Books of the Year lists, 2020

Over the last 11 years I’ve done a compilation of Books of the Year lists at www.sccenglish.ie. Now it’s moved here for the first time, with lists that feature in the press (excluding pay-walled material, unless it accidentally slips in) and on some blogs. This is a selective list of the highest-quality lists: if you want almost everything that moves, check out Largehearted Boy.

The list will be updated regularly up to Christmas.

Previous lists are here for every year since 2010 are here.

• The Irish Times has best books of the year as chosen by Irish authors: Danielle Clarke goes for Anne Enright’s latest novel, Actress, and Joseph O’Connor writes: ‘never thought I would see a truly readable, edgy version of that tiresome old slugfest Beowulf, but thanks to the brilliant translation by Maria Dahvana Headley, we now have one’ (discussed in a recent Backlisted episode). Also, the Irish Times Best books for Christmas 2020: Fiction, biography, sport and kids’ has a focus on Irish books, such as, in the Crime section, John Banville, Louise O’Neill and Tana French. Plus best children’s books and best Christmas stories.

• The Irish Independent’s critics choose their best in many categories. Justine Carbery chooses Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’s beautiful The Lost Spells, and teenager Dara McAnulty’s garlanded Diary of a Young Naturalist.

• The Guardian’s selections are always top-notch. Click through for Fiction, Children’s Books, Crime and Thrillers, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Memoir and Celebrity Books, Politics, Ideas, Sport, Nature and Science, Poetry, Comics and Graphic Novels, Art, Food, and Stocking Fillers. Since it’s far too much to cover all that, I selected Poetry, in which Rishi Dastidar selects mentions two books I’ve bought, like Rachel Long’s My Darling from the Lions and Sean Hewitt’s Tongues of Fire. I always like readers’ choices.

• The New York Times has its annual 100 Notable Books, with 2020 including Barbara Demick’s Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town (following her superb book on North Korea a few years back) and Marilynne Robinson’s latest novel in the Gilead series, Jack.

• Unsurprisingly, the Times Literary Supplement’s list is always excellent. This time, 65 writers from around the world put forward their recommendations. Listen to their podcast Books of the Year 2020 here, including mention of the late Eavan Boland, and the promising Martha Sprackland.

• In The Spectator, there is mention for the consistent Charles Cumming’s Box 88, which is ‘a wonderfully taut, exciting and up-to-date spy thriller.’

• In the New Statesman Rose Tremain goes for Inside Story by Martin Amis (who I gave up on years ago). Ian Rankin on Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet: ‘The chapter detailing the arrival of the plague into England is worth the price of admission alone – and the ending of the book is sublime’. Agreed. Nicola Sturgeon on Summer by Ali Smith. Smith is in a class of her own and the culmination of her remarkable seasonal quartet proves it.

• The Belfast Telegraph’s ‘pick of lockdown year’s best books’ Irish selection is by Myra Zepf, Kelly Creighton and Patsy Horton. Time for me to read Brian McGilloway, another English teacher; The Last Crossing sounds good.

• BBC Culture’s Best Books of the Year starts with Barack Obama’s A Promised Land (I can confirm it’s fascinating) and also has the Booker-shortlisted Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi.

• Bernardine Evaristo wrote three hugely enjoyable books I read this year. Here’s her own selection for 2020.

• Vanity Fair present 15 best books. Find Layla by Meg Elison sounds interesting: ‘Despite its adult themes, the story reads like an adventure pitched precisely for children too young to be going through it—and an unsweetened peek into the inner moral battles of a neglected preteen.’

• Bookriot always has lots of lists, from their main one, to many other genres.

• Five Books is a simple idea, brilliantly done: perhaps the best place to get recommendations on any subject. They have lots of lists for 2020 (5 per list, of course) from authoritative curators. Just one example: Emily Connelly on best audiobooks for kids.

• The Los Angeles Times’s angle is ‘The 20 reads book people actually want this year’, including the new novel from the massively popular Elena Ferrante, The Lying Life of Adults (good title).

• The NPR list is huge, and you need their concierge, no less, to make your way through it. Here’s their Seriously Great Writing section, including Vesper Flights by Helen McDonald, author of the intense H is for Hawk and including an extraordinary piece of writing on the swift.

• Esquire magazine wants to ‘elevate’ your reading list: World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil sounds great.

• On a slightly different note, Penguin designers on their favourite covers of 2020: I like the one for Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. by Joyce Carol Oates.

• Vulture has Molly Young’s 10 best books of the year, including Susanna Clarke’s much-anticipated and highly-praised Piranesi.

• In Slate, Laura Miller gives her best books of the year, including Barack Obama’s A Promised Land (I concur, especially for those of us who are American politics junkies), and Ali Smith’s Summer, which I’m looking forward to as the culmination of her seasons quartet (my thoughts on Spring here).

