{"id":8138,"date":"2020-06-23T18:04:07","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T12:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebooksatchel.com\/?p=8138"},"modified":"2021-02-01T14:47:29","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T09:17:29","slug":"best-backlist-books-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebooksatchel.com\/best-backlist-books-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Backlist Books I loved in 2020 (So Far)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Here are my favourite books of the year (Part 1) that are published before 2020. Cynical protagonists, art heists, and adventures in wilderness\u2014they saved me.<\/p>\n
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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\u2014just the way you like your books while living through a pandemic. I furiously made my way through Moshfegh\u2019s backlist but I promised myself to include just one book in this list. Otherwise we might have to title this as \u2018My year of reading Moshfegh\u2019. My advice\u2014read them all, and find your peace.<\/p>\n
Buy<\/strong> on Amazon In<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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 \u2018have you read The Secret History<\/em>\u2019. I wrote a cheeky review<\/a> 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\u2019ll find yourself muttering, \u2018Yes, Bunny is a problem\u2019.<\/p>\n Buy<\/strong> on Amazon In<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I am breaking the one author-one book rule here because The Goldfinch<\/em> is nothing like The Secret History<\/em> while in Moshfegh\u2019s 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<\/em> 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\u2019s no way out.<\/p>\n PS: Skip the movie. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I savoured every page of Angel <\/em>. 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<\/em>, an eternal novel of love<\/a>, she made me feel a multitude of emotions\u2014sympathy, joy, protective instinct\u2014in Angel<\/em>.<\/p>\n Buy<\/strong> on Amazon In<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Wildwood Chronicles<\/em> brought me much comfort with its chunky books about two friends, Prue and Curtis, who go into the Impassable Wilderness to save Prue\u2019s 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<\/em> 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<\/em>, is more dark with factories of unadoptable children, mole neighbourhoods and cottages in woods. The third book, Wildwood Imperium<\/em>, takes us to magical ivy plants, evil mirrors and a mission to resurrect an heir. Lovely!<\/p>\n Buy<\/strong> on Amazon In<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A classic frenemies story but with more bite. If you love You<\/em> by Caroline Kepnes or Social Creature<\/em> 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\u2019s career with her connections and beauty, things go haywire. Necessary People<\/em> is addictive and a page turner.<\/p>\n Also Read<\/strong> <\/em>: 11 books on Obsession and Scams<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I love Dorothy Whipple\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n The Priory <\/em>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\u2019t 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\u2019s content. The Major loves cricket but has no idea how to run a failing estate. The Priory<\/em> 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<\/a><\/span> in Someone at a Distance <\/em>but I greatly enjoyed glimpsing through the lives of the upper middle class family.<\/p>\n Buy<\/strong> on Amazon In<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We need more books like Heartstopper.<\/em> It was one of the absolute best books of 2020 from the backlist for me. Set in an all boy\u2019s school, Heartstopper<\/em> 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\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n Buy <\/strong>on Amazon In<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\nBEST books of 2020 from the backlist. Crow thieves, murders, adventures \u2014 you are going to LOVE these. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n <\/p>\n This post may include affiliate links which means I earn a very small commission at no extra cost to you.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you liked this post on Best Books of 2020 from the backlist, Pin for later<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Best Books over the Years<\/a> [vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]If you are wondering why there\u2019s 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6307,6312],"tags":[232,266,9933,198,502,10017,9996,8717,10018,9932,9997],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-8138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-reading-lists","tag-best-books","tag-book-lists","tag-donna-tartt","tag-dorothy-whipple","tag-elizabeth-taylor","tag-heartstopper","tag-ottessa-mosgfegh","tag-reading-lists","tag-the-goldfinch","tag-the-secret-history","tag-wildwood"],"yoast_head":"\n2. \u00a0The Secret History<\/em> by Donna Tartt (1992)<\/h3>\n
3. The Goldfinch<\/em> by Donna Tartt (2013)<\/h3>\n
\nBuy<\/strong> on Amazon In<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
4. Angel<\/em> by Elizabeth Taylor (2006, originally 1957)<\/h3>\n
5. Wildwood Chronicles<\/em> by Colin Meloy, illustrated by Carson Ellis (2011-2014)<\/h3>\n
6. Necessary People<\/em> by Anna Pitoniak (2019)<\/h3>\n
7. The Priory<\/em> by Dorothy Whipple (2003, originally 1939)<\/h3>\n
8. Heartstopper <\/em>Vol.1 by Alice Oseman (2016)<\/h3>\n
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YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE<\/h4>\n
\nShiniest Debuts of 2019<\/a>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"