Best Books of 2020

[brlesh]

I haven't done one of these Best of lists in a couple of years, but used to do one every year at the old Horror Drive-In.

So, the 10 best books I read this year were:

Devolution by Max Brooks

Gwendy's Magic Feather by Richard Chizmar

Brother by Ania Ahlborn

The Silence by Tim Lebbon

Blood & Rain by Glenn Rolfe

1984 by George Orwell

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

La Belle Fleur Sauvage by Caitlin Kiernan (novella)

Scanlines by Todd Keisling (chapbook - novella)

Behold the Void by Philip Fracassi (collection)

Devolution was my favorite for 2020. The others are in no particular order.

B

[Sock Monkey]

Well, I have Devolution, Brother, The Silence, Blood and Rain all sitting in my TBR so it looks like I have some good reading ahead of me. Mexican Gothic sounds really good. I’ve heard a lot of buzz but have yet to pick it up.

[RonClinton]

I don't keep lists and have a generally poor memory of books read, so have no idea what all the books are that I read in 2020 from which I'd have to choose, but I did read two just outstanding novels late in the year that I do recall and would certainly be on any such list -- SURVIVOR SONG by Paul Tremblay and THE RUINS by Scott Smith. Of those two, I'd give the nod to THE RUINS, so I guess THE RUINS is likely the best novel I read in 2020.

[khaos]

Just going with books I read for the first time:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
If It Bleeds by Stephen King
The Bottoms by Joe Lansdale
Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay
Malorie by Josh Malerman
The Raven by Jonathan Janz
December Park by Ronald Malfi
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

[paulag]

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I actually really enjoyed Moreno-Garcia's other book {Gods of Jade and Shadow} and would highly recommend it. It's a little less horror than Mexican Gothic, but it takes place in Jazz-age Mexico and one of the main characters is the Mayan God of Death, so there are definitely some morbid historical romantic things going on.

Also, I'd recommend The Thirteenth Tale by Diana Setterfield. Victorian gothic style historical/literary fiction about the life of a famous reclusive author. The writing is absolutely mesmerizing.

[Martin]

Here are the books I gave 5 star ratings to in 2020.

16 of 73 books received this rating.

8 were first time fiction reads:
Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks
The Girl Who Builds Monsters by Brian James Freeman
The Speed Queen by Stewart O’Nan
Ghostsitter – A Crazy Inheritance by Tommy Krapweis (Audio)
Midnight Under The Big Top by Brian James Freeman (Editor)
Patreon Stories Volume Two by Brian James Freeman
Cold Dead Hands by Jeff Strand
The Elephant of Surprise (Hap and Leonard 12) by Joe R. Lansdale

5 were first time non-fiction reads:
Thicker Than Water by Tyler Shultz (Audio)
The Cuckoo’s Cry by Caroline Overington (Audio)
The Hostage’s Daughter by Sulome Anderson
Nut Jobs: Cracking California’s Strangest 10 Million Dollar Heist by Marc Fennell (Audio)
Freedom in the Family by Tananarive Due and Patricia Stephens Due

3 were fiction re-reads:
The Man in the Black Suit: 4 Dark Tales by Stephen King
The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni
The Running Man by Richard Bachman

[Sock Monkey]

Man, I did not read enough in 2020. In fact, I only read 11 books which is just...sad. I've decided that I'm going to buckle down and make more time for reading in 2021. The first two weeks' results do not bode well for the rest of the year, but I digress.

My Top 3 reads were:
1. Lullabies for Suffering, edited by Mark Matthews
2. True Crime by Samantha Kolesnik
3. The Passage by Justin Cronin (okay, this was a reread, but I still loved it. I thought The Twelve was solid as well, but suffered from middle-part-of-a-trilogy-itis).

[Sock Monkey]

I don't keep lists and have a generally poor memory of books read, so have no idea what all the books are that I read in 2020 from which I'd have to choose, but I did read two just outstanding novels late in the year that I do recall and would certainly be on any such list -- SURVIVOR SONG by Paul Tremblay and THE RUINS by Scott Smith. Of those two, I'd give the nod to THE RUINS, so I guess THE RUINS is likely the best novel I read in 2020.

I absolutely love THE RUINS. It was one of those books that just wrung me out and left me exhausted by the end. I was so surprised when there was such pushback with it. I understand the readers who came in expecting A SIMPLE PLAN being disappointed and absolutely hating it, but there is a good faction of the horror community that didn't like it either. There seems to be some issue with the central conceit that I don't get. But I thought it was an amazing book, one that I really need to revisit.

[Martin]

I absolutely love THE RUINS. It was one of those books that just wrung me out and left me exhausted by the end. I was so surprised when there was such pushback with it. I understand the readers who came in expecting A SIMPLE PLAN being disappointed and absolutely hating it, but there is a good faction of the horror community that didn't like it either. There seems to be some issue with the central conceit that I don't get. But I thought it was an amazing book, one that I really need to revisit.

I did not go in expecting A SIMPLE PLAN, but I did expect an entertaining story and it simply did not provide that for me. I will admit that my experience with A SIMPLE PLAN did make the disappointment of THE RUINS far greater.

[RonClinton]

I absolutely love THE RUINS. It was one of those books that just wrung me out and left me exhausted by the end. I was so surprised when there was such pushback with it. I understand the readers who came in expecting A SIMPLE PLAN being disappointed and absolutely hating it, but there is a good faction of the horror community that didn't like it either. There seems to be some issue with the central conceit that I don't get. But I thought it was an amazing book, one that I really need to revisit.

I'm with you there...I recall clearly the negative feedback given to this book when it was first published, by many horror and mystery readers alike. I don't remember what the criticisms were specifically, but the noise was enough to wave me off grabbing a copy, even though A SIMPLE PLAN is one of my favorite books of all time. The book was always in the back of my mind, though, and I kept looking at auctions of the CD S/L of it, but I didn't grab a copy because I didn't want to sully any special feelings I had about Smith's work. Flash forward to this year, and I finally took the plunge when I snagged a fairly-priced copy from a member here, and just loved it. Like you, I can't for the life of me understand what the problem is that people have with it, but I know it still persists among some. I though it was just a relentless terror-fest among a group of young people who characterizations rang very true in a setting that felt real and immediate and that I could picture vividly.



**********


SPOILER: I had initially thought that there was one presumably obvious solution to it all, when they realized during their venture at the bottom of the well that the plants were fearful and could be harmed by fire...why then didn't they just set the hillside alight? But then I realized that it wasn't just the vines themselves that were a threat, but the reality that they were each likely internally infected by them and the villagers would not have allowed them passage anyway, even if the hillside had been a smoking ruin. It was just a brilliantly constructed book.

[brlesh]

I absolutely love THE RUINS. It was one of those books that just wrung me out and left me exhausted by the end. I was so surprised when there was such pushback with it. I understand the readers who came in expecting A SIMPLE PLAN being disappointed and absolutely hating it, but there is a good faction of the horror community that didn't like it either. There seems to be some issue with the central conceit that I don't get. But I thought it was an amazing book, one that I really need to revisit.

I agree. The Ruins is one of the best horror novels of the 2000's.

I have not read A Simple Plan yet, so I didn't go into The Ruins with any preconceived notions on Smith's writing.

B