The books I read in 2020

2020 was one of my best reading years in a while. I always read. Every night before I go to sleep - even it is only a few pages at 2am. 

I did well this year with being back to listening to audio books. I enjoy listening while cooking or gardening or doing other tasks with my hands where I can concentrate on the story and still accomplish what I'm doing.

There were also a couple of books not featured here that I would have read 50-150 pages and then abandoned after deciding that I could live the rest of my life without knowing the outcome.

Educated is one of my top three from this year. Station Eleven, a book I bought for bookclub, was a bit prophetic. Written in 2014 and set 20 years after a virus has wiped out like 90% of the world's population. I read it in January. Haha haha

I love Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling) and her 'Detective Comoran Strike' books. The narrator is phenomenal.

The Glass Castle, like Educated, is phenomenal (a movie is being made of it). I had read Bill Bryson's At Home before (hefty tome). I gave it a re-read and thoroughly enjoyed it again. 

What Alice Forgot was also good. Great theme. Alice takes a tumble during an aerobics class, bashes her head, wakes up and has completely forgotten the last 10 years. She re-enters her lie to discover she is getting divorced from her husband, isn’t speaking to her sister, has two children (she was pregnant with the first 10 years previously, which is where her mind is), she has all kinds of things in her life that she loathed 10 years previously and would never have ever seen herself doing (being a crazy involved school mom) etc. 

I liked the concept of the book. We move on from week to week, year to year, decade to decade. The past retreats. How would my 10-year younger self deal with the life I now live. And, would she like it? Would she wish it for me?

The element that most struck me was that the bashed-head, 10-years-younger version of Alice was not too impressed with the person she’d become. 

That’s maybe quite key. No matter what you do or where you go, to be the type of person that you your 10-year younger and 10-year older self will still like.

Entertaining mix. I can only remember The Year of Living Danishly. I have Danish friends so this aided my interest.

Tony Horwitz is one of my favourite-favourite travel-genre authors. I've had this book for years and this year I finally read it. Some of these others I found at the house where I was staying.

I think I nailed these last five all in December. Nothing earth shattering - just fun fiction reads. I am really, really enjoying Jane Harper. 

In 2019 I started a thing where I have a photo album on my phone for books. As I complete a book, I take a photo of the cover or save an image from online. Most of the time I don't remember what I've read so this is a great way to look back at the end of the year to see where my time went.

I look forward to bettering my tally - and adding more variety - in 2021.