What Katie Read 2020
By Storytellers, Inc.
By Storytellers, Inc.
I often talk about my current reads on Instagram and Twitter so here's a list of most (available!) things I've been reading in 2020 (not including our Storytellers, Inc. Book Club choices which you can find on a separate list here.)
Fog Island: A Terrifying Thriller Set in a Modern-Day Cult
Mariette Lindstein
£7.99 £7.43Cults! Secrets! Paradise! Lies! Nightmares! Capture! Escape! Recapture! It's a big book but you'll absolutely fly through it.
Bunny
Mona Awad
£8.99 £8.36Weird, weirder, weirdest. Brilliantly fun story of a sinister clique in an esteemed writing class that reveals dark powers. Murder ensues.
Love Is for Losers
Wibke Brueggemann
£7.99 £7.43Diary format YA in the vein of my beloved Georgia Nicholson. Girl meets girl at a charity shop job. Kittens ensue.
The Young Visiters
DAISY ASHFORD and Posy Simmonds
£10.99 £10.22One of the funniest books I've read this year. Written in 1890 by a NINE-YEAR-OLD. A pure delight that I will pick up anytime I want a pick-up.
A Crime in the Neighborhood: Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction
Suzanne Berne
£8.99 £8.36Disturbia. A shocking crime shakes an all american suburb. Ten-year-old Masha knew the victim, and she's sure she knows the killer... Reads like a glossy HBO drama.
In Paris With You
Clementine Beauvais
£7.99 £7.43Lovely romance novel in verse. A beautiful book with a heart-stopping ending. Read it quickly, read it slowly, just read it.
Diary of a Confused Feminist: Diary of a Confused Feminist
Kate Weston
£7.99 £7.43More lolz diary antics for teens this time with extra periods and feminism.
The List of Things That Will Not Change
Rebecca Stead
£12.99 £12.08Just buy this. Rebecca Stead only writes brilliant books. Read this one and then read all of her others because honestly they are all gold and she is a genius.
A Short History of the Girl Next Door
Jared Reck
£7.99 £7.43A little novel about one boy's big first love. Surprising and sweet. Basketball ensues.
The Harpy
Megan Hunter
£14.99 £13.94If you like your novel talons-sharp and your feathers ruffled, you'll want to get your beak into this. A read-in-one sitting that will make you shriek in delight!
I Who Have Never Known Men
Jacqueline Harpman
£8.99 £8.3640 women are held prisoner in a bunker. Despair ensues.
Rodham: The SUNDAY TIMES bestseller asking: What if Hillary hadn't married Bill?
Curtis Sittenfeld
£16.98 £15.79Wahey! Curtis Sittenfeld!!! My favourite writer! Always smart, sassy women. Intelligence ensues.
Notes To Self
Emilie Pine
£9.99 £9.29VERY moving personal essay collection from excellent Irish writer Pine. Heart-break ensues.
Weather
Jenny (Y) Offill
£12.99 £12.08Sparsely told story of a librarian with a brother battling addiction. It's funnier than it sounds.
Wow, No Thank You.: The #1 New York Times Bestseller
Samantha Irby
£9.99 £9.29Easy to read, easy to enjoy, easy to gift (it's very difficult to make writing look this easy); buy this for all the smart women in your life because Irby KNOWS.
The Great Godden
Meg Rosoff
£12.99 £12.08Dreamy summer romance that speaks to your teenage self. Rosoff is on point. Another of my favourite writers, giving me exactly what my heart desires as usual. Dive in.
Pretending: The brilliant new adult novel from Holly Bourne. Why be yourself when you can be perfect?
Holly Bourne
£14.99 £13.94Holly Bourne doesn't mess about. Always funny. Always real. Always thoughtful. Always entertaining.
Sylvia
Leonard Michaels
£9.99 £9.29Semi-autobiographical novel of Leonard's first wife, Sylvia, who struggled with depression. Stay for the evocation of 60's Manhattan.
Playing to the Gallery: Helping Contemporary Art in its Struggle to Be Understood
Grayson Perry
£7.99 £7.43Totally readable and insightful guide to the modern art world by national treasure, Grayson Perry.
The Six Tales of Christmas: A feel-good festive read to curl up with this winter
Anne Marie Ryan
£8.99 £8.36Super Christmassy story just waiting to be a Richard Curtis film. Bookshops and the power of stories warm people's hearts and save their lives; cosy and cute and entirely accurate; we stan bookshops and their booksellers.
Meat Market
Juno Dawson
£7.99 £7.43Very believable teen novel about the fashion industry - newcomer model Jana risks her career when she calls out an abusive photographer. Smarts and sass as usual from reliable YA writer Juno Dawson.
When You Read This: 'Deeply moving but also uplifting, Mary Adkins' debut novel is easy to read but hard to forget' - Anne Young
Mary Adkins
£8.99 £8.36Oh I LOVED this. E-mails! Diagrams! Friendships and romance! Other things that I won't mention here but I laughed and I cried and then I cried some more.
Priestdaddy: A Memoir
Patricia Lockwood
£9.99 £9.29The funniest, wittiest, most brilliant piece of writing I've read in maybe years? I URGE you to read this book. Do yourself a favour. Treat yourself because she actually lived it and now we get to enjoy it. Thank you, Patricia.
