2020 has helped us see things more clearly, but ultimately our fate depends on whether we can imagine something better and create a path that leads there.
—Eric Klinenberg

I stumbled across this book while browsing the new nonfiction shelves at my local library. I understand many readers may push a book like this away, saying it’s far too soon to revisit the tumultuous and life-changing year. But I was intrigued, and I’m glad I picked it up.

2020 is a personal narrative, a reflective review of world events, and an anthology of individual experiences in the face of the deadly COVID pandemic. Chapters alternate between storytelling and science. The author relates the stories of seven New Yorkers from different backgrounds and neighborhoods. Each had deeply different experiences as 2020 began and unfolded. In between, Klinenberg reviews data from worldwide sources, looking at how different countries–from the U.S. to Australia and South Korea to Great Britain–responded to the pandemic and surrounding events, the policies and community practices each established, and the results numbers of transmission, infection, and death. He also shares the results of surveys he and his team conducted to understand the resulting mental health status of people, how students whose educational paths were interrupted and disrupted responded, and how they are coping with the new landscape. Klinenberg also weaves in the political events that are inextricably linked to that year and the few following. His focus is strongly on the U.S. political arena, but he also includes some reflections on events in places such as England and Australia.

This book is deeply engrossing and very interesting. As the saying goes, “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.” I hope that by reflecting on these recent events and learning from our successes and failures, we can all move on together—stronger.