This Bookshelf: 2020 Books Links to All Steve Hopkins’ Bookshelves Web Page PDF/epub/Searchable Link to Latest Book Reviews: Book Reviews Blog Links to Current Bookshelf: Pending and Read 2020 Books 2020 Books Links to 549 Books Read or Skipped in 2020 2020 Bookshelf 2020 Bookshelf Links to All Books from 1999 All Books Authors A through All Books Authors A through through 2020 Authors A-G G G Links to All Books from 1999 through 2020 Authors H-M All Books Authors H All Books Authors H through M through M Links to All Books from 1999 All Books Authors N through All Books Authors N through through 2020 Authors N-Z Z Z Book of Books: An ebook of Book of Books books read, reviewed or skipped from 1999 through 2020 This web page lists all 360 books reviewed by Steve Hopkins at http://bkrev.blogspot.com during 2020 as well as 189 books relegated to the Shelf of Ennui. You can click on the title of a book or on the picture of any jacket cover to jump to amazon.com where you can purchase a copy of any book on this shelf. Key to Ratings: I love it ***** I like it **** It’s OK *** I don’t like it ** I hate it * Click on Title (Click on Link Blog Picture to to purchase at Author(s) Rating Comments Date Purchase at amazon.com) amazon.com Endless. For an immersive mediation on war, read Salar Abdoh’s novel titled, Out of Mesopotamia. From the perspective of protagonist Saleh, a journalist, we struggle to make sense of those who are engaged in what Out of seems like endless war. With great skill, Abdoh, Salar 11/9/20 Mesopotamia **** Abdoh can be poetic and authentic in the same sentence. We’re led into the darkness of war where we find some form of enlightenment about why we do what we do. Most readers will finish this novel somewhat weakened by proximity to the fragility of life. Formidable. Stacy Abrams drew national Our Time Is Now: interest when she ran for governor of Power, Purpose, Abrams, Stacey 11/24/20 Georgia and was beaten in a close race in and the Fight for a **** 2018 by Brian Kemp, whom she claimed Fair America suppressed Democratic votes. In her book titled, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America, she describes her life and the progress she’s made in Georgia to register new voters and build a Democratic force for change. Readers of this book will find the story of a formidable woman whose work over the past decade in Georgia led to the state voting for Biden in 2020, and as I write this, awaiting the results of a runoff election on January 5, 2021 to select two U.S. senators. Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence-- Abt, Thomas Unread Shelf of Ennui 2020. and a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets Places and Names: On War, Ackerman, Elliot Unread Shelf of Ennui 2020. Revolution, and Returning Recovery. Sean Adams’ debut novel titled, The Heap, pulls readers into an examination of what we build, what collapses, and what it takes to restore what is important. Los Verticalés was a 500-story residential building in the desert that has collapsed. Protagonist Orville Anders works on a dig The Heap Adams, Sean 7/15/20 **** site where he is looking for his brother, Bernard, who survived the collapse and broadcasts a radio show from the rubble called the Heap. Adams explores what life in Los Verticalés was like before the collapse, and what was different for those on the outer units who had windows compared to those on the inner units who relied on digital screens. The workers at the dig site form a community of their own in CamperTown, and Adams uses all three communities as fodder for his satire. Many readers will find this to be a compelling story, and others will come away from it ready to reflect on the creation of community life. Amnesty Adiga, Aravind Unread Shelf of Ennui 2020. Creative. There are twelve funny and crazy short stories in the debut collection by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah titled, Friday Black. These are sharp, finely written stories that show off the author’s creativity and are likely Adjei-Brenyah, Nana Friday Black 6/10/20 to delight most readers. There’s an emotional Kwame **** range on display in this collection that packs a punch. There’s dark humor, human failings and issues galore. His writing surprised me often, always had my full attention, and gave me great reading pleasure. Intense. If there was ever a year that demanded the lamentations we find in a finely written elegy, it is 2020. In his novel titled, Homeland Elegies, Ayad Akhtar offers an intense narrative