A year of reading // 2020
Inspired by Maria Popova’s list of her twenty favourite books of the year, what follows is my own selection, in no particular order. The list could’ve been longer, or differently shaped on a different day. Thank you to all the writers, publishers, booksellers, librarians, and fellow readers who helped me find excellent things to read.
The shape of the book ends up being some alchemy between the shape the writer created and the shape of our life as we read it. The alchemy of those two separate worlds creates a frozen shape. But the shape is not actually frozen, for over the years and decades of recollecting the book, time melts and refreezes the shape, again and again.
A Shadow Shape, Sheila Heti
- A Room Made of Leaves, Kate Grenville
- Apeirogon, by Colum McCann
- Unquiet, by Linn Ullman
- The Yield, by Tara June Winch
- My Antonia, by Willa Cather
- Howards End, by E.M Forster
- The Collected Stories of Shirley Hazzard
- The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein (illustrations by Maira Kalman)
- Dark, Salt, Clear, by Lamorna Ash
- Handiwork, by Sara Baume
- Austen Years, by Rachel Cohen
- Radical Help, by Hilary Cottam
- Surfacing, by Kathleen Jamie
- Funny Weather, by Olivia Laing
- Vesper Flights, by Helen McDonald
- English Pastoral, by James Rebanks
- Why We Swim, by Bonnie Tsui
- Square Haunting, by Francesca Wade
- Consolations, by David Whyte
- OK, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea, by Patrick Freyne
Empathy is not something that happens to us when we read Dickens. It’s work. What art does is provide material with which to think: new registers, new spaces. After that, friend, it’s up to you.
Funny Weather, Olivia Laing
