My favorite books of 2020

This was meant to be posted, oh, I don't know, about a month ago, but the first month of 2021 has already been verrrrryy long, and so I'm just going to post this here and start February 2021 with new blogging hopes. 

I hope January has been kinder to you than to most of us. But if anything, there is snow falling in D.C. tonight and it makes our patio look lovely. 

[copied and pasted from my Facebook post from a month ago, because that's where we are today]

One of my goals--for both personal and professional reasons--during 2020 was to read more fiction and non-fiction (specifically non-fiction unrelated to my research . . . I've been reading a lot of that for the past few years). The goal was personal because I had missed reading for pleasure, but it was also professional because I have found that reading outside of my dissertation research enlivens my own prose when writing dissertation chapters. I ended up reading 102 books this year (not counting books I read for my research). Many of these books were books I'd been MEANING to read for some time, but had never gotten around to them. Below is a sampling (in no particular order) of some of my favorite books this past year/books that really made me think. If you have any book suggestions for me in 2021, feel free to comment or DM me.

1. Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, by Svetlana Alexievich [Both a stunning and gutting look at the former Soviet Union and people's memories of its demise from 1991-2012. It brought me straight back to Ukraine and the way that Svetlana Alexievich tells the story--through the voices of the many different people she interviewed--reveals a striking constellation of human suffering and hope.]

2. Radium Girls, by Kate Moore [Read this book for a Zoom book club and it is haunting. The women's stories in this book have stuck with me.]

3. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, by Timothy Snyder [This is not your typical WWII history book. It is also a book I wish I had read before my mission to eastern Ukraine.]

4. Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee [A beautiful story about Korean immigrants in Japan. Brings up questions of home, of cultural and racial discrimination, and of belonging.]

5. Silence, by Shūsaku Endō [I saw the movie a few years ago, but this was the first time I'd read the book. My "book notes" after finishing this book simply say, "Stunning. Gutting. Needed."]

6. Wind, Sand, and Stars, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [The prose in this book is just beautiful. I especially loved the second chapter.]

7. I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith [Somehow I did not read this one as a high schooler, but I'm glad I've read it now.]

8. The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro [Another one that I somehow did not read until now. I found the story engaging and the narration really interesting.]

9. Hunger, by Roxane Gay [Powerful, powerful book.]

10. Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner [I know that, from a historical perspective, there are controversies surrounding this book, but I still liked it and found the stor(ies) compelling.]

--Some Books I re-read this year--

11. To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf [I got on a Virginia Woolf kick during the pandemic, as evidenced in my next favorite re-read . . .]

12. A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf [The last time I read this was a sophomore in college. I got more out of it this time.]

13. War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy [I first read this book during my last year of college in one of my favorite undergrad courses ever. It changed my life then, and I found that re-reading it in March/April--during the very beginning of quarantines was one of the very best things I could do for my emotional and mental health. Tolstoy writes about radical uncertainty very well, and I needed those reminders. Also, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Pierre.]