10 Favorite Books I Read in 2020

I love top ten lists, and the end of the year is a great excuse to write one. Here’s a list of fiction books I liked reading this year, in order that I read them. 

Tenth of December, George Saunders

Tenth of December is a collection of short stories (I also enjoyed Lincoln in the Bardo by Saunders this year). There’s a bluntness to Saunder’s style that reveals the banal evils of middle class lives, while also stripping away the artifacts of the characters with incredible compassion and mercy.

North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell 

One of my wife’s favorite books (her top ten list of the year is here), North and South felt like a collaboration between Jane Austen and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. There’s a will they won’t they love story full of misunderstandings and misplaced assumptions, while also carrying a powerful social and religious critique.  

The Posthumous Memoir of Bras Cubas, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis 

The Posthumous Memoir of Bras Cubas is from 1881 but still feels wildly experimental. Bras Cubas is dead, so he’s free to write as meanderingly and truthfully as he wants. Plotlines trail off into nothing, chapters end when he feels like they’re not going anywhere then pick up a couple chapters later. Like life, he staggers drunkenly from one topic to another, but the displaced perspective of death gives Cubas insight into life, even if those insights are accidental. 

The Slynx, Tatyana Tolstoya

Tatyana Tolstoya is a relative of both Leo Tolstoy and Ivan Turgenev, but somehow she’s not overshadowed by either. The Slynx is an apocalyptic book that shows the powers, but more importantly, the limitations of books. Literature can be a door to wisdom, but reading does not necessarily create culture or ethical behavior. Something transcendent, that words can never completely capture, is also needed. 

Piranesi, Susanna Clarke

I talk more about Piranesi here, but Susanna Clarke’s second novel is excellent. A meditation on solitude and finding joy where none is expected to be, it’s perfect for the year of the pandemic.  

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is a book I’ve seen show up on lists of best fantasy books of all time, and it lives up to its reputation. The collaboration and conflict of Strange and Norrell explores ego and obsession, and the magic they try to restore drives them to madness, lies, and literary excellence. 

The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book feels like it’s from a different time, but in a good way. It’s picaresque, following relatively disconnected adventures throughout the life of a boy called Nobody or Bod. What I like about Neil Gaiman is that he’s willing to leave much of the world unexplained, making the world feel huge, unpredictable, and shapeshifting wherever I’m not looking.

Home, Marilynne Robinson

Home is a loose sequel to Gilead, but told from the perspective of a character who plays a very minor role in the prior novel. Marilynne Robinson transforms the straightforwardness of Gilead while also telling a moving story of pain and joy. The conflict in Home is slow and always lurking, but for the most part stays under the surface. Whenever, old pains and memories are approached, the characters veer away. Often conflict feels contrived, but Robinson captures the truth of good people trying to do what is right, but different convictions and circumstances driving them apart. Yet, while there is a deep sadness to all the characters in Home, hope and joy somehow suffuse the book, looking forward to a future where all is restored while simultaneously made new.

The Man who was Thursday, G. K. Chesterton

The Man who was Thursday checks basically all of my boxes. It’s excited about and references Russian books from the 1800s, the style is lyrical and full of alliteration, and the plot isn’t really the point. Chesterton uses the novel to explore theology, and ultimately argues that God is something far beyond what we can approach or understand, while at the same time He makes himself known to us.  

Rhythm of War, Brandon Sanderson

For all I complain about it, Rhythm of War is still one of my favorite books this year, and I’m looking forward to whatever magic Sanderson thinks up next.