When I saw on Facebook that my poet, writer and writing mentor friend Susan Olding keeps a running list of books she’s read, I figured I could admit that I do the same. She categorized her 2020 reading list and has been posting the lists separately.  Thank you for the inspiration Susan! Susan credits poet and professor Tanis MacDonald with her inspiration – a poet I haven’t seen since my Toronto days but I’m glad we remain connected through various poetic threads.

Last year, I was happy to support local bookstores including Windowseat Books in Nanaimo; Fireside Books in Parksville; and Salamander Books in Ladysmith. There are several more to support including Well Read Books in Nanaimo (where I donated books) and when it’s okay to travel out of our area again, it will be worth the trip north and south to check out independent bookstores.

Sarah ordered books from Russell Books in Victoria and it is possible to order online from other independent bookstores. In some cases, you can order directly from the publisher such as House of Anansi where I ordered their Heartfelt-Reads Bundle including Emily Urquhart’s memoir which I’ve noted below in the “memoir” category.

I was glad to continue to support fellow writers and publishers through several reviews I wrote. You’ll find the links below.

And there was our local library open again following the spring closure so we could request books online or have a gaze along the one aisle of books that are available.

I usually have a few books on the go at the same time as I read different things at different times of the day. Poetry is usually for the morning. While I continue to read individual poems, these are some of the poetry collections I read in 2020:

This Wound is a World: Poems by Billy-Ray Belcourt;  Summer Snow by Robert Hass (a review should appear in the next issue of the Pacific Rim Review of Books); Collected Poems of Bronwen Wallace (my review will be in the Winter issue of herizons magazine); and  All Our Wonder Unavenged by Don Domanski who died in September, 2020.

Arleen Pare had a new book released in 2020 and I wrote a blog about Earle Street, which is the name of the street Arleen lives on in Victoria, B.C.: Earle Street. I was pleased to join Arleen and other poets on a Zoom launch of her book with Planet Earth Poetry.

With thanks to Padraig O’Tuama for introducing the poetry of Jane Mead to me and several others when we met him in the Fall of 2010 in Nanaimo. I appreciated reading To the Wren by the late Jane Mead. My review is at Story Circle Book Reviews.

Diana Hayes, a poet on Salt Spring Island, is now a publisher as well with Arc of Light from Raven Chapbooks, a beautiful hand-stitched and assembled chapbook by Lorraine Gane. Here’s a link to my blog: Arc of Light.

A recent review I did is of of a fine book of poetry entitled Odes & Laments by Vancouver poet Fiona Tinwei Lam. It’s at Story Circle Books Reviews, here.

A couple of books fall into the poetry/memoir category including  Haiku in Canada by Terry Ann Carter of Victoria. This is a link to my blog about it.

Every Day is a Poem is a very sweet book by Jacqueline Suskin who has composed over forty thousand poems for people, improvising on a standard typewriter though her project, Poem Store. It’s available from Sounds True. Alas, I didn’t write a review as I had to stop somewhere with my review writing! The book will be an inspirational resource.

In the late afternoon when I want to take a break from typing at my computer, I dip into a book of non-fiction. In 2020 I read Austin Kleon’s three books including Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad; To Speak for the Trees: My Life’s Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest by Diana Beresford-Kroeger; Make It Scream Make It Burn, essays by Leslie Jamison; The Equivalents: A Story of Art, Female Friendship, and Liberation in the 1960s by Maggie Doherty; Daily Rituals Women at Work by Mason Currey; and Synthesizing Gravity: Selected Prose by Kay Ryan.

I wrote a blog about Why Bother: Discover the Desire for What’s Next by Jennifer Louden and one about The Power of Daily Practice by Eric Maisel.

My review of Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing as We Age by Mary Pipher is also in a blog, here.

The Bloom Book is a wonderful book about the healing power of flower essences by Heidi Smith. My review is at Story Circle Book Reviews.

If you have any trouble with the links to my reviews at Story Circle, go to the website, look under Book Reviews, then Review Team, where you’ll find a list with links to the books I reviewed this year. When the new website was created, my over one hundred book reviews over many years, didn’t make it.

In the Art/Inspirational category I felt uplifted by the beautiful life story and colourful art work of Tammy Hudgeon, a Gabriola Island artist, in Tender Brave Spirit.

Sarah Chauncey is a Nanaimo writer who worked hard to see her first book birthed into the world. My review of P.S. I Love You More Than Tuna by Sarah Chauncey with illustrations by Francis Tremblay is at Story Circle Book Reviews.

Fiction is for the evening hours when I read detective fiction (and one psychological thriller) including Louise Penny, Val McDermid, David Baldacci, Clare Mackintosh, Michael Connelly, Sara Paretsky, Denise Mina and Alan Bradley. I was happy to read a novel featuring fictional character Olive Kitteridge in Olive Again by Elizabeth Strout.

I wrote a blog about Five Little Indians, by Michelle Good, a beautiful novel about five residential school survivors.

I also read The Gin Closet by Leslie Jamison; The Testaments by Margaret Atwood; The Historians by Cecilia Ekback; and Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty.

Nanaimo novelist and short story writer, Carol Windley, was kind enough to answer my questions regarding her novel Midnight Train to Prague which I wrote a blog about.

I was delighted with Reproduction by Ian Williams, recipient of the 2019 Giller Prize and appreciated reading The Good Liar by Nicholas Searle before I watched the movie.

Rosalie Knecht has written two novels with her character Vera Kelly: Who is Vera Kelly? and Vera Kelly is Not a Mystery. I  enjoyed both and reviewed the latter for Story Circle Book Reviews.

Maternity and Other Corsets by Siobhan Jamison was a good read and I reviewed it for herizons magazine which will appear until the Spring 2021 issue.

While Memoir isn’t fiction, it can read that way if done well. There are so many approaches to memoir; I find it a fascinating form of life writing.

I reviewed Rebent Sinner by Ivan Coyote for herizons magazine’s Summer issue. In my review, I wrote: “The prose is as alive on the page as when Coyote performs their stories on stage. Along with the longer pieces are short segments Coyote refers to as ‘literary Deritos.’ Whatever the length or form, Ivan Coyote always describes transformational moments of connection.”

I also read Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith;  Every Little Scrap and Wonder: A Small-Town Childhood by Carla Funk; Thunder Through My Veins by Gregory Scofield; Educated by Tara Westover; All We Knew But Couldn’t Say by Joanne Vannicola; and The Age of Creativity: Art, Memory, My Father and Me by Emily Urquhart.

I was so looking forward to reading Lorna Crozier’s memoir  about her life with Patrick Lane: Through the Garden: A Love Story (with cats) and wrote a blog about it.

My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland is such a unique approach to memoir. I loved it! This is a link to my review of it: here.

I have a stack of books to read this year including poetry , fiction, memoir and biography. And I keep a little notebook of books I want to watch out for. It looks as if all I did during 2020 was read but I did do other things through the midst of it all including writing “pandemic poetry” and will have to write a separate blog about that.