I Read Over 100 Books This Year (Again) and These Were My Favorites - 2020 Version

When I read over 100 books in 2019, it felt like a one-off, bucketlist moment. Now, that I’ve once again read over 100* books in a year, and given everything that has occurred in 2020, I’ll just say a sincere thanks to anyone who provided book recommendations** and the entire book industry, from the authors to the people operating the printing presses. It’s been a year*** and I’m thankful that there have been some phenomenal reads along the way.  

Below are the best books I read from July to December of 2020, followed by a link to the best books I read from January to June of 2020.

I've also included a full list (The Big Board of Books) of all 50+ books I read in the second half of 2020, arranged by general subject area, rating, and included with a quick overview. 

The Best Books I Read in 2020 (July – December) 

Non-fiction

• Becoming Duchess Goldblatt - Anonymous – The best part of recommending this book to others was their reaction, which typically was along the lines of, “Wait, what? Is that real?”. The story of a real-life writer who built a fictional Twitter character to inspire others. Uplifting, heartwarming, hilarious, and the perfect respite for 2020.
• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art – James Nestor – In the vein of what Born to Run meant to the evolution of running, Breath causes you to completely re-think everything you ever knew about a simple (or not so simple) human trait, breathing. Spectacular. 
• Caste: The Origins of our Discontents - Isabel Wilkerson – Wilkerson examines and explores the unspoken caste system that America has been built upon, while linking to caste systems in India and Nazi Germany, and the impact it continues to have today. One of the best and most important books I read in 2020. 
• Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom – David W. Blight – A completely inclusive biography of the life of Frederick Douglass. 
• Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 (Pacific War Trilogy, Volume 1) - Ian Toll – Every artist is seeking their Symphony No. 5 or their Cello Suite No. 1, and the Pacific War Trilogy is certain to be Toll’s. A trilogy of books on World War II in the Pacific from predominantly American and Japanese perspectives.  The books all contain dramatic narratives told from primary sources and first-hand accounts and are extremely readable. Books 1 and 3 are the strongest of the series.**** 
• The Promised Land – Barack Obama – Introspective. Open. Honest. Brilliant. Read it.***** 
• Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (Pacific War Trilogy, Volume 3) - Ian Toll - The final book in the Pacific War trilogy. And what a conclusion it is. 
• The Undocumented Americans – Karla Cornejo Villavicencio – Cornejo Villavicencio, one of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard, writes her story and the shares the story of other undocumented immigrants living in America. Groundbreaking. 

Fiction

• A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (The Carls Series, Book 2) - Hank Green – Even more engaging and thought-provoking than An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (The Carls Series, Book 1), which is superb. A spectacular Science-Fiction series. Actually, a wonderful two book series, period.
• Good Morning, Midnight – Lily Brooks-Dalton – I only picked this up because I was made aware that George Clooney’s latest movie, The Midnight Sky, is based on this book and Clooney, to me, has always picked movies with intriguing premises. And what a book this is! I can’t believe I didn’t read this when it debuted in 2016. Brooks-Dalton's debut novel follows astronomer Augustine and the spaceship Aether, the first manned flight to Jupiter. I’m still thinking about this book - it’s that magnificent (if the movie closely follows the book, congrats on the Academy Award for Best Picture).   
• The Last Flight – Julie Clark – The story of two women and a decision that changes both of their lives. Outstanding plot and pace. What a read. 
• The Memory Police – Yoko Ogawa – A novelist lives on an island under intensive state surveillance, where items disappear and are slowly destroyed.  Finally translated to English in 2019 from Japanese. 
• The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett – Easily one of the best fiction books of 2020. I won’t say any more than that. 

The Best Books I Read in 2020 (January – June): 

The Big Board of Books - 2020, Part 2: 

For the last few years, I’ve published a Big Board of Books review on LinkedIn of everything I’ve been reading. In that tradition, here is the complete list of the 50+ books I read in the second half of 2020, included with a general subject area, my rating, and a quick overview.  

Hopefully, at least one book inspires and connects with you. 

