Emma's Favorites of 2020 — The Magic Word

I don’t have to tell any of you how hard and strange and sad 2020 has been, but what I want to tell you is this–many of my best and happiest moments this year were spent reading books. Below is a list of some of the books I read and loved this year–some are old, some are new, some will be published next year, some are rereads, some are picture books. All of them brought me joy and expanded my understanding of the world. A lot of these books have sold like hot cakes at the store, but I want to draw your attention to a few titles that are either older, forthcoming, or may have flown under your radar in the midst of, let’s say, a chaotic year.

I also want to issue a big, flashing red light that I’m not making any sort of grand proclamation about the value of these books over the value of other books. These were just some of this one reader’s favorites. In addition, I didn’t read everything that came out and I have a terrible memory! Even in good years, I think Best Of lists can feel poisonous and sad to people who have published books and not appeared on them. This year, forget it! As someone who published a book in May, I understand what it feels like to publish a book that you’ve spent years working on only to feel like it got sucked under a wave and dragged out to sea. To everyone who published a book between March and today: I feel you. Next time, it will be better. (And to all of you who have not read All Adults Here, please do! Get a signed copy from the store here. Makes a great gift for humans!) In any case, just to be clear, this is not a Best Of list, this is just a list of my favorites. I’m sure your favorites were great too, and if they’re not on this list, they’re probably sitting in the teetering stack next to my bed or at the top of my stairs, waiting. How lovely, to always have more great books to read.

During the early months of quarantine, like many people, I was having trouble focusing on anything, but then I thought about how when I was a kid, I would read stacks of mysteries–Christopher Pike, Agatha Christie, Lois Lowry–and so I returned to that zone, and read Pretty Things by Janelle Brown and The Herd by Andrea Bartz. Those books reminded me that books are, as ever, the most immediate and immersive escape, and I have never needed an escape more than I did this spring. Then I read (and listened to) some incredible YA: You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson made me fully accept that, yes, even though I just turned 40, I will never be too old to be deeply invested in a book about the prom. After that, I was fully back on track, and thank goodness, because there were so many great books on my pile! The debut novelists just killed me this year: Brandon Taylor, Raven Lelani, Bryan Washington, whew! I also read more non-fiction than usual this year, much of it related to racism and white supremacy in this country–Stamped, by Jason Reynolds and Dr. Ibram Kendi, should be required reading in every middle school in the country, plus for every person who has already passed through middle school in the country. Likewise, I read a number of books that should be required reading for all white people, and my favorite of those were Me and White Supremacy and So You Want to Talk About Race, which prompted profound and necessary introspection and self-examination. I also read some incredible memoirs by Molly Wizenberg and Danielle Henderson, and the slim but dazzling Intimations by Zadie Smith, which she wrote in the early days of the pandemic, as if one needed another reason to be awed by Zadie Smith. Jenn Shapland’s The Autobiography of Carson McCullers was the simultaneous literary and personal memoir of my dreams. Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby made me laugh and laugh, and in 2020, anything that brings you laughter and joy gets triple points.

One thing that was not different this year was how much I read with my children–cuddling up with a book has always been my number one strategy for taming my wild beasts, truly my only go-to move. This year, some of my favorite picture book writers published beautiful and profound new books: Carson Ellis’ gently subversive In the Half Room, Christian Robinson’s warm and inclusive You Matter, my bookselling sister Maggie Pouncey’s brand new A Fort on the Moon, which respects the imagination of children so much, it made me cry. We also read many, many books about unicorns, and many, many books about Star Wars. My older kiddo, a reader since birth, has been zipping through The Wimpy Kid books, the 13th Story Treehouse series, swallowed the second Nico Bravo book whole, reads every Minecraft guide book there is, and sleeps with the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual on the pillow. Books really do help, whether through escape or community, knowledge or fun, or all of it at once. Give everyone books, buy yourself books. Socks and soft pants are good presents too.

Fiction:

Debuts

Old Friends

General Fiction You May Have Missed

Fiction to Preorder

Young Adult & YA-adjacent

Novels I Loved That You Probably Already Bought, but Just In Case

Non-Fiction:

Dazzling in Small Pieces

Non-Fiction About Gender, Sexuality, & Being a Writer

Good Books For People Who Want to Understand Whiteness & the History of Racism

Old Friends, Non-Fiction Edition

And of course…

Children’s Books:

Picture Books

Chapter Books & Graphic Novels

Very Expensive Encyclopedia of Monsters That You Should Get If You Either Play D + D or have a Monster Obsessed Child Who Can Read This On Their Own: