My Top 10 Books of 2020

This has been quite a year! Although it might seem beneficial for readers to have more time at home, the anxiety and general stress caused by the pandemic and tumultuous politics certainly challenged my concentration at times. I know for many readers it's also created severe practical problems. However, books have also provided the most wonderful respite with escapism and intellectual engagement with difficult issues. While I primarily read new fiction, I've also found great consolation in starting Anthony Trollope's Barsetshire series recently. 

Maybe it's not a coincidence that some of my favourite books this year have been big 500+ page epics which have allowed me to fully immerse myself in their fictional worlds. Though I initially started reading it in 2019 and didn't finish it till May this year, “The Eighth Life” by Nino Haratischvili was the most dazzling family saga that covers multiple generations and wars. It was also a highlight of this year being able to interview both the author and translators of this brilliant novel.

Joyce Carol Oates writes so insightfully about the human condition and social issues in contemporary America. Her books often feel eerily prescient, but her most recent giant novel “Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.” is one of her most monumental achievements with its piercing depiction of grief and the timely way it opens with a racially-motivated incident where police use excessive force. The dynamic way she shows the various reactions of the McClaren clan really speaks to the formation of prejudice and how people can fear others who are different from themselves. Additionally, it's been one of the great privileges of my life to interview Oates about this novel and her more recent collection of novellas “Cardiff, by the Sea”.

“The Mirror and the Light” was one of the biggest publishing events of the year. Not only was Hilary Mantel's new novel one of the longest books I read this year, but combined with the first two books in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy (which I also read right before its publication) and it adds up to over 2000 pages. Although I found it somewhat of a challenge getting my head around some of the complicated Tudor politics, this was also one of the most wondrous reading experiences I had this year. Mantel deserves all the praise credited to her because her storytelling is utterly gripping, psychologically insightful and she has a way of making the past feel very relevant.

I had an odd hankering to read sci-fi this year and another new doorstopper I was enthralled by was Rian Hughes' astonishingly inventive novel “XX”. When a strange signal from outer space is recorded and a mysterious object crashes into the moon, an unlikely hero and his tech company uncover a secret extraterrestrial plan. The drama is whether it's meant to save all intelligent life in the universe or destroy it. But this novel is so much more than a wild tale about aliens. There's so much in this book about technology, physics, consciousness and the question of human progress itself. It also uses font in a way which contributes to the story itself making it a very playful novel as well as an edifying read that gripped me for the entire 977 pages.

Alternatively, a very slender novel which absolutely gripped me and has left a lasting impression is “Minor Detail” by Adania Shibli. A woman comes across an article that briefly mentions the rape and murder of a Palestinian woman in the Negev desert in the war of 1948. From there she embarks on a journey to discover what happened to her. This novel in two parts is about our connection to the past, people who are memorialised and those who are forgotten. The way the sections mirror each other and form this bridge with history is so artfully and poignantly done.

Being a book prize fanboy, I'm always curious to follow and read what's listed for the Booker Prize. For this year's award two titles really stood out for me. The first is shortlisted “Burnt Sugar” by Avni Doshi which describes one of the most tense mother-daughter relationships I've ever read about. The narrator Antara's mother is showing signs of dementia and she must become her carer when her mother never nurtured or supported her. This conflict is grippingly dramatised, but it's also such a thoughtful story about memory and how honest we are with ourselves.

The winner of this year's Booker Prize was “Shuggie Bain” by Douglas Stuart, the heartbreaking story of a sensitive boy and his struggling mother in Glasgow in the 1980s. It's the most penetrating and moving depiction of alcoholism I've ever read. But for all its pain there are wonderful moments of humour and humanity in this story. I remember there's a hilarious scene where the mother and her friends get new bras. But I also love the way this debut novel portrays Shuggie's precociousness and the clever way it considers notions about masculinity.

While some curmudgeonly authors have been whining about the death of the “serious novel” this year, there have been many extraordinary debuts published which prove there are so many strong and powerful voices emerging in fiction. I had the honour of being a judge in the Debut Fiction category of this year's Costa Book Awards and one excellent novel from this list is “Love After Love” by Ingrid Persaud. This is the story of a single mother in modern-day Trinidad, her son and their friend Mr Chetan who form a strong family unit, but when certain secrets come out in the open it threatens to tear them apart. This novel made me laugh and cry like no other book this year. It's a story full of warmth, heartache and light and I absolutely loved it.

