Year-End Lists

Bustle: The Best Books Of 2020, listed in order of publication

[see also 2018]

• Why We Can't Sleep

  Women's New Midlife Crisis
  Ada Calhoun
• F*ck Your Diet

  And Other Things My Thighs Tell Me
  Chloé Hilliard
• Long Bright River
  Liz Moore
• Topics of Conversation
  Miranda Popkey
• Creatures
  Crissy Van Meter
• Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

  Stories from the Harlem Renaissance
  Zora Neale Hurston
• Little Gods
  Meng Jin
• Uncanny Valley
  Anna Wiener
• A Long Petal of the Sea
  Isabel Allende
• Upright Women Wanted
  Sarah Gailey
• The Resisters
  Gish Jen
• Brother & Sister
  Diane Keaton
• The Illness Lesson
  Clare Beams
• Weather
  Jenny Offill
• The Antidote for Everything
  Kimmery Martin
• Hood Feminism

  Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
  Mikki Kendall
• The Mirror & the Light
  Hilary Mantel
• My Dark Vanessa
  Kate Elizabeth Russell
• The City We Became
  N.K. Jemisin
• The Glass Hotel
  Emily St. John Mandel
• Wow, No Thank You.
  Samantha Irby
• Afterlife
  Julia Alvarez
• If I Had Your Face
  Frances Cha
• How to Pronounce Knife
  Souvankham Thammavongsa
• Our Riches
  Kaouther Adimi
• Little Eyes
  Samanta Schweblin
• A Children's Bible
  Lydia Millet
• Stray
  Stephanie Danler
• This Is What America Looks Like

  My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman
  Ilhan Omar
• The Vanishing Half
  Brit Bennett
• Our Time Is Now

  Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America
  Stacey Abrams
• The Margot Affair
  Sanaë Lemoine
• Death in Her Hands
  Ottessa Moshfegh
• Mexican Gothic
  Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• True Love
  Sarah Gerard
• Crooked Hallelujah
  Kelli Jo Ford
• Trouble the Saints
  Alaya Dawn Johnson
• Empire of Wild
  Cherie Dimaline
• The Death of Vivek Oji
  Akwaeke Emezi
• No Offense
  Meg Cabot
• A Room Called Earth
  Madeleine Ryan
• Sitting Pretty

  The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body
  Rebekah Taussig
• Cemetery Boys
  Aiden Thomas
• That Time of Year
  Marie NDiaye
• Piranesi
  Susanna Clarke
• The Book of Two Ways
  Jodi Picoult
• Bestiary
  K-Ming Chang
• Spoiler Alert
  Olivia Dade
• Ring Shout
  P. Djèlí Clark
• Phoenix Extravagant
  Yoon Ha Lee
• The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop
  Fannie Flagg
• Too Much Lip
  Melissa Lucashenko
• We Keep the Dead Close

  A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence
  Becky Cooper
• These Violent Delights
  Micah Nemerever
• The Thirty Names of Night
  Zeyn Joukhadar
• Perestroika in Paris
  Jane Smiley
• The Mermaid from Jeju
  Sumi Hahn
• This Is How We Fly
  Anna Meriano
• Wound from the Mouth of a Wound
  torrin a. greathouse
• A Spy in the Struggle
  Aya de Leon

BookPage: Best Books of 2020: Nonfiction

[see also Best Nonfiction of 2022 • Best Fiction of 2022 • Best Books of 2020: Fiction • Best Nonfiction Books of 2019 • Best Fiction Books of 2019]

1. Notes on a Silencing
   Lacy Crawford
2. Caste

   The Origins of Our Discontents
   Isabel Wilkerson
3. Fathoms

   The World in the Whale
   Rebecca Giggs
4. Memorial Drive

   A Daughter's Memoir
   Natasha Trethewey
5. The Dead Are Arising

   The Life of Malcolm X
   Les Payne and Tamara Payne
6. Hidden Valley Road

   Inside the Mind of an American Family
   Robert Kolker
7. Is Rape a Crime?

