#Sascha Shinder

[razorsadness]

2020 Book List

An incomplete list of books I read in 2020 (not counting books I started but haven’t finished yet, or books I reread only sections of, or zines), divided into fiction, non-fiction, and poetry categories. Some of these books are hybrid works, in which case I put them into the category I felt they best fit into. An asterisk means it was a reread. I’ve bolded the ones I particularly loved. I’ve also included links to quotations/excerpts from some of them.

Fiction

Shine of the Ever, by Claire Rudy Foster

A Cathedral of Myth and Bone, by Kat Howard

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong

The Mythic Dream, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe

We Had No Rules, by Corinne Manning

The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson

In a Lonely Place, by Dorothy B. Hughes

And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories & Other Revenges, by Amber Sparks

The Necrophiliac, by Gabrielle Wittkop

Before and Afterlives, by Christopher Barzak

Finding Baba Yaga: A Short Novel in Verse, by Jane Yolen

Wild Milk, by Sabrina Orah Mark

Nonfiction

Aim and Wish, by A.L. Staveley

Make It Scream, Make It Burn, by Leslie Jamison

After Confession: Poetry as Autobiography, edited by Kate Sontag and David Graham

The Poem That Changed America: “Howl” Fifty Years Later, edited by Jason Shinder

Boss Broad, by Megan Volpert

Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest, by Hanif Abdurraqib

A Field Guide to Getting Lost, by Rebecca Solnit*

100 Times: A Memoir of Sexism, by Chavisa Woods

Recollections of My Nonexistence, by Rebecca Solnit

In the Dream House, by Carmen Maria Machado

Erosion: Essays of Undoing, by Terry Tempest Williams

The Thorn Necklace: Healing Through Writing and the Creative Process, by Francesca Lia Block

Tracing the Desire Line: A Memoir in Essays, by Melissa Mathewson

What is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life, by Mark Doty

Dancing at the Devil’s Party: Essays on Poetry, Politics, and the Erotic, by Alicia Ostriker

Censorship Now!!, by Ian F. Svenonius

Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency, by Olivia Laing

Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures, by Mary Ruefle

The Wet Collection, by Joni Tevis

Black and Blue: The Bruising Passion of Camera Lucida, La Jetee, Sans soleil, and Hiroshima mon amour, by Carol Mavor

In the Blue Pharmacy: Essays on Poetry and Other Transformations, by Marianne Boruch

Jane: A Murder, by Maggie Nelson

Mean, by Myriam Gurba

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, by Michelle McNamara

Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell, by Charles Simic

Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power, by Pam Grossman

The Art of Recklessness, by Dean Young

Poetry

An American Sunrise, by Joy Harjo

Stay, by Tanya Olson

Be Recorder, by Carmen Giménez Smith

Soft Targets, by Deborah Landau

No Matter, by Jana Prikryl

The Obliterations, by Matt Hart

Made in Detroit, by Marge Piercy 

Walking Distance, by Debra Allbery

Exploding Chippewas, by Mark Turcotte

Neon Vernacular, by Yusef Komunyakaa

The Jazz Poetry Anthology, edited by Sascha Feinstein and Yusef Komunyakaa

Black Milk, by Tory Dent

A Fortune for Your Disaster, by Hanif Abdurraqib

Witch, by Rebecca Tamás

The Carrying, by Ada Limón

Homie, by Danez Smith

The Wendys, by Allison Benis White

Babel, by Patti Smith*

Alive Together, by Lisel Mueller

Night Sky with Exit Wounds, by Ocean Vuong

Advice from the Lights, by Stephanie Burt

This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album, by Alan Chazaro

Blood on Blood, by Devin Kelly

American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, by Terrance Hayes

Teahouse of the Almighty, by Patricia Smith

Fantasia for the Man in Blue, by Tommye Blount

Louise in Love, by Mary Jo Bang

Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod, by Traci Brimhall

The Queer Body Anthology, edited by Yes, Poetry

Wolf Face, by Matt Hart

Living Room, by June Jordan

Trickster Feminism, by Anne Waldman

Here is the Sweet Hand, by Francine J. Harris

Dead Girls, by Francesca Lia Block

Inside the Wolf, by Niamh Boyce

I live in the country & other dirty poems, by Arielle Greenberg

The Death Metal Pastorals, by Ryan Patrick Smith

Bestiary of Gall, by Emilia Phillips

Toxicon and Arachne, by Joyelle McSweeney

Blood Box, by Zefyr Lisowski

Indictus, by Natalie Eilbert

This Is Still Life, by Tracy Mishkin

The Time Unraveller’s Travel Journal, by Upfromsumdirt

Love Poems, by Pablo Neruda

Excerpts from a Secret Prophecy, by Joanna Klink

Sorry for Your Troubles, by Pádraig Ó Tuama

Saranac Lake Ghost Poems, by Maurice Kenny

Light-Headed, by Matt Hart

The Tiny Jukebox, by Nate Slawson

Sham City, by Evan Harrison

Modern and Normal, by Karen Solie

My Tall Handsome, by Emily Corwin

When My Brother Was an Aztec, by Natalie Diaz

Guidebooks for the Dead, by Cynthia Cruz

Dandarians, by Lee Ann Roripaugh

Her book, by Éireann Lorsung

44 Poems for You, by Sarah Ruhl

Imaginary Menagerie, by Ailbhe Darcy

The Girl Aquarium, by Jen Campbell

Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl, by Diane Seuss*

War of the Foxes, by Richard Siken