20 BEFORE 2020: Reality bites, old mysteries, and self-reflections are the books you need to survive

In between the parties, the holiday season is sometimes when you get to step back. You look back on the year and what you’ve done. You also look forward and see what you can do better. 2020 is quite a particular year to do that as we are closing another decade and starting a new one.

If you need a bit of help in your holiday “muni-muni,” we suggest these five titles. Some of them you can finish before the year ends, some can be your guide into 2020, and of course, we put in a title or two to appease your current obsessions.

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino

To stay in the zeitgeist, there’s always that collection of contemporary essays that forces us to look at the buzzwords of the past seasons. This New York Times bestseller is one of those.

Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

Early this year, we stayed up all night to binge-watch “Chernobyl,” and if you’re still up to nerd out on the disaster that brings up the most profound philosophical questions, pick up this book.

Reality Hunger by David Shields

This book will celebrate its 10th anniversary this 2020. I read it back in college, and until now, the way it stitched together various bodies of work into something that echoes the problems of the decade shows off Shields cutting observational skills.

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet

I’ve bought this book more times than I can count simply because I end up giving it to someone all the time. A must-read for those in search of a great saga, historical retellings, and the importance of the power of an individual.

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

You may have read this before, but 2020 is the time to reread it. If only to refresh your memory before the film adaptation, starring Letitia Wright, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Jodie Comer, Kenneth Branagh, and Tom Bateman, comes out.