It’s our last Literary Friction of 2020, and as usual it's time for our year in review show, packed full of recommendations just in time for your holiday shopping. We'll be looking back over some of the books that got us through this wildly challenging year, and gently revisiting the reading resolutions we made in 2019, when we were still so innocent and full of optimism. We'll also give some resolutions for the year ahead, plus some of the books we are excited to read in 2021.

We've teamed up with two of our favourite independent bookshops to offer some ace deals for LF listeners:

Burley Fisher (https://burleyfisherbooks.com/) are offering 10% off using the code LITFRICTION at checkout, available until midnight on 23/12.

If you spend over £20 at Pages of Hackney (https://pagesofhackney.co.uk/) they'll throw in one of their brilliant totes for free, just add the tote plus books to your basket and use the code LITFRICTION at checkout. They've also put together a list of everything we recommended on this show, here: https://pagesofhackney.co.uk/litfriction/

Top picks from 2020:

Carrie:

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein

Lost Cat by Mary Gaitskill

The Years by Annie Ernaux, translated by Alison L. Strayer

Euphoria by Lily King

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

In The Woods by Tana French

Octavia:

Weather by Jenny Offill

In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Blueberries by Ellena Savage

This Brutal House by Niven Govinden

Things I Don’t Want To Know by Deborah Levy

Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan

A Man’s Place by Annie Ernaux, trans. Tanya Leslie

Unknown Language by Hildegard of Bingen and Huw Lemmey

Looking forward to next year:

Carrie:

Open Water by Caleb Azuman Nelson

Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler

Having and Being Had by Eula Biss

Octavia:

Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again by Katherine Angel

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

This One Sky Day by Leone Ross

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