The stress of this pandemic has shown up in different ways for all of us. Despite having more time, it seems like we were all able to do fewer things. One of the things I let go was posting my quick takes on each book I finished. I’ve recently resumed that practice. But between December 2020 and May 2022, I did read a lot of books. They were (with the ones I especially liked in bold):
- [2020]
- Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reed
- The Searcher by Tana French
- The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donaghue
- Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell
- [2021]
- Luster by Raven Leilani
- Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethaway
- Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn
- Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
- The Push by Ashley Audrain
- Little Constructions by Anna Burns
- Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker
- Memorial by Bryan Washington
- The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
- Creatures by Chrissy Van Meter
- Bad News by Edward St. Aubyn
- Some Hope by Edward St. Aubyn
- Infinite Country by Patricia Engel
- The Scholar by Dermal McTiernan
- Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
- The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird
- This Must Be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell
- Instructions for a Heat Wave by Maggie O’Farrell
- First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami
- Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford
- The Five Wounds by Kristen Valdez Quade
- The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Behcdel
- Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
- Animal by Lisa Taddeo
- Autumn by Ali Smith
- Double Blind by Edward St. Aubyn
- The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
- The Recent East by Thomas Grattan
- Beautiful World, Where Are You? By Sally Rooney
- The Heather Blazing by Colm Tóibín
- Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
- Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
- Bewilderment by Richard Powers
- I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins
- The Butterfly Lampshade by Aimee Bender
- True Story by Kate Reed Petty
- Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
- The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
- Days of Aferkete by Asali Solomon
- O Beautiful by Jung Yun
- These Precious Days by Ann Patchett
- Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerer
- My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
- The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
- [2022]
- Foregone by Russell Banks
- Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
- A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millett
- You Never Get it Back by Cara Blue Adams
- Honor by Thirty Umrigar
- Joan is Okay by Weike Wang
- Devil House by John Darnielle
- To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara
- Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
- The Book of Otto and Loan by Paul Griner
- Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King
- Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
Going retrospective about this gives me the option of picking out the ones I really liked, that I still remember.
Standouts: The Heart’s Invisible Furies, , Great Circle, Animal, The Recent East, My Sister the Serial Killer, Detransition, Baby, Honor, To Paradise, Sorrow and Bliss
Amy P. Knight 