This was a weird reading year for many, but my reading rhythm was largely untouched by the pandemic. 2020 was final proof, if any was required, that my ability to read depends mostly on how busy I am at work. In August and December, when I had some time off, I read more than 20 books. In September and October, when work was overwhelming, I read hardly any. (All together, I finished 105 books this year.)

In other news, I discovered audiobooks and found that for memoirs and essays and easier nonfiction they work rather well for me. I do not listen to books when I’m at home, but Audible is the perfect companion to my daily 10000 steps. I should have perhaps called this post ‘The best reading experiences of 2020’, because not only are these good books, but I really ‘experienced’ all of them, reading them alone in the summer heat or listening to them when walking in the darkness of the Estonian countryside.

Deaf Republic, Ilya Kaminsky. This was the first book I finished this year and boy, what a start. I am not the biggest poetry reader, but I’m willing to testify that Kaminsky is a genius. This collection is essentially one epic poem made up of individual poems and it tells a story of war, bravery, cowardice, collaboration, sacrifice and love. The author is deaf and deafness is used as an incredibly complex metaphor throughout the book, to stunning effect. (It’s now available in Estonian as well, for those of my compatriots who are intimidated by the English original.) Did I already say it was genius?

Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum. I read so much great non-fiction this year that it was extremely difficult to pick favourites. If I had to choose only one to recommend, however, I suspect I would go with Applebaum. It is a sharp, intelligent look at the anti-democratic trends we are seeing across the West, from Poland to Spain to the US. What makes it different from other intelligent books on this subject is that Applebaum marries her theoretical knowledge (which is wide and deep) with personal experience and psychological, almost gossipy insight that rings true also for my home country. An illuminating and relatively quick read. 

Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo. While I read a lot of non-fiction in 2020, my fiction mileage was more modest. That said, I loved this modern saga by Evaristo – her Booker win was well deserved. The book tells 12 interlocking stories of mostly black women in the UK and uses somewhat unconventional style to do so. But don’t be alarmed, it flows beautifully and is in my view an effortless, engaging read. A new classic.

The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking), Katie Mack. I love astrophysics and quantum mechanics and read about these topics regularly. This is going to be a big claim, but I think The End of Everything is the most enjoyable book I’ve read on these topics, ever. Mack is not only a gifted cosmologist, she is also an excellent writer. And she’s funny. In this book, she looks at different ways the universe might end, which also gives a good overview of what physics has been up to recently. Riveting stuff.

Recollections of My Non-Existance, Rebecca Solnit. I admit that I’ve been lukewarm about Solnit before. I have never doubted her intelligence or relevance and Men Explain Things to Me is obviously iconic, but I’ve often found her aloof or a bit convoluted. So it was with a slight surprise that I fell in love with this book on page one. I read it twice in one month, something that happens extremely rarely. This is a memoir-cum-essay about things that are important for Solnit, feminism first among them. It is sobering to be reminded what it meant to be a feminist decades ago, without mainstream support and understanding (such as it is today). Deeply touching and relevant.

Piranesi, Susanna Clarke. It was a good year for SFF, but not quite as good as some other recent ones (I haven’t read several of the must-haves from 2020, so could still change my mind). I usually love SF and fantasy for proper genre stuff, spaceships and elves included. Piranesi, on the other hand, is definitely on the literary side of fantasy. It is a quiet, unflashy book that could be underwhelming for some after the tour de force that was Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. But it’s a deeply humane, hopeful text that I think resonates with our current situation in interesting ways.

The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert. Non-fiction tends to date much faster than fiction and to a certain extent, Kolbert’s book has. We know more about climate change and biodiversity loss now than we did in 2014. It doesn’t really matter, though. The fundamentals remain the same and Kolbert’s reporting is of exceptional quality. It must have been much more shocking when it come out, now it reads like an eloquent and almost reserved account of what most of us already know we are doing to the planet.

Arabs: A 3000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires, Tim Mackintosh-Smith. This was by far my biggest reading project of the year: it took me four months to get through, which was deliberate. I listened to the audiobook when I walked and then read it on paper with a pencil in hand, hoping to better retain the 600 pages of densely packed Arab history. It is a gripping, insightful story from pre-Islamic times to the present day that favours big themes over listing all the facts. That the author has lived in Yemen for decades adds a fascinating Southern perspective to the narrative. I preferred the first two thirds of the book partly because this is where my thematic preferences lay (I am obsessed with the beginning of Islam, the early Abbasids and muslim dynasties in Spain) and partly because everything becomes more contentious the closer to the present we get. It may be too much if you are new to Arab/Islamic history, but for fans it’s a real treat.

A Promised Land, Barack Obama. I am giving Barack this place on the list the same way he got his Nobel price – somewhat prematurely. I haven’t in fact finished the book yet. I could not leave it off the list, however, because if we are talking about bookish experiences of the year, this shot toward the top of the list immediately. I have the book on paper, but I prefer to listen, as Obama is an excellent narrator and it feels ridiculously special to hear the President tell you all about his first G20 meeting or the mornings in the White House. It’s not surprising that I enjoy the book so much – Obama is exactly my kind of a politician: intellectual, analytical, serious, rhetorically gifted, gently charming and an excellent writer. But I honestly think it’s a must-read for anyone interested in politics, political communication, America, history or human condition in general.

What were your favourite reads this year? I think I must be back for more detailed lists by genre, as especially in non-fiction I read so many wonderful things.