Ramon Casas 1866-1932
2020 wasn’t good for much, but it was a very good year for reading. What else was there to do as we hunkered down in our socially distanced comfort zones for months on end? Theoretically I could have cleared out the basement or shredded papers in the obsolete filing cabinet, but counter-intuitively these tasks seemed more difficult to accomplish with so much time spent at home. I’m no Marie Kondo. So in between frenetic bursts of supervising grandsons at virtual school, I walked and I read and I read. All right, there was some TV binging in there too.
I ended up reading far more of the books appearing on the prestigious Best of the Year lists than I usually do. I agreed on some of them. Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener is an insightful take-down of Silicon Valley culture by a young New York publishing assistant who decided to try her luck in a more lucrative profession. She ended up a writer. Erik Larson’s engrossing The Splendid and the Vile proves there can be something fresh to write about the overworked subject of Churchill’s leadership in the first year of the war. But I was disappointed in A Children’s Bible, the novel by Lydia Millet. An intriguing set-up, children escape from their feckless parents in an attempt to survive a climate apocalypse, didn’t quite live up to its promise. As their experiences mirror the Bible stories in a book treasured by one of the boys, the sudden collapse of civilization doesn’t quite ring true. Perhaps the symbolism is a bit too heavy handed. The irresponsible parents obviously represent the generations who have failed to take effective action on climate change and are passing a ruined earth on to the young. Another apocalyptic novel lauded by the critics is Weather by Jenny Offill, the diary entries of a librarian who answers letters from worried listeners of a climate catastrophe podcast. The New York Times found the fragmentary structure “evokes an unbearable emotional intensity,” but I found it just that, fragmentary, and much less than compelling.
Now a confession. I always make it a point to read the Booker Prize winner each year. But this time I passed on Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart. With all the awful things going on in the world I just couldn’t immerse myself in a Glasgow childhood of gritty poverty with an alcoholic mother. Instead I read a lot of psychological suspense novels, my favorite escapist genre.
I did read some of the big political books of the year including Bob Woodward’s Rage, but they were all so anxiety inducing that I couldn’t call them favorites.
MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR
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I bought this book on impulse because I will read anything about Bruegel. Perhaps it is my Flemish heritage that draws me to his work. I imagine my ancestors among the peasant crowds in his village scenes. It was only when I held the book in my hands that I recognized the author’s name. Toby Ferris wrote for The Dabbler, the site that first hosted my Dispatches, and he created 
My mouse was misbehaving. It sat obediently on its little pad, but when I clicked nothing happened. Several useless clicks later I resorted to tech troubleshooting 101 and restarted my Mac. Success! The mouse capered about happily as I clicked away. But then something really strange happened. It seemed to have a mind of its own, racing around the screen wildly when I wasn’t even touching it. Was this the moment the tech wizards predict, the moment when the machines take over?
I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Viewed from the top of the long sloping floor of the former power station it looked like an enormous tiered wedding cake. Perhaps it was the effect of the bland white surface that brought cake frosting to mind. The sculpture stood at the far end of the cavernous Turbine Hall in Tate Modern, where on previous visits we had seen other art installations, none particularly memorable. This would be different. As we came closer we heard the water. The tiers formed not a cake but a fountain, water 
Perhaps it was the restlessness induced by quarantine that had me prowling my own bookshelves in search of diversion. I needed a break from the world of Thomas Cromwell in Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light. (I know it is tantamount to sacrilege to criticize Miss Mantel, whose Cromwell trilogy I agree is a magnificent achievement, but did we need the menu for his every meal in the year leading up to his execution, surely the last meal would have been sufficient?) In this grumpy mood I came upon The Singing Game by Iona and Peter Opie, the legendary English folklorists, a book I hadn’t picked up 
This is an update to the tale told in my earlier post 
Twas A White House Christmas