Sarah’s Top 10 Books of 2020
Throughout this hectic and draining and incredibly stressful year, only one thing has been able to tear me away from the tight grip of the news cycle and allow me to come up for air: books, books, and more books. Before this year, I never kept track of my reading, but I began to do so at the tail end of August — and since then, I have logged 32 books (and counting). Being stuck at home for endless hours has its perks, it turns out. Books saved this year for me, and I want to share that beauty with you as we look ahead to 2021, when I hope, paradoxically, we might have less time to read and more time to live.
In that spirit, here are the top 10 books that I read this year. Because I am a library fiend, and I don’t like to wait around for books on hold, most of these books were not published in 2020. Deal with it.
10. Human Acts by Han Kang
We’re starting off nice and depressing with a book all about the Gwangju uprising that occurred in the eponymous South Korean city in 1980. Throughout the novel, the reader sees from multiple perspectives, all of which center around a young boy in the midst of the brutal police repression of the democratic movement. We hear from victims of torture and sexual assault and see how the trauma from that period in their lives has persisted into the present day, even when it appears that they are leading relatively normal lives.
As a student of East Asian history, I found this novel to be a valuable reminder that the glitzy modernity of present-day South Korea can often obscure the massive amounts of human suffering that its citizens underwent not long ago, and which still remains relatively unacknowledged by the government and society at large. Case in point — during Park Geun-hye’s administration, Han Kang found herself on a blacklist for the publication of Human Acts.
The writing itself in this book was not particularly my favorite, but I attribute that mostly to the fact that it was a translation. Korean, with its lengthy modifying clauses and untranslatable subtleties, can be a particularly unwieldy language to translate into English. This resulted in what was, in my opinion, overly flowery language, and a proliferation of unnecessary metaphors. Despite this, I find myself admiring the narrative structure and adherence to historical context that define this novel perhaps even more than the style of its prose.
9. Henry, Himself by Stewart O’Nan
Henry, Himself is O’Nan’s third novel featuring the Maxwell family, your average wealthy white family residing in Pittsburgh. Of the three, I have read Emily, Alone in addition to this newest addition. Though I think Emily, Alone outranks this book for me, just because Emily is much more of a fiddly, sensitive, and interesting character than her husband Henry, I found this novel to be a very pleasant and calming read.
I don’t often see books from the perspective of older individuals, so I appreciate the slice-of-life nature of O’Nan’s writing that creates access to the thoughts and feelings of 75-year-old Henry, who naturally thinks more about his impending death and the passing of his youth more than my 20-year-old self. O’Nan has the astonishing ability to make even a simple trip out to Giant Eagle to use a coupon for dish detergent into a mini-story, wrapped up into the larger narrative of aging and navigating relationships old and new. Though Henry, Himself can certainly stand on its own, I think it would be even better read in concert with Emily, Alone,which takes place after Henry’s death and reveals much more about Emily’s character.
With all that said, this story is extremely white. I don’t personally see that as a detracting factor, but those with more diverse backgrounds might not have found it as comfortable to read as I did. Another large factor in my enjoyment of this story, which I know won’t be true for most others, was its setting in Pittsburgh, a city I know, love, and miss. Point being, this book might not be for everyone.
8. Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Brodesser-Akner has written a novel that is nominally about a nasty divorce, but underneath that all lies a larger critique of the expectations that society, consciously or not, places on women. Narrated by a peripheral character, Libby, the first part of the novel focuses on the experiences of Toby Fleishman, a hepatologist in the midst of a divorce with Rachel, with whom he has two kids. The story launches when Rachel escapes to a yoga retreat without contacting Toby, who is then saddled with the kids. The reader is subjected to endless vitriol against Rachel for failing to uphold her side of the divorce agreement, along with descriptions of Toby’s app-based sexual escapades — until, suddenly, Libby, who was once Toby’s college friend, changes allegiances and starts telling Rachel’s side of the story.
I read this book during the dog days of summer, over long, languid afternoons baking on my back porch and simmering in Toby’s rage against his soon-to-be ex-wife. Brodesser-Akner does such a fantastic job of painting Rachel as the stereotypical crazy bitch (pardon my French) that even a reader who hears vaguely about this being a feminist work, as I had, could get swept up in the blind hatred. This novel is a long, slow burn, but once it boils, boy does it ever boil. I found myself tearing through the last hundred pages or so with a vigor I never thought a book about upper-class New Yorker drama could inspire. Brodessor-Akner goes about stripping down our assumptions about Rachel, gleaned from Toby, but also gleaned from our pre-existing expectations, then leaves us with a quiet reflection from our narrator who so often herself got lost around the fringes of Toby’s explosive story. What a weird and wild ride this book was.
7. An Armenian Sketchbook by Vasily Grossman
Of all Vasily Grossman’s books, this is by far the shortest and least intimidating. It’s more of a travelogue than anything, following the aging Grossman on his journey to Armenia to help with the literary translation of the work of a famous Armenian author. Since he can’t speak Armenian himself, he is left mostly dependent on the author and his group of writerly friends to escort him around the small country. Though this is after the rule of Stalin, Grossman, well-known for his critical attitude toward the Soviet Union, can’t resist some political commentary, peppered subtly among the descriptions of his travels.
As a descendant of Armenians — my grandfather is full-blooded Armenian — I found this book to be an illuminating peek into a country about which I should know more. I appreciate Grossman’s conversational but quietly reflective writing style, which creates a nonfiction account that is nonetheless incredibly readable, and I loved how open he was about not only the joys of his trip, but also its less than savory moments. I adore this book, and I adore Grossman and hope to delve into some of his heftier works soon.