The Big Board of Books Rating Scale: 

***** = Run, don't walk, to the library immediately! 
**** = Excellent 
*** = Good 
** = Fair 
*= Bleh 

Non-fiction

Biography – Crime 

****El Jefe: The Stalking of Chapo Guzman – Alan Feuer – The rise and fall of one of Mexico’s most notorious drug kingpins and the leader of the Sinoloan cartel, Chapo Guzman. 

Biography - Political / Historical 

*****The Promised Land - Barack Obama - Introspective. Open. Honest. Brilliant. Read it. 

*****Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom – David W. Blight – A completely inclusive biography of the life of Frederick Douglass. 

Biography – Technology & Science 

****Uncanny Valley: A Memoir – Anna Weiner – Anna Weiner moved to Silicon Valley in her 20’s and provides an insider report of her experience in start-up culture, from its excesses to its political power and more. 

Biography – Other 

*****Becoming Duchess Goldblatt - Anonymous – The best part of recommending this book to others was their reaction, which typically was along the lines of, “Wait, what? Is that real?”.  The story of a real-life writer who built a fictional Twitter character to inspire others. Uplifting, heartwarming, hilarious, and the perfect respite for 2020.

****Eat a Peach: A Memoir – David Chang – Chang's memoir, which covers everything from his childhood growing up as a Korean American in Virgina to his eventual success at Momofuku in NYC to his battles with mental health. This quote alone had me crying I was laughing so hard “Have you ever tried to make a perfect 1/8-inch dice of olives? Good luck with that.” 

Business 

****The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google – Scott Galloway - Galloway outlines the successful strategies of these four companies. My only wish was that this could be updated weekly, which is probably why I follow Galloway on LinkedIn. 

Cooking 

***Oh Cook! - James May – Of the television or videos I do watch, a significant amount are related to James May and/or The Grand Tour / Top Gear so I had to purchase his cooking book. As he says in his show, “I’m James May and I can’t cook.”  To that I reply, “Good news!”. 

Health & Fitness 

*****Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art – James Nestor – In the vein of what Born to Run meant to the evolution of running, Breath causes you to completely re-think everything you ever knew about a simple (or not so simple) human trait, breathing. Spectacular. 

History 

*****Caste: The Origins of our Discontents - Isabel Wilkerson – Wilkerson examines and explores the unspoken caste system that America has been built upon, while linking to caste systems in India and Nazi Germany, and the impact it continues to have today. One of the best and most important books I read in 2020. 

*****Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 (Pacific War Trilogy, Volume 1) - Ian Toll – Every artist is seeking their Symphony No. 5 or their Cello Suite No. 1, and the Pacific War Trilogy is certain to be Toll’s. A trilogy of books on World War II in the Pacific from predominantly American and Japanese perspectives.  The books all contain dramatic narratives told from primary sources and first-hand accounts and are extremely readable. Books 1 and 3 are the strongest of the series.***** 

****The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942 – 1944 (Pacific War Trilogy, Volume 2) - Ian Toll – The second book of the Pacific War trilogy. 

*****Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (Pacific War Trilogy, Volume 3) - Ian Toll - The final book in the Pacific War trilogy. And what a conclusion it is. 

****Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy – Alastair Gee and Dani Aguiano – An in-depth narrative of the 2018 Camp Fire tragedy, which killed 85 people and destroyed a community of 27,000 people. 

****Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment – Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz – Dunbar-Ortiz counters the traditional argument that the Second Amendment was designed to help protect hunters and citizens from their government, but was actually created to help white citizens subjugate others, from Native Americans to slaves.  No matter your perspective, extremely strong arguments are within. (As with any Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz review, I can’t reiterate enough how outstanding of a book her 2014 An Indigenous People’s History of the United States is...) 

****The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go From Here – Hope Jahren – If you read a previous blog of mine reviewing Hope Jahren’s Lab Girl,  you’re aware that it is absolutely one of my favorite books of all time. This is Jahren’s second book. Highly recommended. 