about finding one’s place in contemporary America, especially Homeland Elegies Akhtar, Ayad 12/9/20 for those raised in a different culture. The **** novel draws us into the dynamics of a single family and their problems and issues, which provide a mirror in which we can see ourselves and others. This novel is an uncomfortable and cleareyed look at capitalism and the current reality of the American dream. There is raw disillusionment on these pages, and heartbreak. By the end of the novel, our feelings for a father, a son, and for the United States have commingled and we join our voices in an intense song of lament at our common predicament. Club. The eighth Fandorin mystery by Boris Akunin is a novel titled, She Lover of Death. A young and naïve protagonist, Masha Mironova, arrives in Moscow at the beginning of the 20th century and joins a club of mainly poets who are enamored with death. She becomes Columbine, wears a pet She Lover of Death Akunin, Boris 5/26/20 snake, and before long finds herself next in *** queue to commit suicide, thanks to the signs she has received. Events are heading off the cliff when Fandorin joins the club. Of course, you’ll have to read the novel if you want to find out what happens. Akunin plays with words and names in this novel in ways that will entertain many readers. American Carnage : On the Front Lines of the Alberta, Tim Unread Shelf of Ennui 2020. Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump The Catholic Albinati, Edoardo Unread Shelf of Ennui 2020. School Momentum. Madeline Albright’s memoir titled, Hell and Other Destinations: A 21st- Century Memoir, is packed with wit and wisdom. This former Secretary of State tells Hell and Other us of her life from 2001 to the present, a Destinations: A period for her that was packed with deciding Albright, Madeline 5/26/20 21st-Century **** what to do next and then after that, and then Memoir something else altogether. Her momentum is a force of nature as she accounts her life of ongoing service and engagement. Her prose is exciting, and her humor enchanting. Do something or get out of her way. Refuge. My frame of mind as I started reading Isabel Allende’s novel titled, A Long Petal of the Sea, involved feeling a little sorry for myself. Disrupted by a stay at home order to slow the spread of Covid 19, I felt thrown off kilter by constraints on my regular activities. After I few pages into this finely written novel, I lost all sense of my situation as I felt the plight of the protagonists A Long Petal of the needing to leave Spain during the civil war Allende, Isabel 4/9/20 Sea ***** and becoming refugees in Chile. While at my own home, I thought about the importance of a sense of home in all our lives. Allende explores a relationship from the 1930s through the 1990s, and along the way, we understand more about the nature of hope, what constitutes belonging, and how love grows over time and across obstacles. Fans of well written literary fiction are those readers most likely to enjoy this novel. Sisterhood. Many novels help readers answer the question: how to we live, now? For Antonia Vega, the protagonist of Julia Alvarez’ novel titled, Afterlife, this involves finding moorings again, following her retirement from teaching college and the sudden death of her husband, Sam, the beloved physician in their Vermont town. Life has a way of injecting our “now” with the next way to live. One of Antonia’s three Afterlife Alvarez, Julia 7/15/20 sisters has disappeared, so the siblings join **** together to find her. Antonia also provides refuge for a pregnant undocumented teenager. Alvarez leads readers into lives that are connected to one another as members of the same human family, and our sense of belonging relates to those closest to us and all the members of our human family. Whatever has brought us to this time in our lives gives us the courage and wisdom to do the next thing. Missing. Disappearing children in Deepa Anaparra’s debut novel titled, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, will make your blood run cold. Anaparra describes life in a city in India, and what parents, police and children do after children begin to go missing. The Djinn Patrol on the Anaparra, Deepa 7/23/20 descriptive prose offers a setting in vivid Purple Line **** detail, and the perspectives of different characters draw us into what for most of us will be an unfamiliar environment. The fine storytelling propels us to turn pages as we begin to care deeply about these characters, especially the children.