A pleasant side effect of the pandemic has been more time to read. I was a little surprised at my final number as the rest of my family does not observe Sacred Lunch Reading Time and expected to interact while we ate. That’s what dinner’s for. Lunch is for reading.

I read 83 books in 2020 compared to 68 in 2019. This is still less than my all-time high which was, if I recall correctly, 99 in 1997 (My first notebook is somewhere in the basement, but apparently not in any of the places where it should logically be, so I can’t confirm.) For the first time, I added audiobooks to my repertoire so I could listen while taking walks or doing household chores. I also resigned myself to reading more ebooks until the library re-opened (I love you, SPL!) and found that maybe they aren’t so bad after all.

Here are the books that stood out to me in 2020:

Favorite Fiction & Nonfiction

Girl, Woman, Other – Bernadine Evanisto

The Nickel Boys – Colson Whitehead

The City We Became – NK Jemison

Separation Anxiety – Laura Zigman

The Daughters of Erietown – Connie Schultz

The Street – Ann Petry

Red at the Bone – Jacqueline Woodson

Subduction – Kristen Millares Young

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland – Patrick Radden Keefe

Favorite Self-Help Books