All the Books I Read in 2020

Who said there was no upside to the pandemic? I read more books in 2020 than I have in any calendar year in decades, due at least in part to “quarantine life.” I will have read more than 30 by the time the year is over – although the only book I read this year that was actually published in 2020 is Carl Hiaasen’s amusing comedic-mystery novel Squeeze Me (a book so current it contains jokes about COVID-19 and Donald Trump “Zoom bombing” a virtual meeting). I am posting a list of everything I read below and affixing letter grades to each. The books are listed alphabetically by author’s last name:

Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen) – A+
Go Tell It On the Mountain (James Baldwin) – A+
The Poisoner’s Handbook (Deborah Blum) – B+
Performed Literature: Words and Music by Bob Dylan (Betsy Bowden) – A-
In Cold Blood (Truman Capote) – A
South and West (Joan Didion) – A-
Chronicles Volume 1 (Bob Dylan) (re-read) – A+
My Dark Places (James Ellroy) – B+
Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall (Chris Fujiwara) – A-
Wild at Heart (Barry Gifford) – A
Killers of the Flower Moon (David Grann) – B+
King-Sized Murder (William Herber) – C+
Squeeze Me (Carl Hiaasen) – B-
The Midnight Assassin (Skip Hollandsworth) – A-
The Quarter (Naguib Mahfouz) – B+
The Executioner’s Song (Norman Mailer) – B
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (Michelle McNamara) – B-
In Praise of Walking (Shane O’Mara) – B
John Ford Interviews (ed. Gerald Peary) – B+
Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet (Seth Rogovoy) – B
Cinematic Encounters 2: Portraits and Polemics (Jonathan Rosenbaum) – A-
All Passion Spent (Vita Sackville-West) – B+
Lady Killers (Tori Telfer) – A-
Why Bob Dylan Matters (Richard Thomas) – A
Bare Bones and Letters to Lovers (Alyssa Thordarson) – B+
Dylan Goes Electric (Elijah Wald) – A-
Bob Dylan in America (Sean Wilentz) – B
The Code of the Woosters (P.G. Wodehouse) – A
Joy in the Morning (P.G. Wodehouse) – A
The Mating Season (P. G. Wodehouse) – A
Leave it to Psmith (P.G. Wodehouse) – A-