The Best Books of 2020

 

I reviewed 89 books this year (lockdown & retirement definitely have positive sides!) with just 1 DNF (as is often the case). As usual I’ll split the Best’s between Fiction and Non-fiction with the Best of the Best in each category in BOLD. At the end of that I’ll do a summary and give my feelings on the year just gone.

Fiction:

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan

The Misbegotten by Katherine Webb

Nod by Adrian Barnes

The Last by Hanna Jameson

Feed by Mira Grant

The Outlander by Gil Adamson

The Street Philosopher by Matthew Plampin

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

A Vengeful Longing by R N Morris

Imperial 109 by Richard Doyle

Shelter In Place by Nora Roberts

The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School by Kim Newman

Drums Along the Khyber by Duncan MacNeil

The Death of the Fronsac by Neal Ascherson

The Plague by Albert Camus

Ice Cold Heart by P J Tracy

The Final Hour by Tom Wood

The English Monster or The Melancholy Transactions of William Ablass by Lloyd Shepherd

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

The Privateersman by Richard Woodman

 

Non-Fiction:

To Engineer is Human – The Role of Failure in Successful Design by Henry Petroski

War Against the Taliban – Why It All Went Wrong in Afghanistan by Sandy Gall

We Have Been Harmonised – Life in China’s Surveillance State by Kai Strittmatter

The Jail Busters – The Secret Story of MI6, The French Resistance & Operation Jericho by Robert Lyman

The Nile – Downriver through Egypt’s Past and Present by Toby Wilkinson

Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves

Caught in the Revolution – Petrograd 1917 by Helen Rappaport

Operation Kronstadt by Harry Ferguson

Inviting Disaster – Lessons from the Edge of Technology: An Inside look at Catastrophes and Why they Happen by James R Chiles

The Kamikaze Hunters – Fighting for the Pacific, 1945 by Will Iredale

Trans-Europe Express – Tours of a Lost Continent by Owen Hatherley

How Democracies Die – What History Reveals About Our Future by Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt

The Indian Mutiny 1857 by Saul David

Proust and The Squid – The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf

As you can see from the above LONG list I had a bumper year for excellent reads even taking into account the fact that I read (or at least reviewed!) around 20 more books than in a normal year. Age range wise it was a pretty good year too. Although most of the publication dates post-date 2000 there is a fair scattering of dates throughout the 1970’s, 60’s, 50’s and as far back as 1929 and they included 3 Classics. Only 18 of the reviewed books were by women which is a figure I’ll try to improve this year. I think that the overall subject range was pretty good and will be expanding again in ‘21. Definitely a GOOD year – at least for reading.

Some more stats

My Review Pile is persistent at 13. I think I know why this is so. Presently – and going forward – I’m reviewing 2 books a week. I can’t really see that changing. On average I’m probably reading 80-100 pages a day which means to get the Review Pile down I’m going to have to AVERAGE books in excess of 350pp. Since records began – on 22nd October 2020 – my HIGHEST average peaked at 331pp and is presently down at 316pp. My largest book read (again since records began WAY back in last October) was 455pp. MUCH larger books are on the way and will need to be to get the average regularly over 350pp. But that’s one of my challenges for THIS year – of which more later!