If best book lists were constrained to only books published during the year, The Book Shopper blog (est. 2009) would only have one offering (Connoisseurs of Worms) to share. Historically I have always expanded the selection pool to books that I have read in their entirety, which this year covers just over 30 books. (A complete list of books read is linked to the main homepage of the blog.)
As usual, some patterns emerge when revisiting what I have read this year. One is that I reread five books by some of my favorite authors—Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Primo Levi, Larry McMurtry, Drew Gilpin Faust and David Shields, which seems abnormally high. Was I seeking the comfort of the familiar in the upheaval of pandemic? Is this an epiphany for me?
The major qualification to make the list below is that besides enjoyment, each book influenced me by either a) leading to other books which I eventually read, or b.) slightly changed my thoughts or actions in my little world.
There is no significance in the order and the links go to locations on the blog where I wrote about them in more detail:
The British Are Coming: The War for America (1775-1777) (published in 2018) by Rick Atkinson. In a year when I read books from historians Marc Bloch, and Barbara Tuchman about the practice of writing history, Atkinson always has been a role model. He is a master of storytelling who carefully selects the historical figure (not necessarily a major figure) and the situation that best illustrates what was going on. He relies on a mixture of sources and weaves them seamlessly. What made it especially timely is how The British Are Coming resonates with our own times – handling pandemics (theirs was smallpox) and the bitter and warring factions that founded our nation. (Uh-oh, sound familiar?) Remember before the war, the colonists were all subjects to King George the III.
For more see “A Brief History of Vaccinations in America.”
Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands (2009) by Judith Schalansky. My interest in her work began as a review of her series of essays An Inventory of Losses (2018) in the New York Times. Schalansky’s book atlas is a treasure chest of a book as she mixes short essays and information graphics in her travelogue of "fifty islands I have not visited and never will."
For more see the posting “Airplane Reading.”
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches (2011) by S.C. Gwynne. Another fantastic history book relying on a blend of meticulous research and storytelling centering on the life and times of Quanah Parker. Parker was the last great Comanche chief who was the half-white son of a Comanche warrior and Cynthia Ann Parker who was abducted in a raid when she was thirteen. The bloody treachery embedded in the history of Texas and Oklahoma will dispel any notions you ever had about the glory of Manifest Destiny.
For more see the posting, “Timelines.”
The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms (2004) by Amy Stewart. After I read this, I replaced my simple plastic tub with a tiered worm tower. The influence of Stewart’s book about these amazing eisenia fetida cannot be discounted. I am proud to be a member of the vermiculture community and to unabashedly say the word “vermiculture” though I cannot pronounce eisenia fetida.
More here at “Upping the Worm Game.”
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. This is the only fiction offering on the list and it surprises me that I read only six works of fiction in 2020. (But doesn’t reading William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! [1936] count as 3 books?) Set in the near future, Robinson’s book is considered speculative fiction at that. Robinson follows the lives of several characters who are dedicated to saving the planet for future generations but are often at odds with themselves and with corporate and government powers. What makes to the book so important is that it also includes interludes on possible new technologies and strategies that are intertwined in the plot. Ultimately it gives one hope that we may survive by the skin of our teeth. The Guardian recently published a lengthy critique of Robinson’s ideas.
More about the book itself in “Speculating on the Future.”
All these books and other Book Shopper blog favorites are available our companion site (destinationbooks.net). When you purchase a new book through the site, we earn an affiliate commission and additional money also goes to support independent bookstores.