   A Memoir, an Investigation, and a Manifesto
   Michelle Bowdler
8. Conditional Citizens

   On Belonging in America
   Laila Lalami
9. Children of the Land
   Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
10. World of Wonders

    In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments
    Aimee Nezhukumatathil
11. Nobody Will Tell You This But Me

    A true (as told to me) story
    Bess Kalb
12. Vesper Flights
    Helen Macdonald
13. To Start a War

    How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq
    Robert Draper
14. Inferno

    A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness
    Catherine Cho
15. Wow, No Thank You.
    Samantha Irby
16. Just Us

    An American Conversation
    Claudia Rankine
17. Once I Was You

    A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America
    Maria Hinojosa
18. Wilmington's Lie

    The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy
    David Zucchino
19. Minor Feelings

    An Asian American Reckoning
    Cathy Park Hong
20. The Splendid and the Vile

    A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
    Erik Larson

BookPage: Best Books of 2020: Fiction

[see also Best Nonfiction of 2022 • Best Fiction of 2022 • Best Books of 2020: Nonfiction • Best Nonfiction Books of 2019 • Best Fiction Books of 2019]

1. The Vanishing Half
   Brit Bennett
2. Transcendent Kingdom
   Yaa Gyasi
3. Piranesi
   Susanna Clarke
4. Such a Fun Age
   Kiley Reid
5. The Glass Hotel
   Emily St. John Mandel
6. Afterlife
   Julia Alvarez
7. Hamnet
   Maggie O'Farrell
8. Memorial
   Bryan Washington
9. Deacon King Kong
   James McBride
10. The Mirror & the Light
    Hilary Mantel
11. Leave the World Behind
    Rumaan Alam
12. The Death of Vivek Oji
    Akwaeke Emezi
13. How Much of These Hills Is Gold
    C Pam Zhang
14. Monogamy
    Sue Miller
15. The Lying Life of Adults
    Elena Ferrante
16. Valentine
    Elizabeth Wetmore
17. Sisters
    Daisy Johnson
18. The Lost Book of Adana Moreau
    Michael Zapata
19. Code Name Hélène
    Ariel Lawhon
20. Happy and You Know It
    Laura Hankin

Thrillist: The Best Books of 2020

[see also 2021]

• Abigail
  Magda Szabo
• Above Us the Milky Way
  Fowzia Karimi
• All My Mother's Lovers
  Ilana Masad
• And I Do Not Forgive You
  Amber Sparks
• The Anthill
  Julianne Pachico
• August
  Callan Wink
• The Big Book of Modern Fantasy
  Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
• The Black Cathedral
  Marcial Gala
• The Book of Eels

  Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World
  Patrik Svensson
• Breasts and Eggs
  Mieko Kawakami
• Cleanness
  Garth Greenwell
• Death in Her Hands
  Ottessa Moshfegh
• Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear
  Matthew Salesses
• Entangled Life

  How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
  Merlin Sheldrake
• Fangs
  Sarah Andersen
• Follow Me To Ground
  Sue Rainsford
• The Glass Hotel
  Emily St. John Mandel
• The Heap
  Sean Adams
• Hex
  Rebecca Dinerstein Knight
• How Much of These Hills Is Gold
  C Pam Zhang
• I Hold a Wolf by the Ears
  Laura van den Berg
• If I Had Your Face
  Frances Cha
• Interior Chinatown
  Charles Yu
• Jack
  Marilynne Robinson
• Leave the World Behind
  Rumaan Alam
• Little Eyes
  Samanta Schweblin
• Migrations
  Charlotte McConaghy
• Owls of the Eastern Ice

  A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl
  Jonathan C. Slaght
• A Peculiar Peril
  Jeff VanderMeer
• Pew
  Catherine Lacey
• Piranesi
  Susanna Clarke
• Real Life
  Brandon Taylor
• Red Dust
  Yoss
• A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth
  Daniel Mason
• Run Me to Earth
  Paul Yoon
• Temporary
  Hilary Leichter
• Then the Fish Swallowed Him
  Amir Ahmadi Arian
• The Town
  Shaun Prescott
• Tyll
  Daniel Kahneman
• The Unreality of Memory
  Elisa Gabbert
• Weather
  Jenny Offill
• We Ride Upon Sticks
  Quan Barry
• The Vanished Birds
  Simon Jimenez

