2020 Reading Challenge
I did not read as much as I had hoped I would this year. That can be be chalked up to [gestures broadly at everything] the 2020-ness of it all, which kept me in a constant doomscroll of "keeping up with the news" (or, more honestly, "keeping up with who Twitter is mad at right now"). I just couldn’t get myself to pick up a new book in the last weeks before the election and in the aftermath. That gaping hole is a disappointment for me—no matter how understandable it is. I want to be more focused in 2021, and, if there is less doom, hopefully that will be an easier ask of my brain.
But what I did read? I stand by every title. All great reads: by turns funny and touching and thought-provoking—not a dud or a thrower in the list.
Nothing to See Here - Kevin Wilson (1/4). Kids who catch fire, and the adults unequipped to figure out how to put them out. An apt metaphor for parenthood if there ever was one. Bonkers premise, but hilarious and touching in a sidelong way.
Trick Mirror - Jia Tolentino (1/19). More essays about contemporary life, pop culture, women, feminism, and the refractions of identity. I know what I like, so I couldn't miss this one.
Normal People - Sally Rooney (1/28). I enjoyed the reversals of power and the observations of class and region in a modern Irish context. It also made me glad to be older and not so into architecting DRAH-ma anymore.
Dept. of Speculation - Jenny Offill (2/15). A story of a marriage told through shards of information, veering from too far away to too close to see.
Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid (3/8). This book, cringe-funny but serious, could be represented in thumbnail by the description of the infamous video at its center: “This was a video about racism that you could watch without seeing any blood or ruining the rest of your day.”
Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng (3/28). More cringing, this time at the microagressions and intentional tone-deafness of the co-lead character.
Here for It - R. Eric Thomas (4/3). Delightfully funny essays of one man from the Internet’s journey to himself at the intersections of his identity as a gay, black, Christian man in America.
Say Nothing - Patrick Radden Keefe (4/14). “The downside of denying something everyone knows to be true is that the value of anything you say inevitably starts to depreciate.” Three guesses who that’s about. Such a well-written narrative of people involved in—and victims of—the IRA during the Troubles.
Something That May Shock and Discredit You - Daniel M. Lavery (4/29). I didn’t enjoy this as much as I thought I would. I started skimming the numerous biblical and literary “interludes,” which I felt pushed me away from the narrative as much as the more direct essays pulled me in. These more intimate passages were both thoughtful and funny—about Daniel pushing past stasis to name and pursue the person he wants to see in the mirror.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh (5/14). Sleeping through a year of your life out of selfishness, grief, and depression is the antihero journey I needed to read in 2020.
Wow, No Thank You - Samantha Irby (5/30) and
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life - Samantha Irby (6/13). Any book of essays that includes an annotated playlist of 90s alternative jams will get my eyes. Every. Damn. Time.
Feel Free - Zadie Smith (7/2). I guess I’m good for one Zadie Smith book per year.
Weird in a World That’s Not: A Career Guide for Misfits - Jennifer Romolini (7/13). I usually am not a reader of career-advice books, but Romolini had an excellent guest spot on the “Everything Is Fine” podcast and I wanted to read more on her perspective of perfectly imperfect paths in the working world.
Sex and Vanity - Kevin Kwan (8/17). Time for a vacation read with lots of food and travel, an E.M. Forster–sequel plot, with some observations on class and racism slipped in.
Becoming Dutchess Goldblatt - Anonymous (8/26). As one of her Twitter followers, I came for a breezy summer read, but came away having read a much more touching than expected memoir of family, loss, finding your voice, and Lyle Lovett.
How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time - Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer (9/15). I needed a comfort read. Nostalgia. So I reread this. I was the core Gen X demographic of Sassy, and I subscribed from 1988–1994. I “knew” the writers by name; I learned about politics and indie music from Sassy. I can’t believe I left that goldmine behind to get trashed when I moved out of my childhood home.
Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo (10/31). Sprawling multigenerational character study of interconnected black women in England (and one nonbinary person). I was almost turned off at the pretentious anti-punctuation style choice, but I kept going in spite of it and ended up enjoying the layered characters—layers revealed both by their inner thoughts as well as how they are interpreted by their mothers, daughters, students, and friends. By the end Evaristo had filled me with empathy for the humanity of her characters (even when pointing out their faults and pretensions, even as they are bothered or other other characters).
