Twelve books for 2020

So, here we are, the final day of 2020. What a strange and awful year it has been. I wonder whether in years to come I will be able to quite believe just how many months I shielded or worked from home, how few weeks I actually spent at school. In some ways it has seemed as if I have blinked and the year just disappeared – probably because so many of my days, weeks and months were so featureless. What with the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter protests, and the US election it has been a year that has seen many of us distracted from our books, some of us with more reading time available actually reading less. I am not going to try and predict what 2021 might hold for us all – however, wherever you are, I hope it is a much better year.

Perhaps because of the above – I have found it even harder to come up with my twelve books of the year. I excluded re-reads but have chosen both newer and backlisted titles as always.

Putting these in order proved impossible, so in alphabetical order by title my twelve books of 2020 are:

Abigail by Magda Szabó (1970) translated by Len Rix. Read right back at the start of the year in January. Hungary 1943 – A senior army General in Budapest decides to send his fourteen year old daughter Georgina Vitay, across Hungary to a boarding school in Árkod. What starts out as a brilliant boarding school novel, becomes in time a taut, WW2 thriller – with Gina in danger.

A Very Great Profession by Nicola Beauman (1983) – the founder of Persephone books. Read very recently, in mid-December. A Persephone reissue of her 1983 book of literary criticism, which I have sat on for a year because I read so little nonfiction. I absolutely loved this book, such a celebration of the kinds of books I love. Rarely do I love a nonfiction book this much.

Christopher and Columbus by Elizabeth von Arnim (1919) Read in April. Such an absolute delight from beginning to end. The Christopher and Columbus of the title are the two Annas; Anna-Rose and Anna-Felicitas von Twinkler, seventeen year old twins. The uncle of these innocent half German young women arranges for their passage to the US, and thus are the two Annas thrust upon the United States.

Clash by Ellen Wilkinson (1929) read in October, this is the kind of novel I love. Politics, feminism, and a faithful portrayal of the working classes.  Clash is a novel about the General Strike of 1926, its aftermath, and the terrible conditions that miners families were living in.

Dangerous Ages by Rose Macaulay (1921) Read in August, Rose Macaulay is a writer I have enjoyed exploring in the last few years. This edition from the British Library Women Writers series, is a thing of beauty in itself. In this novel Rose Macaulay examines four generations of women within one family, each of them at a different ‘dangerous’ stage of womanhood.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (2009) translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Read back in February, and this is a novel I had no idea would end up on this list – yet it has stayed with me – and I came to appreciate the brilliance of the novel the more I thought about it later. Examining traditional ideas of ‘madness,’ animal rights and the hypocrisy of religion.

Midwinter by Fiona Melrose (2016) Read in April, it is a novel which captured me and captivated me from word one. One of those I was sorry to finish. This is a novel firmly rooted in the Suffolk landscape, a novel of a father and son, grief, guilt and how we find our way home. Beautifully written and deeply heartfelt. It is really quite haunting, honestly if you haven’t already, just read it.

Mr Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo (2013). Another one from earlier this month, this one and a Very Great Profession totally upset the apple cart in terms of this list! It is just a joy of a book. In this novel we meet Barrington Jedidiah Walker, or Barry to his friends. His voice is immediately engaging, warm, funny, vulnerable a little defensive and often outrageous – he pulls us into his world. Barry is very loveable. If you haven’t already met Barry – I suggest you do so. I smiled all the way through.

The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier (1957) read during my reading week in May. The kind of novel Daphne excels at, I just could not put it down. An identity swap novel with plenty of intrigue and drama. Two men, one English and poor one French and rich but from a troubled family, meet by chance and swap identities. You have to suspend your disbelief but it is still brilliant.

The Skin Chairs by Barbara Comyns (1962) read in May, one of my favourite writers, I was delighted to find a copy of this one reasonably priced. The narrator of this novel is a typical Comyns narrator – Frances a child of ten from a family plunged into poverty upon the sudden death of her father. An interfering aunt and some cousins live nearby – and there are several other strange or sad characters who she becomes involved with. This wonderfully quirky Comyns novel that describes an adult world through a child’s eyes is full of odd and surprising images.

The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton (1947) read in February. My second Patrick Hamilton set in a boarding house. 1943 and the middle of the Second World War, Miss Roach formerly of London, has taken shelter from the bombings in London at the Rosamund Tea Rooms boarding house, run by Mrs Payne. Here she lives alongside a group of equally grey and invisible souls, who struggle to fit in comfortably anywhere in the world as it currently is. Vicki Kugelmann comes to the Rosamund Tearooms bringing with her tension and trouble for Miss Roache.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett (2020) read in June, a novel worth the hype – a brilliantly compelling read – it is a story of race, of colour, exploring the American history of ‘passing.’ However, it is also a story of belonging – of finding your place in the world. Moving from the 1950s to the 1990s – from Louisiana to California and New York – it is a pacey, thought provoking novel that becomes increasingly hard to put down.

So, that’s it my 2020 dozen! I love seeing everyone’s books of the year posts at this time of the year, so in case I missed it – what have been your reading highlights of 2020?

Happy New Year to you all.