Books in 2020

Hi friends. A belated Happy Lunar New Year! Wishing everyone health and happiness in 2021. Wanted to pop on and share my Books List from 2020. You can see my 2019 list here (with links to 2018 and 2017). Stay safe and well!

Here are (most) of the books I read and listened to in 2020. I stopped keeping track (and also virtually stopped reading in the second half of 2020) so I tried to piece together the rest of the list from my Overdrive history. The ones in bold are standouts/recommendations.

Favorite new author I discovered was Yangsze Choo. I loved the fantasy and mystical elements woven into the colonial Malaysia setting. I know The Ghost Bride was made into a Netflix series, so perhaps will check that out once I emerge from BTS content. Most impactful book for me was Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong. She expressed so many thoughts and feelings in the Asian-American experience I didn’t even realize I had, let alone could express through written word. (I did skim through the chapter on art school though.) Nonviolent Communication was a book I’d like a physical copy of to revisit and try to practice the techniques.

Overspill from 2019 (finished)

• Midnight Riot – Ben Aaronovitch
• Trick Mirror – Jia Tolentino
• Dear Girls – Ali Wong

Q1

• HP 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 (audio, ebook)
• Stardust – Neil Gaiman (audio)
• Art Matters – Neil Gaiman (audio)
• The Night Tiger – Yangsze Choo
• Good Omens – Neil Gaiman (audio)
• Wool (Omnibus Edition 1 – 5) – Hugh Howey
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (audio) – JK Rowling

Q2

• Atomic Habits – James Clear (audio)
• On Writing Well – William Zinsser (audio)
• City of Girls – Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Ghost Bride – Yangsze Choo
• Minor Feelings – Cathy Park Hong
• A Little History of the World – E.H. Gombrich
• Nonviolent Communication – Marshall B. Rosenberg

Q3 +Q4

• This is Marketing – Seth Godin
• The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – Suzanne Collins
• Linchpin – Seth Godin (August)
• Circe – Madeline Miller
• The Ride of a Lifetime – Robert Iger
• The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas – Ursula Le Guin

Valiant Efforts

Some books I didn’t manage to finish

• The Healing Code – Alexander Loyd
• Teaching a Stone to Talk – Annie Dillard
• The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron
• Skin in the Game – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• The Writing Life – Annie Dillard
• The Paper Garden – Molly Peacock
• How to be an Antiracist – Ibram X Kendi
• Logo Design Love – David Airey
• The Perfection of the Paper Clip – James Ward
• Sum: forty tales from the afterlives – David Eagleman
• How to be Everything – Emilie Wapnick