My favorite Zoom backgrounds this year have been book shelves...libraries...beautiful spaces that would be perfect to hide in with a book. If I have to see myself on a screen all day, at least it can be in the setting of my dream home study. It's been very soothing and satisfying to surround my virtual self with books during the work day, and my real self with books whenever else I can. A lot of people did a LOT of reading in 2020, including me. For some reason I found myself gravitating toward thrillers and mysteries this year, as well as some beautiful, difficult literary fiction, some young adult novels and many, many simply lovely works of art. There are so many talented writers out there, and I am constantly in awe of the work and dedication it takes to bring a novel to life. Here are some great choices if you're looking for your next great read!
My Absolute Favs of 2020
The Midnight Library: Matt Haig
"Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?" A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time.
Hamnet: Maggie O’Farrell
“Of all the stories that argue and speculate about Shakespeare’s life… here is a novel … so gorgeously written that it transports you." —The Boston Globe In 1580’s England, during the Black Plague a young Latin tutor falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman in this “exceptional historical novel” (The New Yorker). A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a tender and unforgettable re-imagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, and whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time, Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, impossible to put down—a magnificent leap forward from one of our most gifted novelists.
Invisible Life of Addie La Rue: V.E. Schwab
“A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.” France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever—and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.
Where the Forest Meets the Stars: Glendy Vanderah
In this gorgeously stunning debut, a mysterious child teaches two strangers how to love and trust again. After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin barefoot and covered in bruises. The girl calls herself Ursa, and she claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles. With concerns about the child’s home situation, Jo reluctantly agrees to let her stay—just until she learns more about Ursa’s past.
Daddy: Emma Kline *Short Story Collection
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls comes an eagerly anticipated story collection exploring the dark corners of human experience. In ten remarkable stories, Emma Cline portrays moments when the ordinary is disturbed, when daily life buckles, revealing the perversity and violence pulsing under the surface. She explores characters navigating the edge, the limits of themselves and those around them: power dynamics in families, in relationships, the distance between their true and false selves. They want connection, but what they provoke is often closer to self-sabotage. What are the costs of one’s choices? Of the moments when we act, or fail to act? These complexities are at the heart of Daddy, Emma Cline’s sharp-eyed illumination of the contrary impulses that animate our inner lives.
Writers & Lovers: Lily King
Writers & Lovers follows Casey―a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist―in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King’s trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.
Sea Wife: Amity Gaige
From the highly acclaimed author of Schroder, a smart, sophisticated page literary page-turner about a young family who escape suburbia for a yearlong sailing trip that upends all of their lives. Sea Wife is told in gripping dual perspectives: Juliet’s first person narration, after the journey, as she struggles to come to terms with the life-changing events that unfolded at sea, and Michael’s captain’s log, which provides a riveting, slow-motion account of these same inexorable events, a dialogue that reveals the fault lines created by personal history and political divisions. Sea Wife is a transporting novel about marriage, family and love in a time of unprecedented turmoil. It is unforgettable in its power and astonishingly perceptive in its portrayal of optimism, disillusionment, and survival.
Dear Edward: Ann Napolitano
What does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live? One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Among them are a Wall Street wunderkind, a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy, an injured veteran returning from Afghanistan, a business tycoon, and a free-spirited woman running away from her controlling husband. Halfway across the country, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor. Dear Edward is at once a transcendent coming-of-age story, a multidimensional portrait of an unforgettable cast of characters, and a breathtaking illustration of all the ways a broken heart learns to love again.
The Wind is Not a River: Brian Payton
The Wind Is Not a River is Brian Payton's gripping tale of survival and an epic love story in which a husband and wife—separated by the only battle of World War II to take place on American soil—fight to reunite in Alaska's starkly beautiful Aleutian Islands. While John is accompanying a crew on a bombing run, his plane is shot down over the island of Attu. He survives only to find himself exposed to a harsh and unforgiving wilderness, known as “the birthplace of winds.” There, John must battle the elements, starvation, and his own remorse while evading discovery by the Japanese. Alone at home, Helen struggles with the burden of her husband's disappearance. Caught in extraordinary circumstances, in this new world of the missing, she is forced to reimagine who she is—and what she is capable of doing. Somehow, she must find John and bring him home, a quest that takes her into the farthest reaches of the war, beyond the safety of everything she knows.
Mystery/Thriller
Home Before Dark: Riley Sager
In this chilling thriller, a woman returns to the house made famous by her father’s bestselling horror memoir. Is the place really haunted by evil forces, as her father claimed? Or are there more earthbound—and dangerous—secrets hidden within its walls?
The Guest List: Lucy Foley
*Recommend the audio of this book! Accents are fantastic...
A wedding celebration turns dark and deadly in this deliciously wicked and atmospheric thriller reminiscent of Agatha Christie from the New York Times bestselling author of The Hunting Party. The bride – The plus one – The best man – The wedding planner – The bridesmaid – The body…On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?
The Sun Down Motel: Simone St. James
Something hasn’t been right at the roadside Sun Down Motel for a very long time, and Carly Kirk is about to find out why in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.
The Searcher: Tina French
Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a bucolic Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But when a local kid whose brother has gone missing arm-twists him into investigating, Cal uncovers layers of darkness beneath his picturesque retreat, and starts to realize that even small towns shelter dangerous secrets."One of the greatest crime novelists writing today" (Vox) weaves a masterful, atmospheric tale of suspense, asking how to tell right from wrong in a world where neither is simple, and what we stake on that decision.
The Better Liar: Tanen Jones
When a woman conceals her sister’s death to claim their joint inheritance, her deception exposes a web of dangerous secrets in this addictive new thriller for fans of Megan Abbott, Gillian Flynn, and Paula Hawkins. Leslie Flores has the perfect life—a loving husband, a happy newborn, and a New Mexico home straight out of a magazine. She’s been the perfect daughter, too, taking care of her ailing father in his final days. But Leslie has a dark secret—and it’s an expensive secret to keep. When she discovers she won’t receive a penny of her inheritance unless she finds her estranged sister, Robin, she sets out to track her down. Instead, upon arriving at Robin’s apartment, Leslie discovers her body.
Some More Quality Choices!
The Vanishing Half: Brit Bennett
Shuggie Bain: Doulgas Stewart
Long Bright River: Liz Moore
American Dirt: Jeanine Cummins
Blacktop Wasteland: S.A. Cosby
If I Had Your Face: Frances Cha
The Paris Hours: Alex George
Girl, Woman, Other: Bernadine Evaristo
Apeirogon: Calum McCann
The Book of Lost Friends: Lisa Wingate
If the Creek Don’t Rise: Leah Weiss
Call Your Daughter Home: Deb Spera
The Cutting Season: Attica Locke
Normal People: Sally Rooney
The Boy from the Woods: Harlan Coben
The Jetsetters: Amanda Eyre Ward
Actress: Anne Enright
The Glass Hotel: Emily St. John Mandel
Oona Out of Order: Margarita Montimore
Once upon a River by Diane Setterfield
Pride of Eden: Taylor Brown
Young Adult
The Spirit Legacy: The Gateway Trilogy Book 1: E.E. Holmes
The Spirit Prophecy: The Gateway Trilogy Book 2: E.E. Holmes
Saint Anything: Sarah Dessen
