My 2020 Reading List (so far)

At the beginning of 2020, I shared all of the books I had read in 2019, all 40 of them! You can check out my 2019 reading list here. In 2020, instead of saving all my books for the end of the year, I wanted to do a mid-year check in. This way, my list isn’t too overwhelming, and I can share some of my reading goals for the rest of the year. And maybe inspire you to pick up a title or two!

So far in 2020, I have read:

• The Only Plane in the Sky by Garrett Graff
  • An oral history of 9/11 from perspectives all over the United States. Absolutely heart-wrenching and eye-opening. Highly recommend!
• Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center
  • I didn’t know what this was about but turned out to be a nice little contemporary romance book. Not bad.
• Becoming by Michelle Obama
  • Embarrassed it took me until 2020 to read this one. Full of brilliance. Not all sections grabbed me but a wonderful book overall.
• Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison
  • The facts in this book are mind-blowing and should be shared amongst anyone who has ever struggled with body or eating issues. However, the storytelling could use work.
• Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow
  • This book was brilliant! Investigative reporting behind the fall of Harvey Weinstein and other sexual predators in Hollywood. Very engaging and shocking.
• Dear Girls by Ali Wong
  • A short and funny memoir by comedian Ali Wong. Very interesting to hear how Ali came up in comedy and I loved all the Asian culture.
• The Bride Test by Helen Hoang
  • Another win for Asian culture! I loved that the heroine was a single mom and immigrant from Vietnam and her love interest was an American-Vietnamese man with autism.
• This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
  • This book was an easy read, very funny and a great eye-opener on what medical staff go through in hospitals. Besides some fatphobic comments, I really liked it.
• How to be a Family by Dan Kois
  • A cool true story about a family who lived in four different countries over the course of a year while learning more about parenting and families. It got a bit boring in parts and was very white, but overall a cool tale.
• Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl
  • I have no idea how I ended up reading a memoir by the former Editor in Chief at Gourmet but I did and I loved it. The storytelling was amazing and now I want to read more food books!
• Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
  • One of my favourite fiction books of the year so far! Awesome characters and a very cool format of telling the story in letters.
• Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark
  • Based on the podcast of the same name, this memoir didn’t totally grab me. I appreciated the authors’ vulnerability but found they pandered to the audience a lot and I wasn’t that interested in most of their essays.
• Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
  • Very interesting book full of great characters, good storytelling and important life lessons. Sometimes the psychology teaching felt more like a class than a story.
• Paris in Love by Eloisa James
  • Snapshots of an American family’s year abroad in Paris. Very vivid descriptions but not a narrative story really, if that’s what you’re looking for.
• Do You Mind If I Cancel? by Gary Janetti
  • Interesting book with good storytelling, but it was actually the grammar and sentence structure issues that really bothered me. I think I was starting to get tired of essay collections at this point.
• The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West
  • But I made room for one more essay collection! I loved Lindy West’s Shrill and was excited for her next book. I didn’t love this one as much, but it was still a great read.
• The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman
  • A sweet story and what book lover doesn’t love to read about books? A bit cheesy but a nice read overall.
• Christmas at the Gingerbread Café by Rebecca Raisin
  • The ultimate in cheese and niceness. This very short book was just to give myself a break from the heavy of the world.
• The Jetsetters by Amanda Ward
  • The story of an estranged family who come together on a European cruise. I loved the travel aspect but felt some of the narrators weren’t as interesting as others.
• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
  • The first of many anti-racist books I want to read. A great introduction to anti-racism work and confronting whiteness, with many quotes underlined because they were so impactful. But certain sections felt too drawn out or too obvious, and I struggle with reading a white woman’s text on anti-racism.
• Untamed by Glennon Doyle
  • I loved this book! I found the writing so beautiful and the lessons made me say “oof” out loud a couple of times. I loved the way Glennon was raising her children, her thoughts on love and feminism, and even her chapter on racism aged decently well.

Reading stats

Total number of books read: 21 books
Total number of pages read: 6,355 pages
Books read per month: 3.5 books per month
Most and least books read in a month: I read six books in May (closely followed by five in February) for my most read month and just one book in April (lockdown life was hitting me hard).
Fiction vs non-fiction: I read six fiction books and 15 non-fiction books.
Male vs female authors: I read five books authored by men and 16 authored by women.
BIPOC vs white authors: Embarrassingly, only three of the 21 authors I read was a BIPOC author. More on that below!
Genres: Surprisingly, my most common genre so far has been memoir or essay collections, followed by contemporary fiction. I’m surprised I haven’t picked up more true crime yet this year.
Shortest and longest book: The shortest book I read was just 64 pages (Christmas at the Gingerbread Café) and the longest book I read was 512 pages (The Only Plane in the Sky).
Best and worst books: My favourite books of 2020 so far have been The Only Plane in the Sky, Catch and Kill, Where’d You Go Bernadette and Untamed. My least favourite have been Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered and Christmas at the Gingerbread Café.

Genres

Last year, my main genres were true crime and travel. These were genres I was comfortable in and really enjoyed. Before last year, I thought I hated fiction. But I learned that I don’t hate fiction, just poorly written fiction with predictable storylines. I much prefer contemporary fiction with as little cheese as possible.

So in 2020, I branched out and added more contemporary fiction to my reading. I also read quite a few memoirs and essay collections, which were hit and miss, but certainly genres I’ll return to. I have yet to read anything in the thriller, fantasy or mystery genres, but maybe that will change before the end of the year?

Reading while travelling

I always do my best reading when we’re travelling. Whenever we’re on a train or plane, that’s when I get a lot of reading in. So for the first few months of the year before we left Prague, I was doing quite a bit of reading. February was one of my best reading months, at five books read that month! And most of that month was spent travelling through Spain and Morocco.

