1/1/21
![]()
One of my intentions for 2020 was to read 5 hours a week. I don't know if the math added up, but it certainly yielded an unforgettable year of understanding, personal growth, and connection in a time of physical and social isolation. I set a goal to read 25 books last year and was at a relatively good pace at the start of the year, averaging at two books a week. Then well, 2020 did its thing and I fell into a reading slump lasting for weeks–or even months–during which I couldn’t seem to finish a single book.
This reading slump made me take a step back and reevaluate my motivations to read. Was I reading to meet social pressure with the rise of quarantine book clubs? Was I setting an arbitrary challenge for myself and unintentionally sucking the fun out of reading by making it another thing I had to do? Addressing my motivations reminded me that it wasn’t discipline I needed. It was enjoyment. Sometimes being more stringent with yourself is likely more counterproductive than useful. So I made a pact with myself to start reading with intention, choosing stories purposefully, and letting myself be inspired by them. In my case, it was switching out my fiction books for nonfiction, something that wasn’t in my usual rotation (but later discovered a newfound appreciation for and it’s all I read now). With this newly gained momentum from reading on topics that I was interested in, I was able to find my way out of the rut and fall back into the pleasurable habit of reading again, eventually surpassing my reading goal by reading 45 books (a huge, personal milestone for me). Admittedly, this slump’s also made me realize a few things about my reading habits like how the desire to read comes from a place of hunger. Hunger for great stories and a hunger for learning, rather than the “must be reading, must be achieving” mindset that I was running with for the last few years.
I delved deep into so many riveting memoirs and self-help titles at the tail end of the year that I felt compelled to make a list of my favourite 2020 books as these were the genres that really anchored me and highlighted the central theme of perseverance in the face of great devastation. So here’s a round-up of all the books I’ve loved (and reigned supreme according to Goodreads) in 2020:
Favourite Books of 2020 and January Reading
One of my intentions for 2020 was to read 5 hours a week. I don't know if the math added up, but it certainly yielded an unforgettable year of understanding, personal growth, and connection in a time of physical and social isolation. I set a goal to read 25 books last year and was at a relatively good pace at the start of the year, averaging at two books a week. Then well, 2020 did its thing and I fell into a reading slump lasting for weeks–or even months–during which I couldn’t seem to finish a single book.
This reading slump made me take a step back and reevaluate my motivations to read. Was I reading to meet social pressure with the rise of quarantine book clubs? Was I setting an arbitrary challenge for myself and unintentionally sucking the fun out of reading by making it another thing I had to do? Addressing my motivations reminded me that it wasn’t discipline I needed. It was enjoyment. Sometimes being more stringent with yourself is likely more counterproductive than useful. So I made a pact with myself to start reading with intention, choosing stories purposefully, and letting myself be inspired by them. In my case, it was switching out my fiction books for nonfiction, something that wasn’t in my usual rotation (but later discovered a newfound appreciation for and it’s all I read now). With this newly gained momentum from reading on topics that I was interested in, I was able to find my way out of the rut and fall back into the pleasurable habit of reading again, eventually surpassing my reading goal by reading 45 books (a huge, personal milestone for me). Admittedly, this slump’s also made me realize a few things about my reading habits like how the desire to read comes from a place of hunger. Hunger for great stories and a hunger for learning, rather than the “must be reading, must be achieving” mindset that I was running with for the last few years.
I delved deep into so many riveting memoirs and self-help titles at the tail end of the year that I felt compelled to make a list of my favourite 2020 books as these were the genres that really anchored me and highlighted the central theme of perseverance in the face of great devastation. So here’s a round-up of all the books I’ve loved (and reigned supreme according to Goodreads) in 2020:
1. Lost Connections – Johann Hari
Bit of a click baity subtitle, but a compelling read. It’s made me reflect on the kinds of connections I want to create and sustain as we navigate from a year of emotional upheaval. As Johann Hari advocates in the book, the world right now needs more connection than individualism.
UNDERLINED
“
So instead of seeing your depression and anxiety as a form of madness, I would tell my younger self – you need to see the sanity in this sadness. You need to see that it makes sense. Of course it is excruciating. I will always dread this pain returning, every day of my life. But this doesn’t mean the pain is insane, or irrational. If you touch your hand to a burning stove, that, too, will be agony, and you will snatch your hand away as quickly as possible. That’s a sane response. If you kept your hand on the stove, it would burn and burn until it was destroyed.
Surprise, surprise – the only fiction book that made it on this list. I thought this was going to be like a foodie Fight Club with women, but better, the battle between subverting and conforming. I love the juxtaposition of food as both pleasure and celebration but also grotesque and carnal. (If anyone wants to start a real life supper club with me I’m all in)
UNDERLINED
“
Anxiety felt shapeless and transparent and yet solid and whole. It felt like a shroud. Like a hike of static around me. It couldn’t be described, and yet I fixated on its description. It was like walking into a room and forgetting what you went for. Going to say a word that is on the tip of your tongue. It was always there, always threatening a conclusion and yet withholding it.
