If you are wondering why there’s a separate list of my best books of 2020 from the backlist, it is only because the first book list got too long. This was a difficult reading year. When the pandemic began, I could not bring myself to read a book, any book. I went through re-reads (I think we should no longer call them re-reading?), new books, old books and finally found my saviour in Ottessa Moshfegh who swooped me out of my slump.
Best books of 2020 from the Backlist
Here are my favourite books of the year (Part 1) that are published before 2020. Cynical protagonists, art heists, and adventures in wilderness—they saved me.
1. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh (2018)
This is the book where it all began. The one that helped me get back to reading this year, especially after a dry spell upon the onset of the Covid-19 scare. No wonder they say Moshfegh writes the best quarantine novel. Here, a woman wants to sleep a whole year and just get away with it. It is bitter, dark humoured, sarcastic and cynical—just the way you like your books while living through a pandemic. I furiously made my way through Moshfegh’s backlist but I promised myself to include just one book in this list. Otherwise we might have to title this as ‘My year of reading Moshfegh’. My advice—read them all, and find your peace.
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2. The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992)
What was this book about? It is all a fuzz to me now. What I do know is that I have converted into one of those people, annoying people if you please, who shout ‘have you read The Secret History’. I wrote a cheeky review about it too. The novel follows a group of Classics students who take their studies too seriously and end up being accomplices in a murder. Gloomy, broody life in an academia and sentences that make you pause, breathe faster or slow down. This book will devour you. It is dark, delicious and heavily atmospheric that you’ll find yourself muttering, ‘Yes, Bunny is a problem’.
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3. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2013)
I am breaking the one author-one book rule here because The Goldfinch is nothing like The Secret History while in Moshfegh’s case you can find similarities between her characters. I know nothing about art. Yet this 800+ pages of museums, thievery, and imitation was bliss! I read The Secret History first and if you know what I mean, you cannot not read the other book. They come in pairs. When you finish one Donna Tartt, you are starved for more. There’s no way out.
PS: Skip the movie.
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4. Angel by Elizabeth Taylor (2006, originally 1957)
I savoured every page of Angel . She reminds me a bit of myself but quickly breaks the glass to proclaim she is one of her own league. We start with Angel, dreaming to be a writer at the age of fifteen, then actually writing a book and waiting for fame and glory. She does get rich. But her books are scorned upon and read hidden. Her novels are loved by cooks and rich heiresses but seldom in public. She becomes a sensational writer, laughed upon by some while greatly enjoyed by others. Angel is rude, high headed and over confident. Sometimes I craved for these attributes of hers to apply in my own life because she really does get her own way. We follow Angel to old age and cross paths with her ill researched novels, mansion buys and obsession with pets (peacocks, cats). While Elizabeth Taylor broke my heart with A Game of Hide and Seek, an eternal novel of love, she made me feel a multitude of emotions—sympathy, joy, protective instinct—in Angel.
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5. Wildwood Chronicles by Colin Meloy, illustrated by Carson Ellis (2011-2014)
Wildwood Chronicles brought me much comfort with its chunky books about two friends, Prue and Curtis, who go into the Impassable Wilderness to save Prue’s one-year old brother who was stolen by crows. The books reminded me how much I love (and miss reading now) good middle grade fantasy books. In Wildwood we have tea parties with wise owls, talk with mystics, fight with (and against) coyotes, and march against evil dowagers. The second book, Under Wildwood, is more dark with factories of unadoptable children, mole neighbourhoods and cottages in woods. The third book, Wildwood Imperium, takes us to magical ivy plants, evil mirrors and a mission to resurrect an heir. Lovely!
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6. Necessary People by Anna Pitoniak (2019)
A classic frenemies story but with more bite. If you love You by Caroline Kepnes or Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton, pick this up. Stella and Violet are friends and roommates but Stella is the one born with a golden spoon while Violet has to work hard to climb her way up. After school, Violet takes up a job in cable news and is successful. When the beautiful, blonde Stella is envious of her success and joins the company to jeopardize Violet’s career with her connections and beauty, things go haywire. Necessary People is addictive and a page turner.
Also Read : 11 books on Obsession and Scams
7. The Priory by Dorothy Whipple (2003, originally 1939)
I love Dorothy Whipple’s attention to details and her talent in exposing vulnerabilities and emotional states of her characters. In this novel, Whipple follows the residents of a crumbling estate Saunby in England in the years leading to the second world war.
The Priory is not very plot-centric, or rather not conventionally plot-centric with a singular heroine. Rather it is an amalgamation of different characters and their storylines. At first we sympathize with Anthea, the once lonely now second wife of Major Marwood, who dreams of being friends with her step daughters and inviting comments on what a beautiful family they make. But this doesn’t happen and she retreats to a friendship with a nurse and a maid. The two Marwood girls are very close to one another until one falls in love. Miss. Victoria Marwood, the eccentric aunt, wants to paint to her heart’s content. The Major loves cricket but has no idea how to run a failing estate. The Priory moves quickly as marriages and babies, adultery and divorce, comforts and scandals sprout at close intervals. My favourite novel by DorothyWhipple still remains her dissection of marriage in Someone at a Distance but I greatly enjoyed glimpsing through the lives of the upper middle class family.
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8. Heartstopper Vol.1 by Alice Oseman (2016)
We need more books like Heartstopper. It was one of the absolute best books of 2020 from the backlist for me. Set in an all boy’s school, Heartstopper follows Charlie of Year 10. Charlie is gay and often bullied for it. He strikes up a friendship with a rugby player, Nick, from Year 11 and find himself falling for him. I loved the panels with minimal words conveying the confusion and anxiousness in the minds of the boys. It reminds me of those school days of having a crush on someone and losing sleep over it. A cute love story that’ll warm your heart with its beautiful art that conveys the mood of the scenes perfectly. I cannot wait to speed through Vol.2 and Vol.3.
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