As usual, I fell short of my goal to read 20 books, but this year I got closer than ever before by reading a total of 15 books. Baby steps! While I did not accomplish my goal (there is always next year), I did expand my genres-read by reading a couple of plays and an array of YA novels.
Below is a snapshot of all of the great books I read this year:
One of the most enjoyable aspects of my reading journey this year was taking it back to the classics: Lady Chatterley’s Lover and The Age of Innocence. I was pleased to learn that the version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover I read had been outlawed for decades after being deemed too scandalous. The ending of The Age of Innocence had me shrieking at the top of my lungs and running laps around my apartment in a state of shock. What a range of emotions! Thankfully, the movie version starring the hottest celebs of the ’90s: Daniel Day Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder was in close reach so that I could continue to engage in this beautiful story (never mind that they switched the hair colors of the two female leads).
If you’re looking for a scintillating non-fiction read, run don’t walk to your local bookstore or amazon prime account and secure yourself a copy of Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. This book really expanded my thinking in regards to the way the mind has developed across the animal kingdom.
Finally, my favorite new fiction of the year was Tommy Orange’s There, There. I highly recommend. As I said in my Goodreads review, “Amazing storytelling and an emotional read. This is a book you won’t be able to put down. Told through the viewpoint of 12 different characters of all ages, this story centers around the Big Oakland Powwow and the reasons why each character is going.”
And there you have it, as Julia Child used to say. However as Levar Burton always said at the end of Reading Rainbow, but you don’t have to take my word for it.
Here’s to more great reading in 2020!
Ramblings 
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