“
I was exhilarated by my body’s ability to mend and move on, even if I could not.
My favourite out of the lot, also one that got me out of a reading slump. Carmen Maria Machado puts words to the felt but are unspoken like no other. She brings to light how unproductive archetypes of traumatic experiences can be, and how the subtleties of the less extreme ones can fall through the cracks. Hollowed me out in the best way possible.
UNDERLINED
“
The nature of archival silence is that certain people's narratives and their nuances are swallowed by history; we see only what pokes through because it is sufficiently salacious for the majority to pay attention.
“
When I was a kid, I learned that you develop immunity when an illness rages through your body. Your body is brilliant, even when you are not. It doesn't just heal – it learns. It remembers.
I often joke about how I “eat my feelings” when in reality it’s truly one of my biggest coping mechanisms. This book gets me to think about what it really means for women to unapologetically take up space in this world.
UNDERLINED
“
With my tattoos, I get to say, these are choices I make for my body, with full-throated consent. This is how I mark myself. This is how I take my body back.
“
I’m still a mess, but I’m a different kind of mess now. I can generally identify what the mess is and where it’s coming from. I am learning to ask for help, slowly. I am learning a lot of things.
When I first started therapy, there were moments I felt like there was no light left in. Just grief and shakiness and feelings of terror and uncertainty gnawing away at me. My therapist would hold the flame for me until I could see my own reflection of light in the mirror that we all are, in all of its unabashed glory. I am now my own light – as this book is to me.
UNDERLINED
“
You can’t get through your pain by diminishing it, he reminded me. You get through your pain by accepting it and figuring out what to do with it. You can’t change what you’re denying or minimizing. And, of course, often what seem like trivial worries are manifestations of deeper ones.
“
The nature of life is change and the nature of people is to resist change.
A memoir that isn’t about the events of life but of a constant erasure and rebuilding, of trying to see oneself in glimpses, turning sharply around to catch something before it disappears and all that is left is a two-dimensional seeming picture of a person you basically recognize as yourself. I liked this book so much that I had trouble getting through it. Every sentence feels like a whole universe that I want to soak up and live in.
UNDERLINED
“
Possibility means that you might be many things that you are not yet, and it is intoxicating when it's not terrifying.
Sometimes you lean into your own kind strength as a response to being wronged. To write with such honesty and vulnerability is extraordinary, and I don't think I'll ever be able to thank Chanel Miller enough for what she gives to this world. A remarkable and powerful memoir. Keep tissues handy.
UNDERLINED
“
Trauma was refusing to adhere to any schedule, didn’t seem to align itself with time. Some days it was distant as a star and other days it could wholly engulf me.
“
Maybe now you are terrified, bobbing inside the clear plastic container around you, thinking, I am trapped, this is not how it’s supposed to be. Just remember: the temperature is slowly changing, you are adjusting. You will make it into that pond. With a little more time, you’ll be free.
Both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call (that reads like a self-help book). So much of the writing reminds me of Brené Brown’s work on vulnerability. If you haven’t already read this, please do yourself a favour. Take this energy into 2021.
UNDERLINED
“
Every time you’re given a choice between disappointing someone else and disappointing yourself, your duty is to disappoint that someone else. Your job, throughout your entire life, is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself.
“
The moment after we don’t know what to do with ourselves is the moment we find ourselves. Right after itchy boredom is self-discovery. But we have to hang in there long enough without bailing.
Honorable mentions:
All About Love by Bell Hooks, How to Date Men When You Hate Men by Blythe Roberson (I thought this was going to be my 2020 bible until I read Maybe You Should Talk to Someone), How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen, The Lonely City by Olivia Laing, Three Women by Lisa Taddeo.
While looking back on my reading year in 2020, I realized that I had read the world mainly through the female lens all year. Moving forward, I do want to make a more conscious effort to seek out male voices, as well as continuing to seek out voices of non-binary and BIPOC authors. This year, I want to focus less on numerical reading goals and place priority in the titles that I really want to read. Honestly just cutting stuff out that gives me damn near comical anxiety which at this point doesn’t need any more time to fester. With that, here are some of the books I’m most excited to read this January in no particular order. Consider them five star predictions, if you will.
1. Can’t Hurt Me – David Goggins
2. Wow, No Thank You – Samantha Irby
3. How to Do Nothing – Jenny Odell
4. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes – Caitlin Doughty
5. Eat a Peach – David Chang
Starting 2021 in the same way I spent most of 2020: indoors, shuffling between my bedroom and my living room, reading nonfiction, and drinking an oat latte the size of my head as this* ambient playlist plays in perpetuity.
*originally intended to get me hopeful, but over time, has become one that I turn to when I feel like wading in the waters of my own storm and prolonging bouts of loneliness ¯_(ツ)_/¯