6. If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
Finally, a 2020 release! Aren’t you proud of me? Cha’s novel tells the story of four young women living in Seoul, South Korea, swiveling between their points of view to reveal toxic underbelly of a nation that has recently come to be so admired. An artist, a room salon girl, a hair stylist who has lost her voice, and a reluctant wife all live in the same shabby apartment complex — but they also happen to be from the same small town in the Korean countryside, where each of them has left behind her own tragic past.
Cha’s character creation and aptitude for storytelling astonished me. Each of her point-of-view characters has such a distinctive voice, and Cha connects their backstories seamlessly to their present attitudes. I found myself completely absorbed in their world, taking in Cha’s subtle but pointed societal commentary without a second thought. You know a book is good when reading it feels as easy as breathing.
5. The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie
This memoir takes place on a snow-covered Canadian prairie, the events of the story kicking off when Laveau-Harvie’s mother collapses with a crumbled hip bone. Laveau-Harvie and her sister must act fast while their mother is in the hospital to save their father, whom their manipulative and poisonously charming mother has been starving.
Though you might expect such a story to come along with all sorts of explosive emotions, Laveau-Harvie’s writing is quiet and darkly humorous, never really delving into the full extent of her mother’s vindictive behavior, but showing us enough that we understand the emotional trauma she and her sister carry from their childhoods and beyond. Her prose is often beautiful, granting us a window into the serene beauty of southern Canada’s landscape. A pretty and moving book — what more could we ask for in 2020?
4. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girldhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston
Yet another memoir (notice a pattern?), this one published way back 1976, but no worse for the wear. Kingston tells her story of a second-generation immigrant youth in California through a mixture of dreamy legends and speculative autobiography, playing with the idea of nonfiction and fact as much as telling us the story of her childhood. Though this blend of ghost and girl can at times create narratives that clang together with marked dissonance, that’s sort of the whole point. Kingston wants you to experience the same whirlwind of emotional turmoil and cultural mixing in which she grew up, to make the difference between fact and fiction as opaque as it was to her younger self.
This is one of the few books I picked up before the pandemic began in earnest. In fact, I read much of it on the bus home for spring break, not knowing that I would not be returning for the remainder of the semester. Memory, of its own wild accord, has associated this book with that precious period before all hell broke loose, which is perhaps why I treasure it so much. Or perhaps it is simply Kingston’s lush, meandering writing, or the endless complexities folded within its pages, or the fact that it brought me unexpected comfort in a time of great need.
3. Animal’s People by Indra Sinha
Our narrator Animal walks on all fours, butt in the air, to accommodate his twisted back, deformed in an industrial accident that took place in his fictional hometown of Khaufpur. He and his friends are trying to bring the evil Kampani that spread poison throughout the town to justice when an American doctor, Elli Barber, shows up to start a free clinic for those affected by the poison, and things get… complicated, to say the least.
I cannot express to you how much I adore Animal, how lovely it was to read Sinha’s writing, and how appreciative I am that one of my professors assigned this as a reading for class. The book is quite long, quite complicated, and probably should be read much more closely than I am able, but even to a lazy reader such as I, it is clear how much research and tender loving care has gone into this book. Sinha even set up a website for the book!
Even though this novel is fictional, despite a convincingly deceptive note at the beginning claiming that it was based on tape recordings from Animal, the events contained within it are based on a real-life disaster that took place in Bhopal, India. Even though sobering, factual stories abound, Sinha’s foray into fiction allows him to bring a new and tenderly humanizing perspective to the disaster.
2. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Two characters parallel each other at the center of this novel — Nao, a teenager who struggles to adjust to life in Japan after her family moves back from America, and Ruth, a novelist who finds Nao’s diary and other possessions washed up on the beach of an island in the Pacific Northwest on which she lives with her husband. We see Nao only through her diary as Ruth reads, with brief interjections from Ruth’s quietly turbulent life as she becomes more obsessed with finding out more information about this young girl. Did she actually exist? How did her diary come to drift across the ocean? Where is she now?
I listened to this novel as an audiobook, with absolutely no prior knowledge, only a reluctant willingness to give it a whirl. From the beginning, Nao’s narrative voice sucked me in, and I quickly became invested in her life, as does Ruth. Hearing Ruth Ozeki read the novel is like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. I would listen during my morning runs, as chinks of sunlight drifted through mist-shrouded trees, tears forming in my eyes when Ozeki read Haruki №1’s diaries. Just trust me. You want to read this novel.
1. Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut
If you know me at all, then you knew that number one on this list was going to be a book by Kurt Vonnegut. My love for his works is all-encompassing and unavoidable. This particular novel, his last, has a distinct taste of autobiography, mixed with his usual zany stories, and a whole lot of Kilgore Trout. The storyline is ostensibly about a timequake, in which time has jumped backward by 10 years, and everyone must relive those 10 years over again, without being able to change a single thing. Really, though, most of the novel consists of Vonnegut sharing his hard won wisdom and telling stories that he finds to be funny and/or important.
Though not my favorite Vonnegut — that would be Slaughterhouse-Five, of course — Timequake seems appropriately suited for our time. It feels like we are in a sort of time warp, not one in which we have traveled backward, necessarily, though perhaps we have politically, but one in which time has slipped by, simultaneously too fast and excruciatingly slow. In such a weird and wild time, books like Timequake, in which every word must be savored and every sentence read thrice, have helped time relax and meander calmly by, as it used to.
While I can’t know what the future will bring, I suspect it will bring more books such as these my way. That’s something to look forward to, at least.
