For as awful a year as 2020 was, at least it was good for me in one respect: I read a number of great books last year. Here are the books I liked enough to give five-star ratings to on Goodreads in 2020:
The Monkey Wrench Gang, by Edward Abbey. You will have read about the first three books on this list here. The Monkey Wrench Gang is a novel by the author of Desert Solitaire (which I still haven’t read, but plan to soon, hopefully in 2021). This novel is part adventure story, part environmental call to action—although if you’re inspired to take many of the actions described in this tome, you’ll wind up in jail or worse. The Monkey-Wrench Gang is a band of eco-warriors who hopscotch around the desert Southwest, trying to undo minor and major construction projects in the name of preserving the wild desert. The characters are brilliantly drawn and it’s just a fun read, throughout.
The Emerald Mile, by Kevin Fedarko. This was a natural follow-up to The Monkey Wrench Gang: both focused quite a bit on the Glen Canyon Dam, and both exhibited a certain wistfulness for the Southwest before the major rivers were dammed. Edward Abbey even makes an appearance in this book. But this book is nonfiction, about a group of Grand Canyon river guides who take advantage of a huge Colorado River flood in 1983 to pilot a dory the length of the canyon in record time. Along the way, the book goes into the history of damming the West’s once-wild rivers, and covers the unfolding crisis at Glen Canyon Dam—the last dam above the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River—as the flood was unfolding. It’s a gripping adventure story and I highly recommend it.
Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver. I made it three five-star reads in a row with this one. Kingsolver quickly became one of my favorite authors when I read Flight Behavior a few years ago. To read one of her novels is to be immersed in the characters and the stories within the first couple of pages. This one built upon the back-to-nature themes of the first two books, but instead of the desert Southwest, this is set in Appalachian mountains. Even more than the first two, this book is steeped in nature; it will make you want to leave the city and never come back. I’m just going to say it was the best novel that I read in 2020, and one of my favorite ever.
Between The World And Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The blurb on the cover quotes Toni Morrison as saying “This is required reading,” and I’d have to agree with her. I read this in early June, just as the country was exploding in demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd, and it definitely helped paint a clearer picture of how Americans are so sharply divided not just on race, but on racism. The book is written as a letter to Coates’ son, and it paints a bleak picture about the possibilities of change in America, something that was only reinforced as the year 2020 played out.
The End Of The End Of The Earth, by Jonathan Franzen. This one, which I read off and on over the course of the summer, brings us back to the nature theme. All of the essays in this book were thoughtful and interesting, but the ones I liked best were the ones about birds, which, honestly, made up most of the collection. He goes literally to the “ends of the Earth” in search of various rare species of birds. “If you could see every bird in the world, you’d see the whole world,” he writes in “Why Birds Matter.” But he also writes about the actual, impending end of the world, and makes a passionate case for reducing our carbon footprint to preserve not just the birds of the world, but also humans and our humanity.
Hayduke Lives!, by Edward Abbey. I guess this is the only author I read two books from in 2020. This novel was a sequel to The Monkey Wrench Gang, and it didn’t lose anything the second time around. All the same characters are there, this time taking on a massive road-building project across the desert. This apple was definitely worth a second bite.
Becoming, by Michelle Obama. I loved this book. And I know you have probably made up your mind whether you like her or you hate her, but I recommend that—whichever camp you’re from—you read the book. She details her life growing up on the south side of Chicago, getting into law school, getting a great job at a Chicago law firm, and then being asked to mentor a “guy with a funny name” who interned with the firm. She writes clearly and passionately about Barrack Obama’s snowballing political career, which she always had reservations about because of the effects it would have on their family. The book gives a great behind-the-scenes look at life in the White House. My favorite part was the day of Amazing Grace AND the Supreme Court marriage decision that led to the rainbow lighting on the White House.
A Small Furry Prayer, by Stephen Kotler. Well, they say you can’t judge a book by its cover; this one proves you certainly can’t judge a book by its title. Unless, of course, you include the subtitle, “Dog Rescue and the Meaning of Life.” That makes it sound less like a Hallmark movie and more like something I might want to read. And actually, the book is set in Chimayo, New Mexico, a town I’ve visited several times. The nonfiction book is the story of a dog rescue organization founded in Chimayo by a couple after they had to move from Los Angeles. Every dog, of course, has its own personality, all well-documented in this story. But the book goes well beyond Chimayo and delves into biology, psychology, philosophy, even spirituality (“Do dogs believe in God?” it explores at one point.) If you’re a dog lover, I guarantee you’ll enjoy this book.
Can’t Buy Me Love, by Jonathan Gould. This is a well-written and comprehensive biography of The Beatles, from their childhoods around Liverpool up through the release of Abbey Road, documenting their exploding popularity in 1963 in England and 1964 in America. It goes into painstaking detail in describing their songs, almost chord by chord in some cases. I’m not a musician, so a lot of that stuff went right over my head. But the descriptions of the recording techniques that George Martin came up with are fascinating. My only quibble with the book—which made it come perilously close to not being included in this five-star list—was that it seemed to give short shrift to the songs that became the Let It Be album, which, among them, are some of my favorite Beatles songs. By then, of course, the group was falling apart, and the book’s description of the dissolution of the group is fascinating.
Moving on to 2021, I’m quickly following some of the same reading themes. On New Year’s Day, I started reading another Barbara Kingsolver novel, Aminal Dreams from 1990. (50 pages in, and it’s awesome, just as expected). And when I finish this one, I’ll dive into A Promised Land by Barack Obama. Here’s hoping that if I make this list a year from now, both of those books will be on it.
Featured photo credit: Pixabay
