Sunday, January 31, 2021

LIST: Best Books of 2020


Top Five Books of the Year

1. The Innocents - Michael Crummy
2. The Causeway: A Passage from Innocence - Linden MacIntyre
3. The Pull of the Stars - Emma Donoghue
4. Queenie - Candice Carty-Williams
5. Easy Prey - Catherine Lo


142 books read
13 nonfiction
83 audiobooks
24 ebooks


Best Mystery
Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith
It's not even the mystery - it's Cormoran and Robin's relationship

Honourable Mentions Best Mystery (because I read a lot of mysteries)

IQ by Joe Ide
The Chestnut Man by Soren Sveistrup
The Lost Man by Jane Harper
Murder on Cold Street by Sherry Thomas
Long Bright River by Liz Moore

Best Start to a Series - Alex Morrow series
Still Midnight - Denise Mina (also read The End of the Wasp Season)

Best Historical Series
Lady Charlotte Holmes by Sherry Thomas

Best Graphic Novel
American Gods part 1 and 2


Best 
Young Adult
 
Easy Prey by Catherine Lo
This was a free YA Sync listen, and I just loved how it all came together, and that is was Canadian.





Best Recommended Book (won the Booker Prize and was on the Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist)
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo


Favourite Characters
Evered and Ada, the orphaned brother and sister from The Innocents living on the outports of Newfoundland







Best  Book by a Tried and True Author 
Both The Last Anniversay and The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty were classic Moriarty - multiple views, a mystery and Australian. I can't even decide which I liked best.



Best Historical Fiction 
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue and
Hamnet & Judith by Maggie O'Farrell
Two plague books by two of my favourite authors. Hey, Tracy Chevalier (another great historical fiction writer - Where's your plague book?





Best Apocalyptic/Dystopian
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

Best Book by a New to Me Author
Marilla of Green Gables by Sarah McCoy

Best Science Fiction/Fantasy
The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

Best Debut Book
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams










Best Short Story Collection 
The Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips

Funniest 
How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran

Most Heartbreaking
Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Creepiest Novel
The Guest List by Lucy Foley

Best Re-read
In May, during lockdown times, my library offered Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone all the time to whoever wanted to read it with no waiting. It was excellent, and I was hoping they would offer the rest of the series like that as well, but alas, no. And then because so many people were re-reading the HP series, the line-ups were long for the next books.

Best Audiobook/ Rec for a Book Club
Such a Fun Age by Kiley

Most Unique Book 
This is How You Lose the Time War- Max Gladstone

Best Nonfiction : I have broken this down a little more because I can't pick one

Best Nonfiction: science/history
How We Got to Now: Six Innovations that Changed the Modern World - Steven Johnson
I count Johnson as a go-to NF author now. I like his connections, and writing, and topics. This isn't as fascinating as The Ghost Map, but it was still really good. 
(cold -refrigeration, time-clocks,  glass- eyeglass lenses,  light-lightbulbs, clean- sewer systems, sound)

Best Nonfiction: true crime
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow


Best Nonfiction: memoir/autobiography
Causeway by Linden MacIntyre 
My husband also read this book, and then we gave it to both our parents for Christmas after reading it. MacIntyre is a CBC reporter, and has written novels as well. This memoir was exactly what I like in a memoir - takes his personal memories and growth and sets it against a historical event and blends the two perfectly. The causeway in question is the connection between Cape Breton and Nova Scotia. Having lived through our own 'fixed link' in 1997 as PEI was connected to the mainland and the ferry done away with, it really is a turning point in memories of life. 



(Whew! Getting this posted and it is still January with 15 minutes to spare!)