There are lots of reasons why 2020 has been an unusual year. One of them is that several books I have both read and enjoyed have won major literary prizes this year – more often than not, my longlist or shortlist preferences don’t get as far as taking the big cheques home with them. However, Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart won the Booker Prize this year – a debut novel about a young boy growing up in 1980s Glasgow (and I’m still feeling smug about including it in my predictions post back in July before it was even longlisted). Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell won the Women’s Prize for Fiction for its moving portrayal of the death of William Shakespeare’s young son. And One Two Three Four by Craig Brown was awarded the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction – a brilliantly original and comic biography of the Beatles told in 99 short chapters.
My other favourite non-fiction books of the year don’t exactly fall into the category of comfort reading but are still well worth your time. Fake Law by The Secret Barrister is an excellent if terrifying follow-up to the anonymous author’s first book, continuing his or her mission to demystify the English legal system for the general reader with a focus on the perils of misinformation. I finally caught up with East West Street by Philippe Sands from 2016 which intertwines the author’s family history during the Holocaust with the lives of those involved in the prosecution team at the Nuremberg trials. As part of an alternative Not The Wellcome Prize blog tour, I read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez which is a rage-inducing piece of research exposing gender data bias in the modern world where everything from mobile phones to crash test dummies are designed for men.
In contrast with much of the non-fiction I have read this year, my favourite novels have generally been more easygoing in subject matter, with the possible exception of Summerwater by Sarah Moss – a short and sinister novel which follows the lives of various characters who are staying at a Scottish holiday camp. Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld is an intriguing piece of speculative fiction about the path Hillary Clinton might have taken in life if she hadn’t married Bill. Finally, last year’s word-of-mouth success Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession proved to be excellent lockdown reading – an understated gem of a book about the everyday lives of two introverted friends. Lovely.
A Little Blog of Books 
I loved Summerwater too. Some great sounding books here.
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Well done on your prize predictions! Annabel and I are just starting Leonard and Hungry Paul as a buddy read. Should be perfect Twixtmas reading 🙂
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I hope you enjoy it!
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Great list! Hamnet is definitely one of the best books I’ve read this year as well.
Happy to see Invisible Women on your list. I want to read it next year!
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I’ve read and loved both Hamnet and Shuggie Bain. The Glaswegian in me would want to say Shuggie Bain is the better of the two, but I can’t as I thought Hamnet was fantastic!
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Rodham, Summerwater, and the Craig Brown just added to my “Read when in paperback” list. Many thanks!
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I hope you enjoy all of them!
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Well done on your prize picks. I can’t wait to catch up with 1 2 3 4. I bought the hardback as soon as it came out but got waylaid, as I so often do.
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Yes, I remember it came out in April during the first lockdown – I also really enjoyed Craig Brown’s biography of Princess Margaret (Ma’am Darling) which has a similar structure. He is very good at writing engaging biographies on subjects like the Royal Family and the Beatles even when there is nothing entirely new to say about them!
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Hamnet… yes, Yes, and YES. My list will be on my blog tomorrow!
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I also found Invisible Women infuriating and a bit depressing, to the point where I had a hard time enjoying reading it. I think it got to me so much because while I know sexism is alive and well, I hadn’t realized how thoroughly and sometimes subtly it’s baked into so many aspects of our lives. The bus schedules and routes, for example, are just something that hadn’t occurred to me.
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Yes, I’d never thought about it from a town planning perspective before!
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