The Worst Books of 2020: Nonfiction!

The full sordid spectacle of opportunistic creatures grifting off Donald Trump while he grifted off the country was on display throughout 2020, of course, even while the fodder for 2021’s nonfiction - the pandemic and the pandemic-prompted economic catastrophe - were ramping up month after month. That grift and its dark fascistic undercurrents characterizes much of the garbage-nonfiction of the year, but there were other undercurrents as well, including the corresponding rabid strengthening of the ‘woke’ social-justice wing of the public discourse. In short, the various sub-basements of general nonfiction were as revolting and cobwebby as ever in 2020. These were the worst of them:

10 Inspired Imperfections by Gregory Boyd (Fortress)

We start with one of those oddly lamentable cases: a smart and talented author writing a pile of junk. In this case it’s Gregory Boyd, who in Inspired Imperfections puts forward a defense of the Bible’s many manifest errors are in fact proof of Divine inspiration - a laughably unfalsifiable dodge that would have got its author good and properly roasted at a stake in the 15th century and is every bit as ridiculous today. 

9 Average Is the New Awesome by Samantha Matt (Seal)

Another slight heartbreaker of a choice, a warmly and empathetically-written book that’s nevertheless, for all its approachability (not exactly a common trait on this list), a disastrous “manifesto” formally encoding the Participation Trophy mindset that’s been so corrosive to the whole idea of trying or striving. Samantha Matt is a very engaging author, but you should completely disregard every single thing she writes in this book.

8 God, Trump, and the 2020 Election by Stephen Strang (Frontline)

Loathsome huckster Stephen Strang pumped out two of these wretchedly dishonest books in 2020 (there’s another one that, hilariously, praises Donald Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic), always on the blatantly blasphemous theme of Trump being God’s Anointed and a semi-divine figure of worship for Christians. Any reader with a working brain is more than warranted to suspect that Strang doesn’t actually believe a word of any of this stuff - but then, it’s not aimed at readers with working brains.

7 The MAGA Doctrine by Charlie Kirk (Broadside Books)

This incredibly mendacious volume from one of the most evil figures in the current American conservative landscape manages to tell a lie right there in its title: there is of course no “MAGA doctrine,” or at least not one that originates with Donald Trump or is championed (or even comprehended) by him. This noxious collection of thinly-veiled fascist pap is actually of course “the Charlie Kirk Doctrine” - and all the more repulsive for that fact.

6 This is Not My Memoir by Andre Gregory & Todd London (FSG)

Until I read this soggy midden heap of a book, I could only imagine, on the fringe of nightmare, a book-version of that Citizen Kane of pretentious cinephiles, My Dinner with André - but lo, here it is, incoherently dictated by Andre Gregory, the star of that ridiculous piece of poop.

5 Defender in Chief by John Yoo (All Points Books)

It’s incredibly damning of any society that it can still see books published by torture apologist John Yoo, but here he is, continuing to get book contracts in order to continue elaborating his cringing and damningly scattershot case for the autocratic total authority of a kind of American dictator that doesn’t exist yet - but from whom Yoo would very much like a job.

4 Gay Like Me by Richie Jackson (Harper)

It’s distantly possible, if you squint and tilt your head a bit, to discern in these horrifying pages the faint glimmer of a kind of good intent, the good intent on the part of successful film and TV producer Richie Jackson in passing on some advice to his young son. But by far the loudest part of the book, unfortunately, is reprehensible: the shrill and moronic hectorings of the worst and most overbearing Stage Mother imaginable.

3 The Right Side of History by Ben Shapiro (Broadside Books)

In this portion of the 21st century, it’s almost categorically impossible to construct a “Worst Book” list without doing a virtual bed-check of the so-called “Intellectual Dark Web,” and this latest deeply dishonest screed from Ben Shapiro is a prime example of why: it’s stuffed with bad history, cooked in panicked privilege, and served to readers who are starved for some kind of fast-talking  justification for curb-stomping the nearest trans person.

2 Don’t Burn This Book by Dave Rubin (Sentinel)

There’s a special almost schizoid irony in the fact that notorious and very visually, obviously imbecilic shill Dave Rubin should write - or was at least nearby during the writing of - a book about thinking for yourself. Rubin now styles himself as a figurehead of post-partisan free-thinker, gamely willing to spurn doctrine and listen to all comers, all the while sitting in credulous silence while one lunatic after another spouted self-evident bigoted nonsense on his platform. We could all do with a lot less of that kind of thinking for ourselves - and we can start not by burning Rubin’s dumb book but by remaindering it.

1 Savage Messiah: How Dr. Jordan Peterson is Saving Western Civilization by Jim Proser (St. Martins)

Since it’s a year too early for this spot on this list to be occupied by a book by multi-millionaire fraud Jordan Peterson, it’s maybe fitting, in a dark way, that the spot of worst Nonfiction book of the year should go to this ridiculous panegyric to multi-millionaire fraud Jordan Peterson, who’s here portrayed as a weird kind combination of Abraham Lincoln and Ludwig Wittgenstein, with no hint of the man’s naked opportunism, no hint of his derivative improvisations, and especially no hint of his obvious pseudo-intellectual spam. Saving Western Civilization? Peterson can’t even save this blot of a book.