Favorite Reads 2020

Tending to Endings (forty-eight)

Before starting Tending to Endings, I blogged primarily about what I was reading, and at the end of the year I’d share a list of favorites. I want to continue that tradition here. Though not all of these fit neatly into the category of end-of-life literature, many do, and others explore relevant themes like grief, mending family relationships, and spirituality. 

A number of these titles were highlighted in Tendings this year, and so I’ve included links to the corresponding posts in case you missed them. I also tagged them by Tending to Ending theme and included links to excerpts or other interesting information.

Anything I read (or reread) this year is fair game, no matter when it was published. Also I’m offering these, not from the point of view of a critic, but rather, a lover of literature. Each is a book that if we were going for a walk together, I would want to tell you about to share the experience.

The first ten are books I’ve found myself recommending over and over. Afterwards, I list all of the other books read and enjoyed this year. They are all favorites that I am excited to share. Feel free to leave questions, and please do include your own favorites in the comments!

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, by Alice Bechdel (2006) 

I have not gotten into graphic novels much. I don’t know how to read them exactly, picture first, words first, all the words on a page and then all the pictures? But this book—which is actually a graphic memoir rather than a graphic novel—wooed me completely. It is funny, sad, poignant, witty, silly, deep. There are also a lot of literature major jokes throughout, which was an added joy for me. I fell in love with it and sent it to three friends before I finished. Bechdel’s father is a funeral director and nicknames their house fun home, short for funeral home. New York Times writer Sean Wilsey offers an excellent overview in “The Things They Buried.” (Talking about Death, Grief, Relationship Work)

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants , Robin Wall Kimmerer (2015)

Kimmerer weaves her knowledge as a scientist with her cultural wisdom and memoir to create a book that gives me guidance for my daily living, and also hope for our communities and our planet. I listened to this one first on Audible and then bought the print version because I knew it was a book I wanted to return to. I keep running into others who are reading and loving this book, which adds to my hopefulness. I included a bit about this book in the June 26 post, Listening to Land. (Ancestors, Community, Story)

When the Light Was Subdued Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, Edited by Joy Harjo (2020)

One of the things I’ve learned this year is how limited my education has been. This is true even though I have a couple of college degrees and have been a teacher my entire adult life. There are so many voices, perspectives, and histories I’ve missed. As an example, I taught high school English at a time the same 2-3  Native voices were in every anthology. Often only excerpts of poems were included, as though there wasn’t much to choose from. This book puts that practice to shame. It is a gorgeous book full of Native Nations voices (160 plus poets from 100 indigenous nations) from the 1600s to the present including brief biographical and geographical information for each poet. I am so excited about this book, which I find far more enjoyable than the average Norton anthology. Joy Harjo, Poet Laureate for the US, writes a beautiful and compelling Introduction to the book.  (Ancestors, Grief, Story, Community)

Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World, Linda Hogan (2007)

I read three books by Linda Hogan this year and love all of them. This slim book of essays was my favorite probably because I am an essayist at heart and anyone who can do it this well gets my full attention. Like Hogan’s poetry and fiction, these essays are grounded in the natural world and weave together wisdom, story, musical language, and exquisite imagery. The theme of this collection spoke to me during a year when many of us are spending a great deal of time in our dwellings. Here is the title essay, Dwellings, as it appeared in the Indiana Review. I also included a bit about this book in the September 18 post, Slow Food. (Talking about Death, Grief, Story)

The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, Frank Ostaseski (2017)

Dying (and living) involves a great deal we cannot control. Ostaseski’s book offers a window into how and why to proceed with an open heart anyway. He was one of the founders of Zen Hospice Center in the 1980s. He combines wisdom with experience with eloquence in such a way that this is one of my favorite books on the topic. I wrote about this book in the March 20 post, Welcome. (Talking about Death, Caregiving, Community)

Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong , John O’Donohue (2000)

A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster, Rebecca Solnit (2009)

I think every year, Rebecca Solnit has made my list at least once. I love her philosophical perspective, her lyrical writing, and her activism. I had purchased her memoir this year thinking I’d read it, but then, with the pandemic and the social justice protests and the fallout from our political divide, this older book moved to my nightstand instead.

In A Paradise Built in Hell, Solnit studies five major disasters and the communities that arose in the aftermath. It gives interesting context to historical figures I’ve only known in broad strokes, like William James and Dorothy Day. Solnit argues that while the press and leaders often tell a story of chaos and unrest, life on the ground after these events tells a much more complex story. In the wake of disasters, she argues, “We remain ourselves for the most part, but freed to act on, most often, not the worst but the best within. The ruts and routines of ordinary life hide more beauty than brutality.”  

Like all of Solnit’s work, this philosophy isn’t presented only to help us feel better. In giving many examples of how people have responded to disaster in the past, she makes a case that in crisis, there is opportunity to change our culture for the better if we seize it and come together to act towards the common good. (Caregiving, Community, Storytelling.)