****The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency – Annie Jacobsen – A full history of DARPA from its inception in 1958 to near current day. 

***The Bohemians: The Lovers Who Led Germany’s Resistance Against the Nazis – Norman Ohler – The story of husband and wife resistance leaders Harro and Libertas Schulze-Boysen. Extremely well-researched and an often-discounted part of WWII history. 

Medical 

****Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom - Katherine Eban – A decades-long investigation into the generic drug business and its global impact. A very worthy read. 

Nature 

****Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves – James Nestor – A book that starts with freediving and ends up exploring our relationship with the ocean. Enjoyable and full of insight. 

***The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World – Patrik Svensson –  I have to agree with the title that this was “fascinating”. An in-depth review of the world of Eels, from an evolutionary perspective to their place on the dinner table and everything in between. 

Psychology 

****The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win – Maria Konnikova – Maria Konnikova had never, ever played poker and convinced Erik Seidel to be her mentor (promise me you know who Erik Seidel is). That’s enough to be a story in and of itself.  But, Maria became a star poker player herself. 

Sociology 

******The Undocumented Americans – Karla Cornejo Villavicencio – Cornejo Villavicencio, one of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard, writes her story and the shares the story of other undocumented immigrants living in America. Groundbreaking. 

****So you want to talk about race – Ijeoma Oluo – A book designed around encouraging honest conversations about race and racism in America. 

***Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier – Edward Glaeser – Urban economist Edward Glaeser provides his reasoning for why cities are humankind’s greatest creation.  Slightly too abstract and not as quantitative as I would like. 

**The Problem with Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars – Meghan Daum – An essay collection focused on 2016 to 2019, covering topics from social media to senate testimony. Unfortunately, extremely high-level and anecdotal, without depth into specific arguments and supporting details.   

Fiction

Classic 

****The Quiet American – Graham Greene – A good novel on its own, and a great novel when viewed from the context of how it predicted the future in 1955. 

****Things Fall Apart (African Trilogy, Book 1) – Chinua Achebe – In the midst of having a discussion with a friend on the outstanding quality of literature coming out of Nigeria recently, I was informed that Things Fall Apart is required reading. Therefore, I read it. It’s great! 

Drama 

*****The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett – Easily one of the best fiction books of 2020.  I won’t say any more than that. 

****Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – 4.5 stars, almost 5.  The story of two Nigerians living in the US and UK who reunite 15 years later.  Builds slowly and delivers in the end. 

****The Book of Two Ways – Jodi Picoult – Part Egyptology and part love, loss, and life’s regrets story. The novel follows Dawn McDowell and the two separate paths she has taken in life. If you’re into Egyptology at all, you’ll very much enjoy this. 

****Fifty Words for Rain – Asha Lemmie – Lemmie’s outstanding debut where she chronicles the tragic and inspiring life of Nori Kamiza, the daughter of an African-American GI and a Japanese woman, who is born into Japanese aristocracy.   

***Luster - Raven Leilani – Leilani's solid debut novel where she explores the relationship between a young artist and her relationship with a much older married man and his family. 

***Redeployment – Phil Klay – Klay, a US military veteran with experience in Iraq, provides a collection of a dozen short stories regarding U.S. soldiers and their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.   

**Redhead by the Side of the Road: A novel – Anne Tyler – My first Anne Tyler book.  The novel follows Micah Mortimer, a creature of habit, who’s life is thrown a few surprises.   

Fantasy 

****Mexican Gothic – Siliva Moreno-Garcia – My first foray into Gothic Horror, and what a first book to pick.  There’s a mansion in Mexico with a visitor... and that’s about all I’m going to say.  

Mystery 

**The Guest List – Lucy Foley - Multiple narratives abound in this mystery on an island in the Atlantic off the Ireland coast. But, the story is predictive and none of the characters are in any way interesting.   If you're looking for an island murder mystery, pickup And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie instead. 

**One by One – Ruth Ware – A murder mystery that takes place in at a French Chalet in the Alps.  Not as predictable as The Guest List above, but suffers from similar character issues as even though they are interesting, their motive never quite connects. 