Harper’s Bazaar: The Best Books of 2020

[see also 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015]

• The Lying Life of Adults
  Elena Ferrante
• Rodham
  Curtis Sittenfeld
• Transcendent Kingdom
  Yaa Gyasi
• The Glass Hotel
  Emily St. John Mandel
• My Dark Vanessa
  Kate Elizabeth Russell
• The Death of Vivek Oji
  Akwaeke Emezi
• Real Life
  Brandon Taylor
• Wow, No Thank You.
  Samantha Irby
• Death in Her Hands
  Ottessa Moshfegh
• It's Not All Downhill From Here
  Terry McMillan
• The Vanishing Half
  Brit Bennett
• Hood Feminism

  Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
  Mikki Kendall
• Fairest
  Meredith Talusan
• Can't Even

  How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation
  Anne Helen Petersen
• The Resisters
  Gish Jen
• Drifts
  Kate Zambreno
• Chosen Ones
  Veronica Roth
• I Hold a Wolf by the Ears
  Laura van den Berg
• Just Like You
  Nick Hornby
• Perfect Tunes
  Emily Gould
• The Disaster Tourist
  Yun Ko-eun
• It Is Wood, It Is Stone
  Gabriella Burnham
• Empire of Wild
  Cherie Dimaline
• Lakewood
  Megan Giddings
• How Much of These Hills Is Gold
  C Pam Zhang
• These Women
  Ivy Pochoda
• Here for It

  Or, How to Save Your Soul in America
  R. Eric Thomas
• You Exist Too Much
  Zaina Arafat
• Luster
  Raven Leilani
• The Office of Historical Corrections
  Danielle Evans
• Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.
  Joyce Carol Oates
• Plain Bad Heroines
  Emily M. Danforth
• White Tears/Brown Scars

  How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color
  Ruby Hamad
• Sisters in Hate

  American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism
  Seyward Darby
• Memorial
  Bryan Washington
• Beach Read
  Emily Henry
• The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes
  Elissa R. Sloan
• When No One Is Watching
  Alyssa Cole
• The Comeback
  Ella Berman
• The Talented Miss Farwell
  Emily Gray Tedrowe
• What Are You Going Through
  Sigrid Nunez
• Sleep Donation
  Karen Russell
• Nights When Nothing Happened
  Simon Han
• Dearly
  Margaret Atwood
• Daddy
  Emma Cline
• Untamed
  Glennon Doyle
• Caste

  The Origins of Our Discontents
  Isabel Wilkerson
• Cleanness
  Garth Greenwell
• Leave the World Behind
  Rumaan Alam
• Memorial Drive

  A Daughter's Memoir
  Natasha Trethewey
• White Ivy
  Susie Yang
• The Majesties
  Tiffany Tsao
• Ring Shout
  P. Djèlí Clark
• All Adults Here
  Emma Straub
• My Mother's House
  Francesca Momplaisir
• The Space Between Worlds
  Micaiah Johnson
• Like a Bird
  Fariha Róisín
• If I Had Your Face
  Frances Cha

Shondaland: The Best Books of 2020

• Check, Please! Book 2

  Sticks & Scones
  Ngozi Ukazu
• The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist
  Adrian Tomine
• The Vanishing Half
  Brit Bennett
• Glass Town

  The Imaginary World of the Brontës
  Isabel Greenberg
• Solutions and Other Problems
  Allie Brosh
• A Song of Wraiths and Ruin
  Roseanne A. Brown
• This Is What I Know About Art
  Kimberly Drew
• Luster
  Raven Leilani
• Cemetery Boys
  Aiden Thomas
• His Only Wife
  Peace Adzo Medie
• Homeland Elegies
  Ayad Akhtar
• Beach Read
  Emily Henry
• Mexican Gothic
  Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• Ace

  What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
  Angela Chen
• Caste

  The Origins of Our Discontents
  Isabel Wilkerson
• Elatsoe
  Darcie Little Badger

