2020 Reading During Covid

 

Maybe it's just that this was such a horrible year my list didn't seem to have a lot of great reads.  It was hard to put together a list of "top five", but I'll settle on these (click on title for full review of each):

1) The Fact of a Body - A Marzano-Lesnevich 2017 Fiction

    I loved the twists and turns of this very different mystery.

2) I Am A Strange Loop - Douglas Hofstadter - 2007 Science

    I'm sorry I waited so long to read this.  Heavy reading worth the effort to synthesize science and   philosophy

3) I Think You're Wrong, But I'm Listening - S Holland and B Silver - 2019

    My effort to survive the political chaos of the last decade.. and still churning.

4) House of Broken Angels - Luis Alberto Urrea - 2018

    A wonderful story of an immigrant family that makes the experience real and personal.

5) Calypso - David Sedaris - 2018

    His dry humor and loving slicing and dicing of his family always makes me laugh.

And though I haven't received my copy, the author shared an advance manuscript with me and for anyone with children or children at heart, this is a must read:

The Only Lonely Cow - by Nancie Meek (author), Elizabeth Beatty (Illustrator)

My real focus this year has been on genealogy reading.  Of the 52 books I read, 13 had a genealogical or genetics focus, and those reviews find their way into my genealogy society newsletter.  I've been reading more non-fiction, mostly science-based, the last several years but still use fiction for enjoyment.  

In 2021 I'm determined to work off my TBR list.  I've got a couple books waiting for me at the library and three others on order.  

Check out the list on the right for the complete list of 2020 reads.  Let me know what got you through in 2020.

The German Girl - Armando Lucas Correa

This book was recommended to me by a friend who read it in the original Spanish language.  It tells a fictionalized story of a family from the St Louis, an ocean liner that departed from Europe in 1940 with over 900 Jewish refugees, headed for Cuba.  I had not heard of the St Louis before. The author weaves a tale from modern day with that of a survivor of the ship.  I thought the story was well crafted, though more detail than necessary was spent on the young girl and her friend on their trip across the ocean.  

The author also shares the story of refuges from Cuba in the late 1950s, when Jehovah witnesses and others were forced to leave the island.  A heartbreaking story that puts the trials of 2020 into perspective.  

  Published: 2016   Read: December 2020   Genre: Historical fiction

The Girls Who Went Away - Ann Fessler

 Sub-title: The hidden history of women who surrendered children for adoption in the decades before Roe v. Wade

I have been using DNA and genealogy to research unknown parentage within my own family and for others for the past five years.  This book has given me a powerful focus on the impact of adoption on the mothers who gave birth to adoptees.  Their pain is something I had not considered in my work to find birth parents for others.  I have seen first hand the impact on the adoptee but have never worked with a mother seeking her child.  Their stories told in this book and the background and information on adoptions from this period is education I should have sought earlier.

References: 

p 43 "Only when his [William Baird] case, Eisenstadt v. Baird, reached the Supreme Court and was decided in his favor in 1972 was access to birth control guaranteed to all single men and women in the United States."

Published: 2006   Read: December 2020  Genre: Non-fiction

We Are Not Ourselves - Matthew Thomas

 In this time, reading a sad book was not something I planned on doing.  This is the story of an Irish family, from the immigration of the patriarch through the maturity of his grandson.  It tells of their struggles and heartbreaks from the 1940s when the main character, Eileen grows up caring for her parents until the late 2000's when her son realizes her dreams for him.  

At its core, its the story of Eileen and and her husband's life striving for the American dream.  He's a practical, unassuming college professor, completely satisfied with teaching his students while Eileen urges him to reach farther and higher.  When he begins to act strange, spending hours on the couch listening to music, she initially thinks he's having a mid-life crisis.  Half way through the book, the real cause is revealed to be early onset Alzheimer's.  The rest of the story describes in cringe-worthy accuracy, what it is like to live with and care for someone with the disease.  It was a moving and wonderfully loving picture of family.  

Published:  2014  Read: December 2020  Genre: fiction