Science-fiction 

*****A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (The Carls Series, Book 2) - Hank Green – Even more engaging and thought-provoking than An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (The Carls Series, Book 1), which is superb. A spectacular Science-Fiction series. Actually, a wonderful two book series, period.

*****Good Morning, Midnight – Lily Brooks-Dalton – I only picked this up because I was made aware that George Clooney’s latest movie, The Midnight Sky, is based on this book and Clooney, to me, has always picked movies with intriguing premises. And what a book this is! I can’t believe I didn’t read this when it debuted in 2016. Brooks-Dalton's debut novel follows astronomer Augustine and the spaceship Aether, the first manned flight to Jupiter. I’m still thinking about this book - it’s that magnificent (if the movie closely follows the book, congrats on the Academy Award for Best Picture).  

*****The Memory Police – Yoko Ogawa – A novelist lives on an island under intensive state surveillance, where items disappear and are slowly destroyed.  Finally translated to English in 2019 from Japanese. 

****An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (The Carls Series, Book 1) - Hank Green – This book, along with it’s follow-up A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor were two of my favorite reads this year. The stories follow the Carls, ten-foot-tall transformers dressed in Samurai armor that appear in New York, and how their story goes viral through social media. I didn’t think it would work either, but it does, and it’s entertaining and engaging from start to finish. 

****Axiom’s End (Noumena Series, Book 1) - Lindsay Ellis – Alternate history first contact adventure novel based in 2007. A very solid debut novel. Lindsay, if you’re reading this, can you publish Book 2 soon? Thanks. 

****This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone – Two rival agents attempting to win the future for their respective side. Hugo Award for Best Novella and deservingly so. 

***Foundation & Empire (Foundation Series, Book 4) - Isaac Asimov – Although considered the 4th book, it’s really the 2nd in the Foundation Series. Good, but not near the level of excellence of Book 1. 

Thriller 

*****The Last Flight – Julie Clark – The story of two women and a decision that changes both of their lives.  Outstanding plot and pace.  What a read. 

****Blacktop Wasteland – S. A. Cosby – A gifted getaway driver, “Bug” Montage, who is trying to go straight, is offered one final, last job.  If you’re into cars, it’s probably a 5 star read based on the first chapter alone. 

***The Faithful Spy (John Wells Series, Book 1) - Alex Berenson – The first book in a series on CIA Spy John Wells, taking place pre and post 9/11.  Well-written, if predictable and over-simplified at times, but it left me interested enough to read another books in the series.  (Not every author is Celeste Ng or Kristin Hannah and just writes consistent masterpieces). 

***Spymaster (Scot Harvath Series, Book 18)– Brad Thor – A series for everyone who enjoys the Ludlum / Le Carre style of books.   

**The Boy from the Woods - Harlen Coben – The book follows Wilde, who grew up in the woods, and is a brilliant detective and investigator. Not Coben’s strongest outing.   

**Near Dark (Scot Harvath Series, Book 19) - Brad Thor – A follow-up to Book 18. I needed a book to read while I waited on my library queue to deliver the first book in Ian Toll’s Pacific War series. 

The End. See you in the vaccine line in 2021 and let me know any books you recommend. 

*I read 113 books in 2020 (as of 12.3.20). For my favorite books of 2019, go here:

**One of my favorite moments of the year is that someone took my recommendation of Jahren’s Lab Girl and connected with the author on Twitter and she responded!   

***I’d attempt something all-encompassing to describe 2020, but I have yet to find a way to outline what 2020 has been.  

****This series impacted me enough that I even went to see Admiral Nimitz’ house on Yerba Buena Island here in San Francisco. (Yes, it’s still there, and yes, it’s somewhat difficult to find. Hint: the Oakland side of the Bay Bridge goes nearly over the top of it). 

*****This is only one of two books that I purchased all year. My other purchase was a copy of James May’s Oh Cook!.  For those of you who follow James May (The Grand Tour, Top Gear), I couldn’t pass up a book from him on cooking.