The Honjin Murders
Seishi Yokomizo
£8.99 £8.36Ever heard of a locked room mystery? One's gone down in Honjin, and strange detective Kindaichi is going to solve it.
Tiny Moons: A Year of Eating in Shanghai
Nina Mingya Powles and Emma Wright
£8.99 £8.36A beautiful little book that will make your tummy hungry but ultimately feed your soul.
This Happy: Shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards 2020
Niamh Campbell
£14.99 £13.94An affair with an older man haunts newlywed Alannah. Sharp writing and atmospheric Irish backdrop.
Rules for Perfect Murders: The 'fiendishly good' new thriller from the bestselling author
Peter Swanson
£12.99 £12.08Peter Swanson is my go-to writer for a Hitchcock-style-thriller that will wrap me for a weekend. I love the Boston settings and there's always a big nod to books and bookshops - particularly in this one! Cracking, as usual. Read one and I guarantee you'll be back for more.
Nothing Can Hurt You
Nicola Maye Goldberg
£12.99 £12.08Oh now this was a 24hr read; as bingeable as a boxset. The multi-faceted murder girl novel we all deserve.
Boy Parts
Eliza Clark
£9.99 £9.29Dark, darker, darkest. Tesco ensues. But really this was SO bright sometimes it hurt to look at it. I cackled and gasped. I sent it to my best friend.
Luster
Raven Leilani
£14.99 £13.94Let's say it now that we will be watching Raven Leilani for years to come because the title here is the perfect descriptor for her luminous, glittering writing; shifting around the light, that's called lustre.
Again Again
E. Lockhart
£7.99 £7.43Lockhart is a class act so it's no surprise her sliding doors style experiment hits the mark. She's a writer we always pay attention to. Again, Again is challenging and enchanting. For the older teens/young adults in your life, or the young adult in you.
How Did You Get This Number
Sloane Crosley
£8.99 £8.36Another great essay collection to dip in and out of when you just want to talk to a friend. Like Irby, Crossley is warm and funny, and wittier than we could ever hope to be.
Mr Salary: Faber Stories
Sally Rooney
£3.50 £3.25A short story that retraces some of the dark territory Rooney developed in Normal People.
You and Me
Nicola Rayner
£8.99 £8.36A twisty thriller with an ending that made me cover my mouth and then shout OH NO through my fingers. Reader, I did not see it coming.
No One Is Talking About This: 'A literary star' Guardian
Patricia Lockwood
£14.99 £13.94But everyone will be because this is already the book of 2021 and Patricia Lockwood is the most exciting writer of her generation. This is a phenomenal achievement. Experience it.
Jillian
Halle Butler
£8.99 £8.36The 'feel-bad' novel we all deserve. I enjoyed this even more than Butler's excellent debut, The New Me. On point observations and characters that make your skin crawl. I romped through this, cringing and giggling. Brilliant.
The Housekeeper and the Professor: Vintage Classics Japanese Series
Yoko Ogawa
£10.99 £10.22A gorgeous moment of calm and clarity; this charming story of a housekeeper and her son as they care for a brilliant mathematician who has lost his memory is beautiful book about the family we make and the transformative power of learning about the wonder of a passionate teacher.
What My Mother and I Don't Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence
£10.99 £10.22
An intimate portrait of the complex nature of the mother-child relationship, as told by writers you want to read books by. Dip in, drop out, ring your mum.
Summerwater
Sarah Moss
£14.99 £13.94Drench me in this cool slap of a novel on a hot summer's day. Wry, sly, taught yet tender. I love her on motherhood, particularly, but really a novel for anyone who lives in the world and is a person with feelings about other people, and the rain.
The Glass Hotel
Emily St. John Mandel
£14.99 £13.94Cinematic, thoughTful, original, compelling. Treat yourself and check into some luxury writing, 5* smarts and gourmet adventure. Get comfortable for another low-key yet somehow bigger than the universe reading experience. If you haven't read Emily's novel STATION ELEVEN do yourself a solid and pop that in your basket too. You will not regret it.
August is a Wicked Month
EDNA O'BRIEN
£8.99 £8.36IT WAS A BANNED BOOK and now it is not so you can read Edna's tale of a separated housewife on her first solo holiday looking for sex and scandal and finding both. (I'm sorry to say, tragedy ensues...)
The Girl at the Door
Veronica Raimo
£8.99 £8.36A compelling dual narrative story, translated from Italian, set in a new Utopia 'Miden' - but if life is perfect here ,why is there a girl at the door saying she's been raped by her teacher?
The Fever
Wallace Shawn
£9.99 £9.29A strange short one man play/monologue about communism... I think? Imagine it read in the voice of Vizzini and it becomes more enjoyable.
Homes and Experiences: From the writer of hit BBC shows Ladhood and Pls Like
Liam Williams
£14.99 £13.94Totally enjoyable! Like an epistolary 'Us' but if Douglas was more of a ... lad?
Leave the World Behind: 'The book of an era' Independent
Rumaan Alam
£14.99 £13.94HO-LY-MO-LY WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?
Jane: A Murder
Maggie Nelson
£10.99 £10.22A memoir in fragments surrounding the death of Maggie's aunt Jane; who was murdered at college. Completely compelling and absorbing. Will definitely seek out more of Nelson's work.
Indelicacy
Amina Cain
£9.99 £9.29A wander round the gallery of a woman's mind. Writing about writing. Longing about writing. A haunting little book that I really enjoyed.
