books are both comfort and inspiration. they light the way, even while allowing a temporary escape from life’s worries, which is why here, we wanted to share 20 of the best books 2020 had to offer.
the czech writer milan kundera once said: “the novel is the imaginary paradise of individuals”. The 13 captivating and captivating novels on this list provide something of that paradise right now. But if you prefer to keep your literary quotations short and bright, you’ll be seduced by the two outstanding collections of short stories presented here.
You are reading: Top 20 books 2020
This year was also notable for prophetic, perspective-altering nonfiction, guides that help us navigate the seismic cultural shifts we face and find the way forward, as well as wonderful poetry that stirs the crowd or provokes stillness and wonder.
2020 also had some particularly unprecedented challenges for bookstores amid this pandemic. Many have innovated to survive, substituting in-store sign-ins for remote events, reaching out to customers via Instagram and other platforms, and doubling down on online distribution efforts. others have had to close.
However, we hope that some of our 2020 favorites will become yours as well, and that you’ll nurture the companies that do so much to raise our awareness and fuel our imaginations by purchasing some or all of these. books for you, your family and friends.
the more things change, the more at least one thing stays the same: as oprah says, “every page of every new book can open us to a new universe.” books open our eyes, expand our hearts, and deepen our understanding of each other. happy reading.
African-American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & song editing by kevin young
This monumental volume, compiled by the poet and newly appointed director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, is long overdue. It begins with verse, first published in 1773 by Phillis Wheatley, who was sent to America through the Middle Passage and enslaved, but she learned English and began the African-American poetic tradition. In late June, Jordan described the proliferation of black poetry in the United States as “the difficult miracle,” and that miracle receives a glorious tribute here.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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a beautiful crime by christopher bollen
Imbued with the chiaroscuro intrigue of Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley series, Bollen’s fourth novel centers on a pair of new lovers who travel to Venice, a place of “fugitive magic” that is “built to deceive and confuse”, in an attempt to swindle a wealthy man out of his fortune. what unfolds through this alluring mystery, like the floating city itself, is “a labyrinth of deception.” Read our full review of A Beautiful Crime.
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the boy in the field by margot livesey
Teenage siblings matthew, zoe and duncan stumble upon a young man, bleeding and unconscious, amidst bales of straw near their home on the outskirts of oxford, england, in the fall of 1999. their low-key reactions to the discovery, narrated in chapters from each of their points of view—exposing family secrets, destabilizing relationships that seemed unbreakable. With the eyes of a pointillist and the nose of a detective, Livesey has produced a novel magnificent in its lyricism and as kinetic as a detective novel.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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caste: the origins of our discontent by isabel wilkerson
The second book from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Heat of Other Suns is truly a harrowing work of astonishing genius, a mind-altering historical epic that upends views on the foundations of our country, especially around to inequality. “Race, in the United States,” Wilkerson writes, “is the visible agent of the invisible force of caste. the caste is the bones, the race the skin”. Drawing parallels between India’s ancient caste system, the Third Reich, and Jim Crow, Oprah’s Book Club Selection 86 offers a model for understanding and rehabilitating the flawed structures we have inherited. Read an excerpt from Casta and an interview with Wilkerson.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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jess walter’s cold millions
The former reporter and author of Beautiful Ruins has crafted an electrifying historical-adventure-social novel centered on a 1909 labor dispute and a battle for free speech in his hometown of Spokane. The charismatic and headstrong Dolan brothers and the younger, sweet-tempered Rye are drawn into a brutal conflict, spurred on by drifters, vaudeville performers and proto-feminists in the midst of a boom town that is “like the intersection of the border and the civilized, the final sigh”. of one thing before it became something else. read our full review of the cold millions.
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king kong deacon by james mcbride
National Book Award-winning author McBride is also a jazz musician, and this raucous, poignant, humanity-spanning novel set in a 1969 Brooklyn housing project reads like a sax solo, all riffs. , unlikely juxtapositions and sweet, penetrating. high notes. The backdrop for this ode to bellicose friends, the sports jacket, the spicy sausage, the holy and sensible hettie, and the many other colorful characters that inhabit these pages, is a poor community that goes to church and welcomes to every form of sinner. that can explain the feeling of joy and love that emanates from each page. read an excerpt from deacon king kong.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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a girl is a body of water by jennifer mansubuga makumbi
in uganda in the 1970s under idi amin, a girl can only hope to grow up to be a wife and mother, silent and understanding no matter what. And yet Kirabo, raised by her grandparents and others (including a villager believed to be a witch), hears and heeds the call of the female ancestors and warrior women of her country’s folklore. Kirabo’s Odyssey is a fascinating and exuberant novel, a maturity like no other.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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elegies of the motherland by ayad akhtar
in this penetrating and propulsive autofiction, a pulitzer prize-winning playwright, the son of pakistani muslim immigrants, dissects his father’s strange attraction to donald trump and uses that infatuation as a metaphor through which to excavate and exploit the notion of the American dream: “we have been the earthly garden, the abundant idyll… it has always been a myth, of course, and destined to break sooner or later”. Read our full review of Elegies of the Fatherland.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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being a nicole krauss man
This debut collection from the love story author is filled with indelible instances of strangeness, eroticism, and loneliness. all ten stories have the quality of daydreams, an otherworldly stillness, and examine why we are drawn to another, how excruciating it is to let go of a parent who has died, or the moments when instinct overrides reason. Set in Berlin, Tokyo, Geneva, Tel Aviv, New York and beyond, these individual paintings are united by Krauss’s unparalleled ability to turn what at first seem like digressions into crescendos of the sublime.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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zadie smith summons
while in quarantine amid the covid-19 pandemic, smith wrote six dazzling and scathing essays that delve into our contemporary culture of illness and turmoil and reflect on what was “once necessary” that now “seems not essential”, as well as about banana bread, pedicure and tulips. referencing wordsworth, marcus aurelius, and… mel gibson, among many others, smith reflects on our current bewildering moment and offers reflections like these: “i am comforted to discover that i am not the only person on this earth who has no idea what life is for, or what to do with all this time besides fill it.”
