Since 2017, popular book website Lithub has made a yearly tradition of culling through dozens of best-books-of-the-year articles from around the web and aggregating the results into one massive list of the most recommended books of all. If you're tired of subjective reviews and just want the hard data on 2020's most buzzed-about reads, here's everything—fiction and non- —that appeared on 10 or more of the lists.
You can find the full article (with even more books) here: https://lithub.com/the-ultimate-best-books-of-2020-list/
Book descriptions are provided by the publishers.
[Appears on 25 lists] // "The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults,…
[Appears on 20 lists] // "Amanda and Clay head out to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter, and a taste of the good life in the luxurious…
[Appears on 17 lists] // "Gifty is a fifth-year candidate in neuroscience at Stanford School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school…
[Appears on 16 lists] // "Edie is stumbling her way through her twenties—sharing a subpar apartment in Bushwick, clocking in and out of her admin job, making a series of inappropriate sexual choices. She is also haltingly, fitfully giving heat and…
[Appears on 16 lists] // "In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and in front of everybody shoots the…
[Appears on 15 lists] // "Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family's land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once…
[Appears on 15 lists] // "Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores…
[Appears on 14 lists] // "Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson's a Black day care teacher, and they've been together for a few years—good years—but now…
[Appears on 13 lists] // "Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ayad Akhtar forges a new narrative voice to capture a country in which debt has ruined countless lives and the gods of finance rule, where immigrants live in fear, and where the nation's…
[Appears on 13 lists] // "[An] electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise—to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies—and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary…
[Appears on 13 lists] // "With 'The Mirror & the Light', Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with her peerless, Booker Prize-winning novels, 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring Up the Bodies'. She traces the final years of Thomas…
[Appears on 13 lists] // "Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practice her other calling: she is a fake shrink. For years she has tended to her God-haunted…
[Appears on 12 lists] // "Danielle Evans is widely acclaimed for her blisteringly smart voice and x-ray insights into complex human relationships. With 'The Office of Historical Corrections', Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in…
[Appears on 12 lists] // "Sofia, Bulgaria, a landlocked city in southern Europe, stirs with hope and impending upheaval. Soviet buildings crumble, wind scatters sand from the far south, and political protesters flood the streets with song. In this…
[Appears on 12 lists] // "'Shuggie Bain' is the unforgettable story of young Hugh 'Shuggie' Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher's policies have put husbands and sons…
[Appears io 12 lists] // "At age nineteen, Natasha Trethewey had her world turned upside down when her former stepfather shot and killed her mother. Grieving and still new to adulthood, she confronted the twin pulls of life and death in the…
[Appears on 12 lists] // "Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945,…
[Appears on 11 lists] // "Giovanna's pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, looks more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Is she turning into her Aunt…
[Appears on 11 lists] // "In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. But he can sense the beating heart of the city, see its history, and feel its power.…
[Appears on 11 lists] // "Pulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet's sublime new novel—her first since the National Book Award long-listed 'Sweet Lamb of Heaven'—follows a group of twelve eerily mature children on a forced vacation with their families…
