The Year 2020 in Books

Matt Lynn Digital had respectable year reading in 2020. Today we walk down memory lane for the 40 book reviews made in 2020. We’ll refresh your memory of the books we felt were the biggest successes first. Look for repeat efforts in this listing from Vince Flynn, Stephen King and Ernest Hemingway.  Charles Dickens and Erik Larson, while having a single book in the 40 this year, have been reviewed here in the past.

(The books Hard Times by Charles Dickens and Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Al Switzler and Ron McMillan earned the top rating of 4.5-stars by Matt Lynn Digital for books reviewed in 2020).

We offered two books rated at 4.5-stars on a scale of one-to-five in 2020. Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Al Switzler and Ron McMillan combined to write Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. The book shares specific skills to improve listening, facilitation, and safe feelings when having productive, meaningful conversations. Charles Dickens offered a satiric “Dark” novel in the form of Hard Times. Hard Times comments on the harsh realities for families with business and governmental policies designed to fight against them.

(The Dale Carnegie book How to Win Friends and Influence People leads a group of seven nonfiction books that earned a rating of 4.25-stars by Matt Lynn Digital in 2020).

We rated seven nonfiction works at 4.25-stars in 2020, with the book Mafia Cop Killers in Akron: The Gang War Before Prohibition by Mark J. Price leading the listing. Fans of true crime would appreciate the journalistic tendencies of the writer for this piece. The Pulitzer Prize winning book  Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond takes a serious look into extreme poverty, affordable housing and economic exploitation. Richard Rothstein takes a different look at a similar subject with the book The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie rates well as a book offering training on public speaking and leadership development. The book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein turns the notion of specialization in life or the workplace on its head in an interesting way. Carmine Gallo offers practical advice through a series of relatable stories in the book The Storyteller’s Secret: From TED Speakers to Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch On and Others Don’t. Erik Larson looks into the early 20th century with his narrative nonfiction book Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History.

(Stephen Markley and Josh Ritter offer a pair of fictional books that earned high marks of 4.25-stars from Matt Lynn Digital of 2020).

Josh Ritter offers one of the two fictional works earning 4.25-stars from Matt Lynn Digital with the book Bright’s Passage. The storytelling approach uniquely and ambitiously increases emotional tension across timelines with a revelation that really works. A similar, growing tension makes the book Ohio: A Novel by Stephen Markley in offering a stunning yet mysterious sense of vengeance and confused understanding.

(Ron Chernow offers a biography of Ulysses S. Grant that earns 4.0-stars by Matt Lynn Digital).

The book Unsolved Murders and Disappearances in Northeast Ohio by Jane Ann Turzillo, as another work of true crime, offers the first of nine nonfiction books earning 4.0-stars on a scale of one-to-five in 2020. The Robert A. Musson book Akron Beer: A History of Brewing in the Rubber City sticks in the same region while looking into a niche market impacted by Prohibition and other economic factors through time. Phil Rosenthal looks into the life of a sitcom writer in the book You’re Lucky You’re Funny: How Life Becomes a Sitcom. The book A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway autobiographically looks at the life of the writer, autobiographically as did Rosenthal. Ron Chernow offers a revealing biography of eighteenth US president Ulysses S. Grant with Grant. Jonathan Kozol returns to a theme of opportunity inequality running through our books this year with the book Fire in the Ashes: Twenty-Five Years Among the Poorest Children in America. Tara Westover‘s book Educated: A Memoir is unique in offering a firsthand account of educational difficulty prompted by extreme familial difficulty. Rachel Carson started an environmental movement with her book Silent Spring. Michael Michalko approaches fundamental creativity as a learned approach with the book Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques.

(Stephen King‘s The Stand earned 4.0-stars by Matt Lynn Digital in 2020).

The Ernest Hemingway collection of short stories called In Our Time begins a group of fictional books earning a rating of 4.0-stars by Matt Lynn Digital. Romantic chaos is the fare of the Ford Madox Ford book The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion. The character Mitch Rapp makes his first appearance in our listing with Vince Flynn‘s book Extreme Measures. The Stand by Stephen King proved to be a post-apocalyptic dark fantasy book to be reckoned with this year.

(The Margarat Creighton narrative nonfiction book The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City: Spectacle and Assassination at the 1901 World’s Fair earned 3.75-stars from Matt Lynn Digital).

The book Alexander the Great: His Life and His Mysterious Death by Anthony Everitt is a review of the life of the military and political leader Alexander the Great, who lived almost 2,400 years ago. The first of six books earning 3.75-stars for nonfiction. Getting more contemporary, the World’s Fair of 1901 was the fare of Margaret Creighton‘s narrative nonfiction book The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City: Spectacle and Assassination at the 1901 World’s Fair. The exercise of political power gets earnest reviews with the David Maraniss book A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father, the Tom Brokaw book The Fall of Richard Nixon: A Reporter Remembers Watergate, and the Peter Bergen book Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos. The Robin DiAngelo book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism admittedly is uncomfortable subject matter for many that serves a legitimate purpose that all are not ready to confront.

