Despite 2020 being a dumpster fire of a year, in general, it was not a bad reading year for me. I worked from home from mid-March onward, which meant I no longer had my normal subway commute as reading time. But I had time at home to read, and when libraries in NYC were closed I made the discovery that I actually enjoy reading ebooks on my phone. I also probably read more books from my own shelves than I otherwise would have, which is nice.<\/p>\n
I read 38 books in total, with the breakdown as follows:<\/p>\n
Middle-grade and YA: 11. Highlights: re-reading Five Children and It<\/em>, The Phoenix and the Carpet,<\/em> and The Story of the Amulet<\/em> by E. Nesbit: these are such comfort reads for me. Discovering Terrible, Horrible Edie<\/em> by E.C. Spykman, which I loved in the same way I love Elizabeth Enright’s “Melendy” books or Jeanne Birdsall’s “Penderwicks” series. And speaking of Elizabeth Enright, I’m glad I finally read Gone-Away Lake<\/em>: her writing is so so lovely. Oh, and I was totally engrossed by A Little Princess<\/em> by Frances Hodgson Burnett.<\/p>\n Non-fiction: 12, my favorites of which were definitely Solutions and Other Problems<\/i> by Allie Brosh; My Family and Other Animals<\/i> by Gerald Durrell, and Mudlark<\/i> by Lara Meiklem. I always love Brosh’s work, and the Durrell was very very funny and engaging, and I was totally into both the style and subject matter of Meiklem’s book. <\/p>\n Fiction for grown-ups: 13. I read some classics I’d been meaning to read (my favorite of which was Howards End<\/em> by E.M. Forster) but my overall highlights of the year were all newer books: I loved the setting and strangeness of Piranesi<\/em> by Susanna Clarke, and I really liked Summer<\/em> by Ali Smith (both as a satisfying conclusion to her seasonal quartet, and also because I like Ali Smith a whole lot in general). I really liked Normal People<\/em> by Sally Rooney, though not quite as much as I liked Conversations with Friends<\/em>\u2014but the immediacy and grace of Rooney’s prose is always excellent. The Starless Sea<\/em> by Erin Morgenstern was a great book to get lost in during an anxious springtime. And I thought Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl<\/em> by Andrea Lawlor was very smart and a ton of fun.<\/p>\n Poetry: 2, both of which I liked, though I really<\/em> liked Dime-Story Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell<\/em> by Charles Simic, for reasons of both style and substance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Despite 2020 being a dumpster fire of a year, in general, it was not a bad reading year for me. I worked from home from mid-March onward, which meant I no longer had my normal subway commute as reading time. But I had time at home to read, and when libraries in NYC were closed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-generalmeta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lettersandsodas.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}