My 2020 Reading List
I’ve been keeping a book journal for many years, or written notes in the fly leaves of books. I’ve never had a good ability to hold on to characters’ names or even plots. I remember instead the experience of reading, bits and pieces of what I’ve read somehow rising to the surface when I least expect them. More striking to me is how often the many books I’ve read in a given year come together synchronistically. When I review what I’ve read, it all starts to make more sense — that year’s life experiences all linked to books. I’ve been collecting articles that help me feel less guilty about the kind of reader I am (i.e., one who doesn’t hold on to a lot of specifics), and I’ve posted links to them in the comments section. It helps knowing there are others who read one book after the next, and somehow the fabric of the reading experience is what most remains — a quilt of books. Below is a list of my 2020 reading — in the year of the plague. Some are re-reads (which is an experience I am appreciating more and more). Some are obvious reads for the workshop I led with vets on moral injury. Others are clearly books connected to a workshop at Denver Women’s Correctional Facility in the early part of the year. The list doesn’t include very much of the poetry I regularly read, or the short stories. It also includes none of the children’s literature I’ve been reading for the Good Trouble For Kids Project (and I’ve been reading a lot of kids’ and young adult lit!) I hope some of you find the list interesting. I arranged it by month, and not in alphabetical order, because I am curious to look at it later and see what it reveals about the arc of my life/ mind/ spirit in this very strange year.
January/ February 2020
O’Brien, Tim. The Maybe Dad Book
Master, Jarvis Jay. That Bird Has My Wings
Betts, Reginald Dwayne. A Quest For Freedom
Betts, Reginald Dwayne. Felon (poetry)
Conroy, Frank, Stop-Time
Keefe, Patrick Radden. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
Diski, Jenny. In Gratitude
March 2020
McCann, Colum. Apeirogon
Frankel, Adam. The Survivors: A Story of War, Inheritance, and Healing
Lynch, Thomas. The Undertaking
April 2020
Roth, Philip. The Ghost Writer (re-read)
Graham, Larry Kent. Moral Injury
Palmer, H.C. Feet of the Messenger
Moore, Wes. The Other Wes Moore
Foer, Esther Safran. I Want You to Know We’re Still Here
Jamison, Leslie. The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath
Marlantes, Karl. What It Is Like To Go To War
May 2020
Russell, Kate Elizabeth. My Dark Vanessa
O’Brien, Tim. If I Die in A Combat Zone (re-read)
O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried (re-read)
O’Brien, Tim. Northern Lights
Vuong, Ocean. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Gaige, Amity. Sea Wife
Frankl, Viktor. Man’s Search For Meaning (re-read)
June/ July 2020
Laymon, Kiese. Heavy
Greenwell, Garth. What Belongs To You
Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (re-read)
Harper, Michelle. The Beauty in Breaking
Kendi, Ibram X. How To Be An Antiracist
August/ September 2020
Glaude, Eddie S. Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons For Our Own
Nguyen, Phan Que Mai, The Mountains Sing
Ward, Jesmyn. Sing, Unburied, Sing
Greenwell, Garth. Cleanness
Tretheway, Natasha. Memorial Drive
Elon, Emuna. House on Endless Waters
October 2020
Beard, Richard. The Day That Went Missing: A Family Tragedy
Orr, Gregory. The Blessing
Gyasi, Yai. Transcendent Kingdom
Bennett, Brit. The Vanishing Half
Jones, Edward P. Lost In The City (re-read)
November 2020
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me (re-read)
Broom, Sarah. The Yellow House
Mendez, Paul. Rainbow Milk
December 2020
Obama, Barack. A Promised Land
Payne, Les. The Dead Are Arising (almost done with this awesome bio of Malcolm X!)