This was a difficult and weird year for everyone, but as usual, for me, books have been a consistent and constant source of satisfaction and joy. Weirdly enough, in a year where escapism seems more appealing than ever, a lot of the books I enjoyed the most this year were nonfiction (mostly radical theory).

2020 in books:

Last year one of my goals was to read more casually, and read only when I really felt like it. I was able to do the same this year, and I found that although I read about the same (maybe a bit less overall), I read much more sporadically and would finish 2-3 books in a week then take a break for a bit. I find it suits me much better to read like that, and it feels much less stressful than reading on a “schedule.”

I also started writing reviews again this year. I still really enjoy thinking and writing about books, but doing them quarterly instead of monthly and only writing about the books I was interested in writing about made doing the reviews a lot easier (although I’m still always late lol).

This year, I also noticed that my reading was split into roughly three chunks:

from Jan to March I read a ton of fiction (I read basically every Jia Tolentino rec I could find on twitter lol)
From March to June I was adjusting to the quarantine and mostly read easy things that didn’t require any thinking, so I doomscrolled a lot of old manga
From June onwards I started getting back into radical lit, and started reading a bunch of stuff from friends or reading lists online, interspersed with random fiction from browsing goodreads or twitter.

Next year, I’d like to continue my reading and writing habits. I’d also like to continue reading radical lit (my next topic is going to be fat politics), but I’m also interested in getting back into reading some more fiction. I typically visit a bookstore every two months or so to source a bunch of recs and get new books, but I haven’t been able to do that so I think my fiction was running a little low for a while :-(. I got a bunch of interesting recs from friends recently though, so hopefully like this year I can get into them in the next few months. I ALSO WANT TO READ MORE SHORT STORIES. I forgot how much I enjoyed short story collections until I read In Persuasion Nation. I’ve also been putting off The Pale King and I am going to read it next year :<.

Cream:

Anyways, here are my favorite books of 2020, each with a short description / selling point:

If you are interested in learning about the ways in which creativity is co-opted and exploited under capitalism, then read Against Creativity by Oli Mould. I didn’t actually like the writing that much, but over the last few months I’ve found the book to be extremely relevant and I still think about some of the ideas he presents, which is my most important standard for non fiction.
If you are interested in a depressing but poignant and thoughtful short story collection about boredom and inauthenticity then read Oblivion by David Foster Wallace. Better the second time.
If you are interested in a cute, funny, and short manga combining ancient Roman culture and modern Japanese bathing culture, then read Thermae Romae by Mari Yamazaki.
If you are interested in being submerged in a beautifully ethereal book about a community isolated from the world, then read Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips. Special shoutout to the narrative structure: so good + so effective!
If you are interested in the idea that the fundamental message is in the medium, not the content of the message, then read The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Flore.
If you are interested in a satisfying epic about summer and baseball and magic, then read Summerland by Michael Chabon.
If you are interested in some of the best writing I’ve ever read, and some of my favorite short stories, then read A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berin.
If you are interested in “the subject of being alive when being alive feels terrible,” then read My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh.
- https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/ottessa-moshfeghs-painful-funny-novel-of-a-young-womans-chemical-hibernation
If you are interested in a beautiful book about loss and recovery and the comfort of feeling understood and understanding then read Moshi Moshi by Banana Yoshimoto. I liked Kitchen, but I think I like Moshi Moshi even more.
If you are interested in learning what makes an effective bus system then read Better Buses, Better Cities: How to Plan, Run, and Win the Fight for Effective Transit by Steven Higashide. It sounds kind of troll but this book was actually very interesting.
If you are interested in a transformative collection of speeches, interviews, and essays about intersectional identity, then read Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde.
If you are interested in the experience of being sad while knowing how small your sorrows are, but feeling how important they are to you, then read All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews. There’s also a sick monologue at the end, and I am a sucker for sick monologues.
If you are interested in the comforting and redemptive nature of food then read Kitchen. Most enticing katsudon description ever.
If you are interested in feeling unseen and grappling with an unbreakable solitude and loneliness, or if you’re interested in a writer’s perspective, read Outline by Rachel Cusk.
If you are interested in the 2nd best sports shonen manga then read Eyeshield 21. It helps during the Super Bowl, I can kind of understand what’s going on.
If you are interested in an introduction to prison abolition then read Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Davis.
If you are interested in a painful but painfully relevant book about the role of romanticism and society in sexual abuse, then read 房思琪的初戀樂園 by 林奕含.
If you are interested in a book about failure and the importance of running away, trying again, and facing problems earnestly, then read Silver Spoon by Hiromu Arakawa. This is my favorite manga of all time, and I am sad but happy to see it finished.
If you are interested in a direct and blunt book about the viciousness of America and the necessity & tools for revolution, then read Blood in My Eye by George Jackson. Literally one of the greatest thinkers I have ever read.
If you are interested in the best sports manga of all time then read Haikyu. It seriously has it all and does it all. It also features one of the best and most satisfying final arcs I’ve ever read.
If you are interested in Japanese pop culture (ranging from Karaoke, Hello Kitty, anime, and games) OR if you are interested in the ways in which pop culture and sociocultural trends exist in a co-constituent relationship, then read Pure Invention: How Japan's Pop Culture Conquered the World by Matt Alt.
If you are interested in a fucked up Japanese thriller about four housewives that get involved in a nasty crime then read Out by Natsuo Kirino. The thriller part is pretty good; what made the book great for me was the ending.
If you are interested in an amazing transformative text from a heroic black radical feminist + revolutionary about the process of becoming a revolutionary then read Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur.
If you are interested in the role and necessity of policing in modern society then read The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale (hint: they are harmful and we don’t need them).
If you are interested in an interesting and thoughtfully written book from the perspective of an autistic teenager then read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.
If you are interested in the pernicious effects of colonialism on both the colonizer and the colonized, then read Discourse on Colonialism by Aime Cesaire.
If you are interested in a beautiful lesbian love story then read Run Away with Me, Girl by Battan.
If you are interested in a pedagogy for the oppressed then read Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Pablo Freire. Sometimes nonfiction books are just really aptly named
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you are interested in modern Greek family saga and/or a coming-of-age novel with an intersex narrator, then read Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.
If you are interested in how marginalized audiences engage with and enjoy video games in the era of casual video games, then read Gaming Sexism: Gender and Identity in the Era of Casual Video Games by Amanda C. Cote. The ideas explored in this book imo are also generally relevant to other cis male dominated communities.
If you are interested in learning more about one of the most powerful and effective systems of propaganda in the world, mass communication media in the US, then read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman.
If you are interested in a beautifully satisfying and sappy book about a grumpy old man then read A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. Save it for a happy day of reading.
If you are interested in reading the OG science fiction epic then read Dune by Frank Herbert. I loved the world building; Arrakis and the Fremen are particularly cool.
If you are interested in a thoughtful essay about the nature and purpose of poetry, and why everyone seems to both hate and love poetry, then read The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner.
If you are interested in a collection of speeches and essays by Kwame Ture about liberalism, black power, and pan-Africanism then read Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan-Africanism by Kwame Ture.
If you are interested in African American culinary history or the ways in which food is deeply connected with society, history, culture, and identity, then read The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty