My 2020 Reading List
Time for the end-of-year round up of all the books I’ve listened to and read in 2020. There are 49 of them - 20 audiobooks and 29 paper/e-books - plus I listened to or read many short stories and stage plays. This was definitely the year when I got back into the joy of audiobooks when doing mundane household tasks!
I’m not going to list them all this year. Instead, I’m going to list only the ones I gave 9/10 or 10/10 for enjoyment in my book diary…
- Nabakov’s Favourite Word is Mauve – Ben Blatt (non-fiction)
- The Familiars – Stacey Halls (historical novel)
- The Secret History – Donna Tartt (novel)
- The Body – Bill Bryson (non-fiction)
- Gotta Get Theroux This – Louis Theroux (memoir)
- Sweet Sorrow - David Nicholls (novel)
- The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley (crime novel)
- Wolf Hall / Bring Up the Bodies / The Mirror and the Light - Hilary Mantel (three historical novels)
- The Most Fun We’ve Ever Had - Claire Lombardo (novel)
- How Not to Be a Boy - Robert Webbn (memoir/manifesto!)
- The Guest List - Lucy Foley (crime novel)
- There Are Things That I Know - Karen B Golightly (novella)
- Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (children’s novel)
- Miss Benson’s Beetle - Rachel Joyce (novel)
- The Understudy - David Nicholls (novel)
- One by One - Ruth Ware (crime novel)
There we are - four non-fiction, one novella, one children’s book and 12 novels.
I was going to pick a Book of the Year, but I’m struggling to narrow it down. Having put off Hilary Mantel’s trilogy for years, I was blown away by how amazing it was. The Familiars was one of the best audio books I’ve ever listened to, and Miss Benson’s Beetle was such a joy. I’m now a huge Lucy Foley fan too. Both she and Ruth Ware write stories that have all my favourite elements of cosy crime/ golden age murder mysteries, but are modern and original and the writing style is great. If you are an Agatha Christie fan, but maybe find her writing style a little off-putting, I massively recommend these.
What books have you loved this year?