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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the invisible life of addie larue by v.e. brat
To free herself from an arranged marriage, a desperate young woman in a French village in 1714 makes a plea to the spirit world, trading her soul for centuries of freedom. the hidden cost: everyone she meets will forget her, “erased by a closed door, a moment apart.” but 300 years later, she meets a man who recognizes her. Dreamy and exciting, Schwab’s Swoonworthy Saga is a love story for the ages. Read a personal essay by Schwab on coming out.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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just us by claudia rankine
the murder of george floyd, along with so many others, before and since, has forced a reckoning, and the new book from the poet, playwright and macarthur “genius” grant recipient provides a roadmap for the Essential conversations that now need to transpire. Rankine’s multi-layered, multi-disciplinary work embraces division as an opportunity to explore our differences and acknowledge our similarities. Through essays, poems, images, and logs of chats with, say, white airline passengers in first class, an unexpected intimacy emerges and the message that yes, we are all in this together. Read our interview with Rankine.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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samantha schweblin’s eyes
2020, meet 1984. The acclaimed Argentinian author weaves an Orwellian history of online culture into this gripping voyeuristic parable. Furby-like toys with cameras for eyes are turning lives upside down from Mexico to Hong Kong, exposing the dangers that lurk behind our screens. the moral: unplug while you can. read an excerpt from ojitos.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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shine by raven leilani
Leilani’s wildly confident debut features a black millennial who becomes involved with an older white man in an open marriage. is a bold and tantalizing story about the “gray, nameless hours” of the 20s, when, for better or worse, anything and everything can happen: “when I’m desperate, when I’m hungry, when I know how a star turns into An empty space.” read our full gloss review.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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the lying life of elena ferrante’s adults
“The truth is difficult”, an older woman advises the adolescent protagonist of the latest by Ferrante, “as you grow up you will understand that novels are not ‘enough’ for that”. The Italian maestro behind My Brilliant Friend returns to the splendid squalor of Naples in this sharp and cunning Bildungsroman, a more than enough tale of a girl whose epic teenage rebellion paves the way for a fully realized life. Read our full review of the lying life of adults.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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the bureau of historical corrections by danielle evans
There are touches of both tragedy and comedy in these hilarious and gripping tales whose themes are race, gender and family in a troubled America. From the group of ex-girlfriends of a narcissistic artist to an anxious drug dealer to a college student caught up in a confederate flag bikini scandal on social media, Evans’ characters detonate the landmines of relationships. this master of irony and nuance, whose debut in 2010 was the famous before you suffocate yourself, triumphs again with one of the best collections of short stories of the year.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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just bad heroines by emily m. danforth
danforth’s colossal second novel, in which the filmmakers shoot a movie (on location) centered on the grisly happenings at an elite girls’ school on rhode island in 1902, could collapse under the weight of his lofty ambition if it wasn’t so damned. fun. a cinematic pulp saga alive with the power of the written word, not to mention forbidden Victorian romance and metafictional thrills and chills. read our interview with danforth.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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red comet: the short life and resplendent art of sylvia plath by heather clark
Since her death by suicide in 1963, Sylvia Plath has been embroiled in the morbid obsession of a cult, a queen of the underworld who longs to “eat men like air.” Thoroughly researched and beautifully written, this masterful biography restores Plath’s true legacy, excerpting letters, archives, and interviews with the poet’s intimates to reveal her as a peerless talent who reinvented her form. Read our full Red Comet review.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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sharks in the time of the saviors of kawai strong washburn
When a Hawaiian boy from an impoverished family is discovered to possess supernatural gifts, including the ability to heal others, his parents and siblings must learn to live in his shadow. Steeped in Big Island mysticism, Washburn’s first novel is a dazzling modern work presented in prose as lush, vivid, and extraordinary as the landscape in which it is set. read our full review of sharks in the time of the saviors.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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what you are going through sigrid nunez
The winner of the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction returns with an immersive and deeply interior novel of a woman whose dying friend requests her help in his final days, culminating in a planned suicide. If that sounds depressing, it’s not. Núñez’s prose is conspiratorial and elegant, capricious and wise. alongside a contemplation of mortality there are winks: for all its pain and seriousness, life is absurd, comic; we humans are impossible to understand and yet so cute.
See Also: GoodTherapy | Top 15 Bestselling Psychology Books of 2015
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