be able to go through with this. Maybe you thought, she has no memory. But I will never let you forget. DA: ‘Did you have any interest in him at all?’ I wanted to climb onto my stand with a large red paint brush to paint NO across the back wall of the court room in long red strokes, each letter 20 feet tall. I wanted a banner to unfurl from the ceiling releasing crimson balloons. I wanted everyone’s shirts lifted, N’s & O’s painted across hairy stomachs. NO NO NO NO NO doing the wave. I wanted to say, ask me again. Ask me 1 million times and that will always be my answer. No is the beginning & end of the story.”
Fiction
“With the sun on my face & a dog at my side, I have so much capacity for good. There’s nothing else to do but start from here. With the gentle pressure from the leash in my hand, the clink of metal, & click of toenails on brick. Ruby says it will take a while to feel truly changed, that I need to give myself the chance to see more of the world without him behind my eyes. I’m already starting to feel the difference. There’s a clearness, a lightness.”
Fiction
“Bitterness can be corrosive, it can rewrite your memories, as if it were scrubbing a crime scene clean, until in the end you only remember what suits you of its causes.”
Memoir
“I tried to locate what had been good about the day that had just passed. I looked for any moments where my captors had shown their humanity…In the context of the life I once lived, these were small things, ridiculous things, really, but in this place, & under these circumstances, they meant everything. By concentrating on what I was grateful for, I managed to work loose the knots. Each time my captors threw me into that hole, I found another way to climb out. It wasn’t easy. Not ever. Not once. But this way if thinking became my ladder, my doorway. Anywhere, anywhere I reminded myself. I could go anywhere.”
TheCompanySheKeeps 