(Consent to Kill, Act of Treason and Protect and Defend by Vince Flynn earned 3.75-stars by Matt Lynn Digital in 2020).

The fictional work The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West, in earning 3.75-stars by Matt Lynn Digital, plays in a similar playground to The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion by Ford Madox Ford.  2009 Pulitzer Prize winning book Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout brings together short stories like Hemingway‘s In Our Time.  The Dead Zone by Stephen King brings the notion of multiple head traumas to an extrasensory tale mixed with political intrigue. Consent to Kill by Vince Flynn began a sequence of three books featuring Mitch Rapp to earn 3.75-stars by Matt Lynn Digital. The others were Act of Treason and Protect and Defend.

(John M. Barry and Richard Preston wrote on similar subjects and earned a similar rating of 3.5-stars by Matt Lynn Digital).

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History as written by John M. Barry and Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come as written by Richard Preston are nonfiction accounts of the response to deadly disease that, if read by people in leadership, could offer learning for how to effectively respond to pandemic. Both earned a 3.5-rating from Matt Lynn Digital.

(The fictional book The Consultant by Bentley Little earned 3-stars from Matt Lynn Digital).

The Pro Football Historical Abstract: A Hardcore Fan’s Guide to All-Time Player Rankings by Sean Lahman offered an interesting book for my analytical style. The work is speculative nonfiction. Bentley Little wrote The Consultant, a work of fiction that came recommended by Stephen King. Both offered an interesting premise with a something that we had hoped would resonate with us a bit more than they did. That they earned 3-stars on a scale of one-to-five rings true for us today.

Share the Matt Lynn Digital blog with your friends if you see value in what we are doing. Before the end of this year, a similar review for entries on movies will also be coming. We feel these reviews provide excellent content that we would like to continue offering.

Matt – Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Elizabeth Strout and the book ‘Olive Kitteridge’

The book Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The collection of 13 short stories set in the fictional small town of Crosby, Maine. Character Olive Kitteridge, a retired school teacher featured in each of the stories, work together to form a combined experience of a lady experiencing the last remnants of life with a touch of humanity, and feeling misunderstood, mixed in.

(Elizabeth Strout wrote the book Olive Kitteridge).

The 13 stories included in the book Olive Kitteridge are interrelated yet form a discontinuous overall narrative. That is, readers can find the experience off putting if not coming into the larger experience knowing what to expect. The cumulative impact did prove satisfying for me, despite the fact that I found Olive hard to like through much of the storytelling.

(A paperback copy of Olive Kitteridge as written by Elizabeth Strout).

The individual stories included in the book Olive Kitteridge include Pharmacy, Incoming Tide, The Piano Player, The Little Burst, Starving, A Different Road, Winter Concert, Tulips, Basket of Trips, Ship in a Bottle, Security, Criminal and, finally, River.

(Another cover for Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout).

Pharmacy struck an interesting chord for me as a sad tale about how the emotional feeling of love is important to communicate. This theme interweaves through all of the stories in Olive Kitteridge, ultimately gaining a strong telling in The River, the final story of the book. The River tells of Olive learning to accept romance after the death of Henry, intermixing a touch of emotion around politics that, while telling us something of Olive, was a flourish that I hadn’t been seeking in fiction storytelling.

(Yet another cover for Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout).

The story Starving serves as an interesting look into different attitudes around sex, relationships, and the binds that tie people together over time. In getting into the efforts of multiple folks to help Nina, a young lady with an unhealthy relationship with food, the story takes a sad turn that hints at redeeming a larger message around how different attitudes, while healthy, can have unhealthy outcomes. The following story, A Different Road, offers another glimpse into misunderstanding and unspoken communication. While exploring differences in feeling about religion and differences in life experience between Henry and Olive, this story stood out for me in getting to real understanding, expression, and different perspectives on making an effort to reconcile.

(Elizabeth Strout‘s Olive Kitteridge has had many different book covers since being released in 2008).

The cumulative force of different stories is the main thing I took from the 13 stories that make up Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. The Pulitzer Prize folks were true to their form in finding interest in the pushing of storytelling form with a mix of edgy storytelling, deep emotion, and a combined politically and religiously aware perspective the gets edgy. The content prods the reader to consider perspectives, which is part of what works for the effort. I appreciate the book for that, and rate the experience on that behalf. My rating of Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout is 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Saturday, February 15, 2020