In 2020, I read more books than I have in one year since I was in college. Perhaps the one silver lining of Covid-19 lockdowns. For posterity’s sake, I decided to make a list of my books from the year along with some ratings and notes.
| Title | Author | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Promised Land | Barack Obama | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | The best political memoir I’ve ever read. Fascinating stories from Obama’s life, 2008 campaign, and first term. Although Obama doesn’t explicitly make the comparison, you can’t help but think about Trump when reading this book. Obama’s patriotism is admirable and a painful reminder of his successor’s greed and corruption. |
| The Great Believers | Rebecca Makkai | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | I read this book before Covid-19 took hold in the US, but it continues to make me feel lucky to be living in 2020. |
| The Uninhabitable Earth | David Wallace-Wells | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Before reading this book I would have laughed at anyone who described a book on climate change as a “page turner.” This book is just that, though — it is completely gripping and reminded me of those horror movies where everything is just so terrible that you can’t look away. |
| Uncanny Valley | Anna Wiener | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Inside beltway but so fun. If you work in technology, you must read this book. |
| The Topeka School | Ben Lerner | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | |
| The Glass Hotel | Emily St. John Mandel | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | |
| How To Change Your Mind | Michael Pollan | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | |
| The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Path to Power | Robert Caro | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | The first two books in this marathon series made me hate Lyndon Johnson but love America — and Robert Caro. |
| The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent | Robert Caro | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | |
| The Three-Body Problem | Liu Cixin | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | The last 150 pages of this book took it from two to four stars. It is very slow to start but left me thinking for a long time after I finished about the universe and, well, aliens. |
| The Alchemist | Paulo Coelho | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | I felt major FOMO about not having read this book. It’s a fast read — I got through it in basically a day — and feels a little unnecessarily heady at times. Still, it has a powerful message that stuck with me about the importance of pursuing your dreams. |
| White Fragility | Robin DiAngelo | ⭐⭐⭐ | I gasped at various points throughout this book. It made me feel uncomfortable and was tough to read at times, but I guess that’s the point. |
| Antisocial | Andrew Marantz | ⭐⭐⭐ | Raised a lot of questions for me about the value and hidden costs of free speech. |
| On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous | Ocean Vuong | ⭐⭐⭐ | |
| Catch and Kill | Ronan Farrow | ⭐⭐⭐ | The audiobook version of this was hilarious. Ronan Farrow fully commits to some very thick fake accents when quoting the Ukrainian and Italian characters he interviews for the book. |
| Swimming in the Dark | Tomasz Jedrowski | ⭐⭐⭐ | |
| Never Let Me Go | Kazuo Ishiguro | ⭐⭐⭐ | |
| Hidden Valley Road | Robert Kolker | ⭐⭐⭐ | |
| Red, White & Royal Blue | Casey McQuiston | ⭐⭐ | |
| On Tyranny | Timothy D. Snyder | ⭐⭐ | |
| Rage | Bob Woodward | ⭐⭐ | Did we really need another Trump book from Bob Woodward? |
| Twilight of Democracy | Anne Applebaum | ⭐⭐ | |
| Normal People | Sally Rooney | ⭐ | I’ve heard the TV show is great, but I hated this book. |
| The Velvet Rope Economy | Nelson D. Schwartz | ⭐ | Got old pretty quick. TL;DR being rich in 2020 is great because you can cut the line basically everywhere. |