My Ten Favourite Reads from 2020

          I find that the annual ten-best and hundred-best book lists are pretty boring. The lists have in common that they’re mostly made up of the same mass market bestsellers. I think there is a direct connection between the amount of marketing dollars the publisher spends and getting on these lists. These books are, by design, intended to have wide appeal, but that means many great “specialist” books and small press books get missed. So here is my very personal list—best books I’ve read in 2020, regardless of when they were published. 

          The list has several themes in common across the themes: religion, anthropology, and race(ism). Hope you find something here that you like!

NOVELS

1. Exit West, by Mosin Hamid. Such a unique and lovely narrative voice! I mean the writing! A melancholy and romantic book about what binds humanity together and what pulls us apart. Set in the Middle East and California, it follows a few characters who move around the world as doorways beyond the control of central governments makes the whole world’s population mobile. Magical realism here, and it works. 

2. Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi. Lovely and painful. A narrative dive into the lives of ordinary people who both fail and triumph. Most of the failures are due to hatred—systemic racism—and war and colonialism and ignorance, among other human shortcomings. But the way these people keep the flames of hope and love alive is inspiring and beautiful. The unique structure of the novel is also very interesting, as it follows two joined yet separate families through multiple generations. The writing is simple, pointed, and lovely. Best read of the year.

3. The Overstory, by Richard Powers. Well, I can find things to criticize here. The book is a bit too preachy; it reads, sometimes, too much like a botany text; and it is really long and could have used a bit of trimming. Still, this is a magnificent book. Powers creates believable characters who do, at turns, lovely and horrible things to save the world’s trees. Powers hears and shares the language of trees so that I can almost hear them.

4. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. I read this postapocalyptic book in high school, again in college, and then not again till now. It is a book worth reading for its humanity, for its sympathetic portrayal of religious people (perhaps a bit too sympathetic) and for its grand historical sweep. I can't say I share all of Miller's Roman Catholic sensitivities, especially in light of so many recent revelations. But as a study of the complex interplay between religious conviction, civilization, and politics, it can’t be beat. 

MEDIA

5. Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, by Marryanne Wolf. The great irony that weighs against this book is that those who might gain the most by reading it never will. They’ve abandoned deep reading for the mesmerizing screen. Wolf is a neurologist who explains in great detail the latest research into why reading is becoming harder and harder for most people in our society. A must read for ministers, teachers, and parents too. Wolf’s specialty is child development.

          A fine companion book to Reader, Come Home, is Digital Mini-malism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. After reviewing, briefly, much of the same material that Wolf describes in greater detail, and after explaining Silicon Valley’s corporate aims, Cal Newport offers a step-by-step guide to his media detox plan. I’m going to take it this January, when I begin my sabbatical!

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

6. Born a Crime: Stories of a South African Childhood, by Trevor Noah. As a regular visitor to South Africa, this book revealed, to me, just how much I've missed. I've been to the townships, both in the city and the countryside. I've visited Soweto, Cape Town, Johannesburg and many other towns. But I was always a tourist and I can see I missed mostly everything.

          This is a humane insider’s book about people trying to figure out a new thing with old prejudices and problems. They do better than you'd think, but it is quite a trip. Noah himself turns out to be a totally likeable, yet complex person. His mother? Well, she is a character who leaves me both impressed and sad. Read this. Surprises everywhere. Well written, too.

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 

(or, Doubt and Evil)

7. Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt by Alec Ryrie. A well-written, engaging story with many vignettes along the way. Ryrie argues that as impressive as rational arguments for and against the existence of God might be, most people have become unbelievers for emotional reasons. 

          Ryrie names two that have ancient historical roots: anger (especially at religious institutions, rather than at God) and anxiety (especially surrounding how one can know this or that, given the many opinions out there). I thought his concluding analysis of our society’s turn away from church a bit weak, but for the most part a well-researched and engaging attempt to listen for faith voices other than those of the scholars.

8. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, by Hannah Arendt. I made a goal of reading ten classic works this year. Right now, I’m plowing through Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. Arendt’s book, I’m finding, is a fitting companion to Dostoevsky. 

          She examines the life and trial of Adolf Eichmann in order to try and understand what made him send so many Jewish persons, by rail, to their deaths during World War II. Arendt doesn’t think it was the devil. Her portrait of a man unselfconsciously stumbling into evil is disheartening and important—especially now, as nations around the world sees more and more strong men taking power and their sycophants helping smooth the way.

SCIENCES

9. Ancestors in Our Genome: The New Science of Human Evolution, by Eugene E. Harris. Human evolution has always been a fascination of mine. I sometimes think that career-wise, my greatest regret is that I didn’t become an evolutionary anthropologist.
          The genomic science is challenging for a lay person like me. But the subject is truly fascinating. We all know how DNA can be used to identify certain illnesses, potential relatives, criminals, and even rapists. DNA is a powerful tool for tracing our relationships to and contacts with others. But the same science and tools can be used to determine our evolutionary relationships too. This book covers when the homo sapiens line diverged from the last common ancestor of our us and our cousins, chimps and bonobos. It covers why we know that humans mostly evolved in Africa, and how we are related to other human species that are now extinct, including Neanderthals, Denisovans, and even earlier humans. I loved it.
          Runner up in the evolutionary biology category was Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes. The title says it all. A marvellously detailed (perhaps a bit too detailed) look at many Neanderthal archeological sites and what we can learn from them.

10. In a different corner of the anthropological world, I was completely absorbed by At the Bridge; James Teit and an Anthropology of Belonging, by Wendy Wickwire. James Teit was an overlooked, turn-of-the-nineteenth century anthropologist who lived with, studied, and advocated for the indigenous peoples of British Columbia and Northwest USA. 

          Wickwire examines Teit’s life, his participant-observer stance among the First Nations, his political engagement with Ottawa and Victoria, and his understanding of the systemic racism First Nations consistently faced. Every page is filled with fascinating stories and insight.