The Best Books I Read in 2020: Fiction
2020 is almost over. Well, that was a doozy.
This hasn’t been a good year for many things, but it has been a very good year for reading. For me, at least. I started 2020 with the challenge of reading 100 books this year, and I’m almost done with it: I’ll be finishing the last two books in the next few days.
What all of this means is that it hasn’t been easy to select the best books of the year, there simply have been too many good books. That’s why I’ve decided to create two lists this time: fiction and non-fiction.
The best fiction books I read 2020 (in the order I read them)
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe
I cried when I read this book back in January, and I am not that sentimental. Somehow I tended to think I knew and understood slavery, but in reality, I didn’t. And I didn’t want to. The unimaginable brutality of it defies understanding.
In this book we see people reduced to the status of animals, all done according to the laws of a Christian nation. It is hard to see how the Bible could be used to justify slavery, but it was, and for generations, both slaves and their white masters used to find justification for slavery in the Bible: the slaves were comforted by the understanding that their position was mandated by the Scripture and they could go to heaven if they just obeyed, while slaveholders believed that they actually fulfilled their Christian duty of taking care of their fellow Untermenschen. This is one of those books that color everything around you when you finish it, and for days you are shaken and your heart aches a bit, while you go about your everyday life, and although nothing has changed, everything seems different. Right until it doesn’t, and life goes back to normal.
Good fiction does that to you, and lifts you up, and teaches you things in a way non-fiction could never do.
“Stoner” by John Williams
I waited for a week to sit down and write a review of this book after I finished it back in February, but words wouldn’t come: I just felt I’d been changed by this book. I had no idea I could be so deeply moved by a story of such an ordinary life. I felt like giving up on the book but couldn’t. Even though nothing much ever happens in the novel, there is no way to stop reading it. It is such a devastating novel that reminds us that every ordinary person with a completely ordinary life can have an important story to tell.
A work of quiet perfection, a true piece of art.
“The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger
I am pretty late in the game here discovering Salinger in 2020, but that is a goddamn good book. I used to have some weird recollections about “The Catcher in the Rye.” I remember that we had to read it in high school, but with all the alcohol, sex and hookers, it was wisely determined that we would only read the abridged version, with the said hookers removed. I didn’t understand the abridged version at all, so I went ahead and read the full one, and still didn’t get it. Perhaps I was not mature enough at 16 to read a book about an immature 16-year-old American dude, or the Russian translation killed the vibe of the novel, I have no idea, but it was an absolute delight to read it this year, in the original. And although I don’t identify with Holden at all (which is probably healthy), I loved the writing, the characters, the imagery, and even the plot. I now wonder now how many great books we have all been avoiding for years because of weird high school experiences.
“Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens
That Dickens could tell a story, and this book is a real page-turner, though it is fairly long. Since Dickens published this book in installments in his own magazine, he had to make each installment exciting enough for the readers to buy the next one. The book is fast-paced, easy to read, and just genuinely funny. Who knew that those Victorian-era humans could joke or have fun! What I liked most was how much I could relate to the main character of the book: I knew exactly what he felt, I’ve had the same exact thoughts at various points in my life. Our lived experiences are very different, yet Dickens managed to capture something true about human nature that I could relate to.
“Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck
Where do I start with this book? It ripped me apart as few other books did, and I couldn’t sleep for hours after I finished it, which shows just how smart I am reading Steinbeck before bed… I doubt I’ll ever be able to get Steinbeck’s imagery out of my head: people burning oranges, slaughtering pigs, and dumping potatoes into the river—all with the goal of keeping the prices up and the statist delusion going. All with the people dying of hunger, kids crying for a piece of anything edible, whole families moving across the country and picking cotton for a dollar a day just to buy bread. Honestly, if this book doesn’t make you hate big government, I don’t know what will.
Before 2020, I used to dismiss fiction as a waste of time and considered myself above it. Who has time for fiction when there are so many books on politics that still remain to be read? Why read those dusty Victorian-era classics when the world is falling apart and I have to read about all the ways it has been fucked up?
I was wrong about that. Fiction saved my soul this year. It helped me not slide into despair, it helped me take my mind off things, it kept me grounded and hopeful. It also helped me refine my writing style and write my own book. Besides the books I reviewed above, this year I turned to Ray Bradbury and rediscovered my love for his writing. “451 Fahrenheit” is an absolute gem, as well as “Martian Chronicles”—one of my favorite books ever. I also devoured “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut, cried over the guillotined destinies in “The Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens, relished the carefully chosen words of “Speak, Memory” by Vladimir Nabokov, chuckled over “Twelve Chairs” by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, enjoyed the delicate bonnet romance of “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen… You can view all of the books I read this year on Goodreads.
I read widely, I read above my reading level, I even got a library card and rediscovered my love for paper books. I reached out for “Best Books Ever” lists and enjoyed most of the universally loved books. It turned out I am not that original or contrarian (though I hated “Cat’s Cradle.”) It turned out that classics are classics for a reason. Who would have thought?
Truly, it was an awesome year of reading. I look forward to reading more great books in 2021 and sharing my impressions via this newsletter. I hope you’ll join me on this journey (and invite other book lovers to subscribe as well).