Now that we’re back home in Vancouver, I have had to be more purposeful in my reading. I usually read before bed, but not nearly as much as I would have if we were still travelling. So now I need to actually carve out time in the day to sit down and read (it’s not like I’m doing much else!).

Reading (or not!) during lockdown

As our life in Prague came to an abrupt end and we made the decision to come back to Canada, my reading pretty much ground to a halt. Living through a global pandemic, especially when it meant leaving Prague early in such a rush, moving into a new place and losing a lot of my client work, really messed with my head. In fact, it’s still messing with my head.

For a lot of our first month back in Vancouver, I put off reading. I was dealing with crisis communication at work, jumping on way too many family Zoom calls, and turning off my brain with baking and colouring. For the entire month of April, I only read one book.

Luckily, I started to come out of my funk in May and was able to read six books that month (though a couple were very short). And now with my new reading goals for the rest of the year (see below!), I’m hoping to keep that up and start reading often again.

Reading questions

I answered a lot of these questions with my 2019 books, so wanted to do it again for the first half of 2020. These questions were borrowed from The Stacks, which is a book podcast. I talked a lot about The Stacks in my 2019 reading wrap up, and how this podcast is one of the reasons I’m reading again. Check it out!

Name two books you loved and one you hated: I loved Catch and Kill and Untamed. I hated (though that word is harsh!) Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered.

Last great book you read: Untamed by Glennon Doyle

Currently reading: Over the Top by Jonathan Van Ness

Book you’re most looking forward to reading: Me and White Supremacy by Layla F Saad

Book you’d recommend to other people: I want to recommend the message and stats from Anti-Diet, but didn’t love the book itself.

Book recommended to you: Almost all of these books were recommended to me, mostly through podcasts and Instagram. I’ll say White Fragility was most strongly recommended to me as I purposefully read it this month in time for a podcast discussion on The Stacks (listen to part one and part two).

Book you’re embarrassed about reading: Christmas at the Gingerbread Café. It was a super short and super cheesy rom-com book. It wasn’t my style and it felt weird to read. Also felt odd to be reading a Christmas book in May!

How do you like to read? My favourite reading is done on planes and trains when we travel. But at home here in Vancouver, I love taking a book to the beach or just snuggling up on the couch with a blanket and Ellie.

Book you would assign in school: White Fragility, Untamed and The Only Plane in the Sky

Book that would make a good movie: The Bride Test would be a cute movie!

What do you wish was different about your reading life? I almost wish I read faster so I could get through more books. I have so many downloaded and ready to go on my e-reader but I don’t get through them fast enough. And, of course, I wish I read more often.

A book that made you laugh: Dear Girls was pretty hilarious in parts.

A book that made you cry: I sobbed through The Only Plane in the Sky.

A book that made you angry: Catch and Kill infuriated me.

Reading goals for the rest of 2020

Full disclosure, I started my draft of this post in early May. And in that draft, I wrote that I wanted to diversify my reading by trying new genres and authors with different voices. At the end of May and early June, with the movement against anti-Black racism, it became even more clear to me how important it was for me to diversify my reading.

Of the 21 books I’ve read so far this year, only three were written by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) and only one of those authors is Black. That is embarrassing. I know I need to better.

Part of my work in anti-racism is educating myself. And one way I can do that is reading anti-racism books and/or books by Black authors. These books will not only help me get educated on issues of race, white supremacy, etc. but also help to de-centre whiteness in my reading. The majority of my reading is white authors telling white stories. The media we choose shapes our views, and I want to choose more diverse books to better represent the many stories that make up our world.

So starting in June, my goal is to read at least one anti-racism and/or Black authored book each month. I have a huge list downloaded and am really excited to challenge myself, get learning and hear some new perspectives. If you’re wanting to diversify your reading, I invite you to join me.

Quick side note: Self-education is just one part of our anti-racism work as allies. As Rachel E Cargle says, “Anti-racism work is not a self improvement space for white people. If protecting bodies and empowering Black lives aren’t at the center of your work then you’re not here for Black people. You’re simply going through the motions to make your white self feel better.” So reading these books is part of our anti-racism work in getting us educated, but it’s just step one. 

Second side note: Black people are not just their trauma. While it’s important to read anti-racism texts and educate ourselves, we should also read Black authors that talk about a myriad of experiences. Black people are not a monolith. If we care about Black lives, we shouldn’t just care about their deaths (or enslavement or imprisonment); we should care about their joy too. 

Last year, I talked a lot about reading for pleasure. It was my first year getting back into reading since, essentially, my childhood. I wasn’t reading for assignment or for social media, so I gave myself permission to put down books I didn’t love and only choose titles I was interested in. And while I will still do that in 2020, I also want to challenge myself. I want to pick up books that might not immediately grab my attention, books that might challenge me and books that are outside of my usual genres.

I still don’t have a goal for the number of books I want to read this year, but I do want to read more. And I want to read daily. For a while in early 2019, I was actually setting an alarm to take a 20 minute reading break each day at 11am. Maybe I need to do that again?

I also want to start sharing the books I read on my blog more consistently. I’m thinking of doing a monthly round up and review of the books I have read that month. That way, I’m motivated to read more (since it would be sad to do a round up of just one book), I will be more conscious in my reading if I know I have to do a review on it, and it gives me more content, since I’m not travelling as much these days. Reading is a big part of my life and I’d love to reflect that on the blog too!

My last reading related goal? Finish writing my book! More on that later 😉

---

How has your reading gone in 2020 so far? What has been your favourite book and what are you looking forward to reading? 

 

Share my 2020 reading list – Pin it!