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!)