Every year, Marine resident and library volunteer Bill Simpson, who is also a voracious reader, releases his “best of the year” list of books. This year’s list features all books that are available from the Marine Community Library.
Bill’s Picks- From the Marine Community Library for 2020
Fiction
- Blame the Dead by Ed Ruggero (2020, 325p) Set in Sicily during WWII
- The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel (2020, 300p) By the author of Station 11
- The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides (2019,325p)
- Camino Winds by John Grisham (2020, 300p)
- American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins (2020, 350p) Somewhat controversial due to the author being Anglo, not Mexican
- The Guest List by Lucy Foley (2020, 300p) A crime takes place on a lonely Irish coastal island
- The End of October by Lawrence Wright (2020, 350p) This shocking pandemic story was released just as COVID 19 hit
- Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia (2020, 200p) Resembles Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
- Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry (2019, 250p) Irish gangsters reminiscing in Tangier
- Deacon King Kong by James McBride (2020, 370p) May be my favorite fiction of the year
- Apeirogon by Colum McCann (2020,450p) The latest by one of our most gifted writers
- Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong-Washburn (2020,300p) Written with a deep understanding of the true Hawaii
- The Lake Wobegon Virus by Garrison Keillor (2020,225p) A nice “comeback” by GK
Non-fiction
- Brave Enough by Jessie Diggins and Todd Smith (2020, 275p) Especially the chapters on dealing with eating disorders
- A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell (2019, 320p)
- The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson (2020, 500p) Churchill and family during the Blitz
- Agent Sonya by Ben McIntyre (2020, 350p) The most effective female Russian spy
- Countdown 1945 by Chris Wallace (2020,275p) The story of the Manhattan project and its moral
consequences - A Walk around the Block by Spike Carlsen (2020, 300p) A fun, trivia-loaded book by Stillwater author
Crime/Espionage
- Under Occupation by Alan Furst (2019, 200p) The current grand master of spy fiction
- Agent Running in the Field by John Le Carre’ (2019, 275p) His best spy book in recent years
- The Wild One by Nick Petrie (2020, 375p) The fifth, and best, Peter Ash novel
- A Small Town by Thomas Perry (2020, 300p) A prison break with very bad consequences
- Deep State by Chris Hauty (2020, 275p)
- The Accomplice by Joseph Kanon (2019, 325p) A Nazi hunter in Buenos Aries
- The Whisper Man by Alex North (2019, 350p) A very British and brutal crime story
- Fair Warning by Michael Connelly (2020, 400p) The third Jack McEnroy novel
- If it Bleeds by Stephen King (2020, 450p) Four “shorts”, one featuring my favorite female detective- Holly
- Blacktop Wasteland by S A Cosby Child (2020, 275p) Redneck Noir in the Elmore Leonard tradition
- The Sentinel by Lee and Andrew Child (2020, 3500p) Jack Reacher comes to terms with tech