The Murmur of Bees, Sofìa Segovia, translated by Simon Bruni (2015)

I read many excellent novels this year, and this is the only fiction on my top ten list, which is not usual for me. I think I leaned towards nonfiction for the top list this year because it has been a time of truth telling on so many levels. But the long list of novels below reminds me how much fiction adds to life as well. I don’t think anything objective made this one rise above the first few titles in the fiction list below, but rather, timing. All are compelling stories beautifully told. But, I read this book in March during the first weeks of quarantine, and Murmur of Bees is a family saga told with a quality of magical realism set in against the backdrop of the 1917 flu epidemic. I didn’t know this last fact until I was at a quarter of the way into the novel, but the synchronicity and historical perspective on that plight made the experience of reading feel intimate and a bit magical in itself.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent, Isabelle Wilkerson (2020)

Wilkerson’s Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration has been a favorite nonfiction book since it was published in 2010. It expanded my view of American history with extensively researched beautiful storytelling. This book, too, is about the history of racial hierarchy in America and is told with thoroughness and precision.

The tone and the tenor of this book is different from Warmth. Wilkerson is direct and unflinching in her account, and I couldn’t help but think of how painful it must have been to research and archive these stories for us day after day. My sense was always that Wilkerson was doing so, to save us all from ourselves. I am so grateful for her commitment to this generous and important work. It is a book that has motivated me to not look away and to look for how I can take action with love.

A friend sent this quote from the epilogue of Caste, and it has become a sort of guidepost and reminder for me, that this is longterm work, and this is my work:

Caste is a disease, and none of us is immune.  It is as if alcoholism is encoded into the country’s DNA, and can never be declared fully cured. It is like cancer that goes into remission only to return when the immune system of the body politic is weakened…Radical empathy, on the other hand, means putting in the work to educate oneself and to listen with a humble heart to understand another’s experience from their perspective, not as we would imagine we would feel…Each time a person reaches across caste and makes a connection, it helps to break the back of caste.  Multiplied by millions in a given day, it becomes the flap of a butterfly wing that shifts the air and builds to a hurricane across the ocean.

This summer, the New York Times Magazine published a feature, America’s Enduring Caste System, by Isabel Wilkerson. (Relationship Work, Grief, Ancestors, Talking about Death).

Other Books I Loved

I probably don’t need to explain why this year’s list is longer than usual. The first few under each heading were contenders for the top list, and then they fall in random order.

Fiction

The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates (2019)

The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett (2020)

The People of the Whale, Linda Hogan (2008)

The Widower‘s Tale, Julia Glass (2011)

Lost Children Archive, Valeria Luiselli. (2019)

The Dutch House, Ann Patchett (2019)

How Much of These Hills is Gold, C. Pam Zhang (2020)

The Book of Longing, Sue Monk Kidd (2020)

Three Junes, Julia Glass (2003)

A Spool of Blue Thread, Ann Tyler (2015)

Girl, Woman, Other, Bernadine Evaristo (2019)

Pale Horse, Pale Rider, Kathrine Ann Porter (1939)

Crooked Hallalujah, Kelli Ford (2020)

Father of the Rain, Lily King (2011)

Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery (1908) — This was my anti-anxiety medicine during our eternal election week.

The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowel (2020)–the third in the Lady Astronaut Series.

The Moon Bamboo, Thich Nhat Hanh (1989)

The Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood (2011)

American Gods, Tenth Anniversary Edition Full Cast, Audible Production, Neil Gaiman (2011)

The Time of Butterflies, Julia Alverez (2007)

What We Keep, Elizabeth Berg (2015)

Poetry

Dark, Sweet, Linda Hogan (2014)

An American Sunrise, Joy Harjo (2019)

The Tradition, Jericho Brown (2019)

Owls and Other Fantasies, Mary Oliver (2006)

Memory of Elephants, Sherman Alexie (2020) — letterpress chapbook through Limberlost Press , Idaho

Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine (2014)

Memoir and Biography

Two illustrated biographies for children: Enormous Smallness: A Story of E.E. Cummings, Matthew Burgess (2015) and Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring, Matthew Burgess (2020).  

A Little Bit of Wisdom: Conversations with a Nez Perce Elder, Horace Axtell and Margo Aragon (1997)

The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life, David Carr (2009)

The Yellow House, Sarah M. Broom (2020)

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, Madeline L’Engle (1980)

Other Nonfiction

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander (2010)

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Pema Chodron (1997)

Jesus and the Disinherited, Howard Thurman (1949)

How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi (2019)

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, Ibram X. Kendi (2016)

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, Robin DiAngelo (2018)

Dying Well: Peace and Possibilities at the End of Life, Ira Byock (1997)

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, Jia Tolentino (2019)

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I would love to read your own favorite reads of 2020 in the comments! (If you don’t see a comment box below, click here and scroll to the bottom of the post).

I will be posting twice more this year to get to a nice round 50 posts. Then, starting in January, Tending to Endings will run once a month on the first Friday. If you don’t want to miss an installment, please subscribe and I will send a copy to your email address. Tending to Endings is cost free and ad-free, and I do not share your info. Thank you!

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