My 2020 Holiday Reading List

What a truly incredible year we’ve all had. This holiday time offers an annual period of reflection to sit, rest and consolidate the year’s events into greater resilience. And perhaps even to find peace.

Reading, to me, is food for the soul and mind. Yet it seems the holiday season is when my reading voraciousness peaks. Forget Netflix, I binge read around the turning of the calendar and it helps me make sense of things. (I lie: Netflix shows The Crown, The Queen’s Gambit and Fauda have all punctuated my reading time this December.) Words assembled by gifted writers help organize my own thoughts, inspiring a kind of annual integration and settling me for the year ahead.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. —Dr. Seuss

Therefore, having been asked for my 2020 ready for list of favourite books, I include them here. As always, it is an eclectic and idiosyncratic set, reflecting a love of reading and whatever is preoccupying my attention. I’m a simul-reader, always with a few books promiscuously on the go. These are the books I am loving now or that lie in wait on my bedside table.

Enjoy and please share your own recommendations by comment.

Non-Fiction

Sir Ronald Cohen, Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change (2020) — Financial Times Best Economics Books of the Year 2020. A plea by the “godfather of impact investing” to envisage a world where inequality is shrinking, natural resources are being regenerated and people can benefit from share prosperity. A tribute from U2’s Bono reads, “Sir Ronnie provides direction in a book that should be the core operating manual for those in the business community seeking to do good while also doing well.”

Josep M. Colomer and Ashley L. Beale, Democracy and Globalization: Anger, Fear and Hope (2020) — Financial Times Best Economics Books of the Year 2020. An exploration of the causes of the current crisis of democracy with suggestions for more representative, effective, and accountable governance for our interdependent world. As democracy is disrupted by globalization, the authors’ solution is to globalize democracy.

Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (2016)  — The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread and became deeply rooted in American society. In this deeply-researched dissertation, Kendi shows that racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred but were created first to justify the slave trade, and later to rationalize racial inequities and deeply entrenched discriminatory practices.

Margaret MacMIllan, War: How Conflict Shaped Us (2020) — NY Times Book Review Ten Best Books of 2002. Asomewhat short but deep and learned survey of how culture and society have been molded by warfare throughout history. This is the latest book by the acclaimed U of Toronto professor, best known for Paris, 1919 (2001).

Barack Obama, A Promised Land (2020) — NY Times Book Review Ten Best Books of 2002. The first of two volumes comprising Obama’s memoirs and a sometimes intimate journey into what it was like to be President. Many behind-the-scenes episodes bring the office of the President to life: e.g., the raid on bin Laden, the pirate attack on the USS Cole and the agonizing decisions to send troop surges to war zones. Mixed with frequent references to how Michelle and his daughters coped, the book is generously written and at 700 pages, still not too long.

Fiction

While non-fiction occupies more of my attention, I prefer the luxury and marvel of a well-written book. Having not yet tackled Hilary Mantel’s daunting Wolf Hall (2009), I am unable to recommend her 2020 offering, the celebrated third book in the Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror and the Light. I hope resolve my literary FOMO in the months ahead.

Reading is an act of civilization; it’s one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities. —Ben Okri

Here are four novels, including one in French, that build little castles for me:

Ayad Akhtar, Homeland Elegies (2020) — NY Times Book Review Ten Best Books of 2002. This is a deeply personal work about hope and identity in the US post 9/11. Cleverly navigating the boundary between fiction and reality, this novel-cum-memoir mixes family drama, social commentary, and a writer’s craft to portray the US through the lens of a Pakistani-American father-son relationship.

Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half (2020) — National Book Award Finalist. A fascinating Toni Morrison-esque take on “Trading Places” that measures the fates of two siblings, one who lives white and the other black. It is a stunning family saga and social commentary on the hollowness of the American dream.

Michel Houellebecq, Soumission (2015, in French) — The title of the book is a play on the translated meaning of the word “Islam” and it tells a dystopian story of France following the election of a traditional Muslim as president. Houellebecq is a literary star in France, with its rich history of celebrated enfants terribles. He wrestles with topical subjects and embraces controversy; remarkably, this book was released on the day of the Charlie Hebdo shooting. I find Houellebecq’s French approachable and the book offers a complement to Akhtar’s Homeland Elegies. It is also available in translation as Submission (transl. by Lorin Stein).

Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain (2020) — 2020 Booker Prize. The story of a boy’s devoted love for his mother amidst her progressing alcoholism in post-Thatcher Britain, in Glasgow to be specific. Stuart lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love and the hollowness of pride.

Enjoy them all.

And as I look forward to 2021 myself, and the relief that it offers, these are the nine books that will join me to greet the new year. I’m grateful for them just as I lament the thousands of other great books that only a lack of time requires me to overlook.

Evan Siddall, Toronto, ON