• Kim Hubbard in People magazine has chosen ten books, including the fine Sue Miller’s latest, Monogamy.

• The Christian Science Monitor (its paper version was good) has fiction (including a novel about Mary, The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow) and non-fiction.

• Lithub’s 65 favourite books of the year include Natalie Diaz’s Post-Colonial Love Poem, which made a big impact this year. Editor in Chief Johnny Diamond says calling it “Favorite of the year” ‘seems an impoverished way of describing a book that will stay with me down through whatever years I have left.’

• A new one to me, with lots of interesting recommendations is The Lonely Crowd: Part One has several Irish entries, including Mary Morrissey recommending Hamnet and A Ghost in the Throat. In Part Two Laura Wainwright notes Irish poet’s Micheál McCann’s ‘striking debut pamphlet’, Safe Home.

• Down under, the Sydney Morning Herald presents favourite books from authors home and abroad: Anna Funder, author of the superb Stasiland, mentions the superb Rebecca Solnit.

• RTÉ’s Sinéad Crowley properly mentions the superb Irish library service and how it has functioned in the pandemic (including the e-books available for free to all on BorrowBox). Andrew O’Hagan’s Mayflies has had consistently impressive notices. I agree that Barack Obama’s A Promised Land is a rich experience.

• Bloomberg’s Best Books of 2020 has thoughtful choices, one per person, like Maeve DuValley’s: the Japanese short story collection Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda.

• Observer (not ‘the’ one) has a different angle from Lauren LeBlanc: Books That Made 2020 Bearable: A Reading List for an Unusual Year includes Ali Smith’s great seasonal quartet, and Adrienne Rich’s poetry rounds it off: ‘the familiar cadence of her poetry grounded me.’

• The Independent’s Best 20 Books of 2020 includes the Booker winner, Shuggie Bain, as well as Mr Wilder and Me by the always-enjoyable Jonathan Coe, about the famous film director.

• Wired have 26 of the Most Fascinating Books this year, such as Harold McGee’s, er, Nose Dive: a field guide to the world’s smells.

• The Millions always has, well, a lot of lists under the heading ‘A Year in Reading’.

• CrimeReads has several lists, including best gothic crime, best psychological thrillers, best début novels, best true crime, best non-fiction, best noir and, naturally, Best Crime Novels: ‘S.A. Cosby’s Blacktop Wasteland is the year’s most celebrated crime novel, and with good reason.’

• Jezebel goes for the pungent title ‘The Best Books We Read All Stinkin’ Year’. Molly Osberg goes for the frequently-noticed Hurricane Season, by Fernanda Melchor from the superb Fitzcarraldo Editions in this part of the world: ‘I read this book in one furious stretch over the course of an afternoon—I don’t know how else a person could read it. it’s overwhelming, nasty, violent, tender, and completely mesmerizing.’

• In The Scotsman Laura Waddell’s year in reading includes one of my books of 2019, Rachel Cusk’s essay collection Coventry.

• Author of one of my own books of the year, Barack Obama selects his own 17 choices, including Marilynne Robinson’s novel Jack.

• The formidable Maria Popova of Brainpickings presents her favourite books of the year, such as Zadie Smith’s excellent Intimations.

• Bloomberg’s non-fiction list has as its highlight Virginia Postrel’s The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World , a bold retelling of history through an emphasis on cloth.’

• Rick O’Shea’s choice includes Rob Doyle’s Threshold, which, he writes, ‘didn’t get the love it deserved.’

• The British Film Institute is of course the best place for Best Film Books of 2020, like their top choice Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wasson.

• The Books that got us through 2020 from Mother Jones includes Sari Rosenblatt’s Father Guards the Sheep: ‘I dare any reader of Father Guards the Sheep not to laugh out loud through every story, while at the same time failing to be deeply moved by these entwined narratives’ writes Marianne Szegedy-Maszak.

• ArtsFuse recommendations include Lance Olsen’s My Red Heaven, which ‘borrows elements of collage, quantum mechanics, and palimpsest to give us a heady meditation on the historical, aesthetic, and even metaphysical repercussions of the lives and events that intersect in Berlin on June 10, 1927.’

• Huffpost’s Claire Fallon has 10 reads on her list, including The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, whose previous novel, Station Eleven, was too pertinent this year (pandemic-based).

• Terry Pitts’s Vertigo blog has been a favourite for a while: it’s sub-titled ‘Where literature and art intersect, with an emphasis on W.G. Sebald and literature with embedded photographs. Here are his thoughtful choices from this year.

• Remezcla (a new one to me) has a handy list of 2020’s Best Books by Latine or Latin American Authors. I’ve heard lots recommend Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor (translated by Sophie Hughes), available from Fitzcarraldo Editions in this part of the world.

• Verso presents choices from its authors, including Intimations by Zadie Smith (one of mine, too), and Brian Dillon’s Suppose a Sentence, which I’m about to start.