Like with the end of Hilary Mantel's trilogy, another tremendous literary multi-novel saga which came to the end this year was Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet. But, rather than mining history, Smith has recorded and reflected upon our current times in these books which have concluded with “Summer”. And it is the most glorious ending both in how it brings together characters from the various books and considers where we are now in this pandemic and in a politically divided society. Her characters are complex and nuanced. And her writing is full of so much heart and humour reading it is such a pleasure.

Another deeply pleasurable book I read this year is the great Edmund White's most recent novel “A Saint From Texas”. This story chronicles the lives of twin sisters who are raised in rural Texas in the 1950s. Although they are identical they grow to live very different lives: one commits herself to pious charitable work in Colombia while the socially-ambitious other sister climbs the echelons of Parisian society. This story charmed, bewitched and completely mesmerized me to the last page. It's great fun but it's also so insightful in how it considers family and the phenomenon of personality.

Finally, a novel I just read recently and found incredibly moving was “The Pull of the Stars” by Emma Donoghue. It's fascinating how the circumstances of our lives can effect what we get out of what we read. Unsurprisingly, this story of a nurse working in the maternity ward of a Dublin hospital in 1918 during the outbreak of the Great Flu hit close to home. It's incredible how Donoghue wrote this before the pandemic this year but so many details about how people and society responds to such an outbreak rang true. I've now witnessed in real life the patterns of behaviour portrayed in this novel. But, beyond its relevancy, this is a tremendous story about personal fortitude and strength amidst tremendous adversity and it's also a beautifully tender love story.

It'd be great to know if you have any thoughts or feelings about these books or if you're curious to read any of them now if you haven't already. I'd also love to hear about what books have consoled or inspired you during this very testing year.

Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi

Can a child ever really know their mother and can a mother ever really know her child? Though we're made to feel there should be a natural, inextricable bond here it's seldom ever so simple. It certainly isn't for Antara, the narrator of Avni Doshi's heart-aching and intensely thoughtful novel “Burnt Sugar”. As an adult she finds herself in the tricky situation of caring for her mother Tara who is showing signs of dementia. But Antara seldom felt cared for as a child when her mother abandoned her unhappy arranged marriage, joined a religious commune, had a passionate affair with an unpredictable artist and spent some time living as a beggar on the street. Given their turbulent history together, Antara naturally feels ambivalent about being her mother's carer and confesses in the novel's opening line “I would be lying if I said my mother's misery has never given me pleasure.” Painful emotions run deep throughout this narrative where Antara is haunted by her past and because of this burden struggles to negotiate her relationships with her husband Dilip, her often absent father and her mother in law. I felt intensely involved in this novel which asks poignant questions about the bonds of family and the nature of memory.

I appreciate how this tense mother-daughter relationship becomes deeper and more complex as the novel progresses. It's easy at first to label Tara as a villainous “bad mother” but, as her daughter probes into the past and considers the strain of familial expectations and society, Tara's rebelliousness feels in some ways justified. That's not to ignore the abuse Antara sustains, but it shows how there are many factors at play. Nor should Antara's point of view be taken as the whole truth since we as readers only see things through her perspective. I like how Doshi incorporates a mystery through the novel concerning a portrait of an anonymous man. As an artist Antara reproduces this figure in a series of drawings until he bears little resemblance to the original, but the question of who he is eventually becomes a crucial factor between the mother and daughter.

Antara's artwork is also one of the many intriguing ways in which this story approaches the question of memory. Like many people, Antara's touchstone to the past is through photographs which she peruses but the real circumstances of this history remain semi-clouded. One of Tara's doctors comments to the daughter how “memory is a work in progress. It's always being reconstructed.” Tara's perspective may be unreliable because she might be experiencing dementia, but Antara's memories seem to clash with the recollections of others at some crucial points. The question of who to trust remains throughout the novel. But Antara's trauma is clear and it's moving the way Doshi writes about how Antara learned to mentally distance herself from the present and her methods of self-preservation: “I disown so I can never be disowned.” This might ensure her survival but, of course, the tragedy is that relationships can't function if there isn't a healthy degree of trust.

As I get older I sometimes mull over how my childhood and upbringing have moulded my personality. Naturally I can dwell on the ways I might have been hurt or neglected at various points, but I also try to question how honest I am with myself about the memories that I mull over. This is difficult to do. No one can have a perfect childhood and I appreciate how this novel shows how “Humans grow up flagrantly, messily and no one was afforded the choice of looking away.” If we allow ourselves a degree of self-scrutiny we must own how we were participants rather than simply a victim of our past experiences. It was heartrending following Antara's journey in confronting her mother about the past, but it's even more touching how the narrator must radically confront herself in order to move forward.