THE RACKET'S BEST BOOKS OF 2020
I’m a purist when it comes to an end-of-year-list. I appreciate all of them - all of them - but in the creation of mine - and The Racket’s - I wanted to stick to the best books that came out in 2020. The ones that you might’ve missed because you weren’t noodling around in the shelves of a bookstore, or you weren’t crammed into a tiny space watching an author read. I wanted to shed some light on the works that came out in this interminable, seemingly unending year, because I don’t want them to be lost in the shuffle.
I really thought that with the world halting and then burning and then burning some more and then halting again and then teetering ever closer to whatever happens next, that every book on this list would be far-flung fantasy. The type of books that pull you out of the world and plop you down in a far-flung universe where very little looks the same. Turns out I was wrong. I found myself in the slums of India, the gold mines of the Wild West, the world of gourmet cuisine in the 1960s, the personal bubbles of climate change and capitalism.
I surprisingly found myself in places decidedly human, decidedly close to home. And maybe that’s just what I needed this year.
Maybe you will too.
Noah Sanders,
The Racket
THE BEST BOOKS OF 2020
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line came out pre-COVID and the fact that the pandemic turned time into an endless soup I almost forgot it came out this year. Which would’ve been an unforgivable sin because Deepa Anappara’s debut novel is easily the most entertaining, enjoyable experience I had reading this year. This admission says a huge amount about the talent of Anappara as the book takes place in a slum just outside of Bombay where children are being kidnapped. Somehow (presumably because the author is vastly talented) Anappara takes the bones of a traditional detective story, tosses it into the hands of plucky ten year old and his two friends and creates a enthralling mystery laced with Indian mythology, an exploration of the countries deep social issues and a savage critique of the on-going caste system in the country. It was great when I read 5,000 years ago and the lingering memory is equally so.
I don’t like biography. Or I didn’t think I liked biography. Or one time when I was living in New Zealand I tried to read a biography of Orson Welles and it just didn’t stick and I’ve shunned the genre ever since. Regardless, when my girlfriend asked if we could read/listen to epic food writer John Birdsall’s new biography of the late, great, Dean of American Cuisine, James Beard as we drove across the country I was like, “Ehhhhhh.” But we did and I shake my head at myself for thinking I wouldn’t enjoy it. Because as much as this is a biography of the closeted Beard and the deep toll the hiding of his sexuality took on his life and his relationships and his work it so much more. It’s a fascinating look at the evolution of food thought in America; an insider’s peek into the world of cookbook publishing; a deep dive into Portland in the early 1900s - the list goes on and on. And in John Birdsall’s capable hands, every word rips itself off the page. You will find yourself deeply invested in the male social clubs of Reed College in the 1930s. You will salivate over his descriptions of Beard’s meals in the Italian countryside. You will - as I did - quietly sob when James Beard finally passes on. It is a magnificent piece of writing - biography or otherwise.
As I’m writing these I’m realizing that a Best Of list for me amounts to a list of regrets or near-regrets or regrets that I’ve dealt with. Jenny Offill falls into that boat. Before devouring Dept. of Speculation this year in one frenzied, guilty afternoon (guilt only because I knew I was reading it too fast and that soon I’d arrive at the end and the pure enjoyment of reading it for the first time would be over and done with) I had never read Jenny Offill. She was someone I’d heard about and got confused with Ali Smith (no idea why) and had placed on a mental table of - I’ll get to it eventually. If you, like me, have not read Jenny Offill’s writing, I implore you, for your own good, get on it. If Dept. of Speculation is in my top 50 books of all time (all time) then Weather is as well. Offill’s writing - short, poignant, blindingly observant and goddamn funny - is like pulling on an sweater, finding it has holes in the armpits and a wadded up kleenex from that cold you had in 2016 in the pocket and it still being the best thing you’ve worn all year. Weather deals with the very emotional burden of climate change, but to wrap Offill’s writing in any sort of descriptive text is reduction at its worst. it is, yes, about climate change and the undue weight we all, knowingly or not, carry because of it, but with Offill at the helm, this book takes the idea and explores just how this plays out. I want to read it again. Right now. And you should too.
Usually when I think, “Oh, man, I am going to fucking love this book,” it ends up being a total whiff and I tell myself I’ll never have an opinion again because clearly my radar is so inexplicably wrong. C. Pam Zhang’s How Much These Hills is Gold soundly broke this rule. A debut novel about a family of Chinese immigrants living in the Gold Rush era of California with queer themes, a touch of Chinese mythology and just a hint of adventure was like a magnet to my particular tastes and thank goodness for that pull. How Much of These Hill is Gold is a stunning piece of writing - thematically, descriptively, everything-ly. In the wake of their father’s death, two Chinese-American orphans wander the desert trying to survive. There are ghosts and curses and mysteries revealed and it is powerful and sad and, in my humble opinion , a rip-roaring epic of The West. Zhang’s writing toes the line of lyricism without stepping over it and no book this year made me gasp in awe of sheer description more. My eyes are popping little bit just thinking about it.
Eula Biss’s Having and Being Had is a book I could’ve read in an afternoon but instead parsed out like an IV drip, letting it slowly find its way into my bloodstream. It is a personal reckoning with success, with money, with an artist’s lack of understanding not only what it means to be wealthy but how to be wealthy. It’s the kind of book that spits in the American politeness that asks us not to discuss money, but does so with intelligence, anger, warmth and humor. This is a discussion of macroeconomics from a poet who has been awarded the Guggenheim. It’s insightful, it’s elegant, it’s sparse in all the right ways. Every chapter felt like a conversation not just with Biss but with my own insecurities about money in 2020. It is again, surprisingly, a joy to read. I finished it almost a week ago and it’s still sitting on my bedside table as if I might just pick it up and give it another go. I just want to spend a little more time in Biss’s headspace. Just a few more moments, that’s all I ask.
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Noah Sanders is the founder of The Racket. He sincerely hopes you enjoy eggnog.
