No one asked for it but here’s my Best of 2020 List — because yes, despite the clusterfuckshitshow, there were plenty of awesome releases in books and music over the last 12 months. I don’t think I kept a close eye on these areas as I normally would’ve but I blame the plague for that. I read some books that I had put off for yearsAnyway, these are the keepers that helped maintain my little kernel of hope and sanity:
Top Non-Fiction of 2020:
01) History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt
02) Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream by Mychal Denzel Smith
03) Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction by Arundhati Roy
04) The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Khalidi
05) Paying the Land by Joe Sacco
06) An Event, Perhaps: A Biography of Jacques Derrida by Peter Salmon
07) Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
08) The People, NO!: A Brief History of Anti-Populism by Thomas Frank
09) Apple: Skin to the Core by Eric Garnsworth
10) Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes by Adam Hochschild
11) Reverse Cowgirl by McKenzie Wark
12) Bukowski: A Life by Neeli Cherkovski
Top Fiction/Poetry of 2020:
01) How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang
02) Apeirogon by Colum McCann
03) The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
04) Memorial by Bryan Washington
05) Girls Against God by Jenny Hval
06) Good Citizens Need Not Fear by Maria Reva
07) Finna: Poems by Nate Marshall
08) Post-Colonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz
Honorable Mentions:
Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang
A Map to the Sun by Sloane Yang
Slaughterhouse-Five: The Graphic Novel by Ryan North/Kurt Vonnegut
Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance by Noam Chomsky and Marv Waterstone
Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal by Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin
Top Albums of 2020:
01) A Small Death by Samantha Crain
02) Skeleton Coast by The Lawrence Arms
03) You or Someone You Know by Worriers
04) Local Honey by Brian Fallon
05) RTJ4 by Run the Jewels
06) NO DREAM by Jeff Rosenstock
07) Brave Faces, Everyone by Spanish Love Songs
08) Saint Cloud by Waxahatchee
09) Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers
10) color theory by Soccer Mommy
11) Wonderful Hell by War on Women
12) Letter to You by Bruce Springsteen
13) Inlet by Hum
14) Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was by Bright Eyes
15) Getting Into Knives by The Mountain Goats
16) LP5 by John Moreland
17) Lamentations by American Aquarium
18) On Circles by Caspian
Honorable Mentions:
Paddy/Patty double EP by Dave Hause
Songs for Pierre Chuvin by The Mountain Goats
Pleased to Meet Me box set by The Replacements