The Best Books I Read in 2020
Forty titles to open your eyes, expand your mind, and rock your world
In 2020, I read 174 nonfiction books (and 4 novels). Nearly all were excellent, because as I’ve said before in my how to read more books article, life’s too short to read crappy books.
To that end, I present to you a list of titles that stood out even amongst this exalted cohort. Some were written with dazzling beauty. Some had such stupendous explanatory power as to give you an extra pair of eyes. Some were a tour de force of research and storytelling. Some introduced breakthrough science almost too hard to believe if the authors themselves weren’t behind it.
The list below has the title, author, year of publication, length, and rating on a 10-point scale for each book.
I intentionally list them in no particular order so you may serendipitously encounter books you wouldn’t normally seek out. Below the list, I have vignettes or full reviews on most of the books.
And if you’re complaining that the reviews are too long, then there’s definitely no hope for you to finish any of the books here, many of which are over 500 pages long. Might as well give up right now and go back to playing Candy Crush or puckering for Instagram. Otherwise, let’s Make America Read Substantial Books…