Electric Lit: Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2020

[see also Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2022 • Favorite Novels of 2022 • Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2021 • Favorite Novels of 2021 • Favorite Novels of 2020 • 15 Best Novels of 2019 • 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

• Ace

  What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
  Angela Chen
• Born to Be Public
  Greg Mania
• Caste

  The Origins of Our Discontents
  Isabel Wilkerson
• Fairest
  Meredith Talusan
• Here for It

  Or, How to Save Your Soul in America
  R. Eric Thomas
• Hood Feminism

  Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
  Mikki Kendall
• I Don't Want to Die Poor
  Michael Arceneaux
• Later

  My Life at the Edge of the World
  Paul Lisicky
• Sisters in Hate

  American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism
  Seyward Darby
• The Sprawl
  Jason Diamond
• Uncanny Valley
  Anna Wiener
• Before and After the Book Deal

  A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book
  Courtney Maum
• Riding with the Ghost
  Justin Taylor
• Memorial Drive

  A Daughter's Memoir
  Natasha Trethewey
• The Unreality of Memory
  Elisa Gabbert
• Tomboyland
  Melissa Faliveno
• The Third Rainbow Girl

  The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia
  Emma Copley Eisenberg
• My Autobiography of Carson McCullers
  Jenn Shapland
• Wow, No Thank You.
  Samantha Irby
• Minor Feelings

  An Asian American Reckoning
  Cathy Park Hong

Electric Lit: Favorite Novels of 2020

[see also Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2022 • Favorite Novels of 2022 • Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2021 • Favorite Novels of 2021 • Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2020 • 15 Best Novels of 2019 • 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

• A Lover's Discourse
  Xiaolu Guo
• Everywhere You Don't Belong
  Gabriel Bump
• Jack
  Marilynne Robinson
• Mexican Gothic
  Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• Pizza Girl
  Jean Kyoung Frazier
• The Glass Hotel
  Emily St. John Mandel
• These Ghosts Are Family
  Maisy Card
• You Should See Me in a Crown
  Leah Johnson
• Writers & Lovers
  Lily King
• A Children's Bible
  Lydia Millet
• Leave the World Behind
  Rumaan Alam
• Parakeet
  Marie-Helene Bertino
• The Lying Life of Adults
  Elena Ferrante
• Memorial
  Bryan Washington
• Piranesi
  Susanna Clarke
• The Death of Vivek Oji
  Akwaeke Emezi
• The Illness Lesson
  Clare Beams
• The City We Became
  N.K. Jemisin
• A Burning
  Megha Majumdar
• Breasts and Eggs
  Mieko Kawakami
• Cleanness
  Garth Greenwell
• Transcendent Kingdom
  Yaa Gyasi
• The Vanishing Half
  Brit Bennett
• Real Life
  Brandon Taylor
• Luster
  Raven Leilani

Claire Fallon: The Best Books of 2020, as published by Huffington Post

[see also 2018]

• Temporary
  Hilary Leichter
• Real Life
  Brandon Taylor
• The Unreality of Memory
  Elisa Gabbert
• The Glass Hotel
  Emily St. John Mandel
• Parakeet
  Marie-Helene Bertino
• Death in Her Hands
  Ottessa Moshfegh
• Luster
  Raven Leilani
• Leave the World Behind
  Rumaan Alam
• Red Pill
  Hari Kunzru
• The Office of Historical Corrections
  Danielle Evans

Vogue: The Best Books of 2020

[see also 2019 • 2015]

• Open Secrets
  Sheila Kohler
• The Splendid and the Vile

  A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
  Erik Larson
• How to Be a Good Girl
  Jamie Hood
• We Keep the Dead Close

  A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence
  Becky Cooper
• What Kind of Woman
  Kate Baer
• Nobody Will Tell You This But Me

  A true (as told to me) story
  Bess Kalb
• The Bass Rock
  Evie Wyld
• Leave the World Behind
  Rumaan Alam
• Memorial
  Bryan Washington
• Such a Fun Age
  Kiley Reid
• Uncanny Valley
  Anna Wiener
• In the Land of Men
  Adrienne Miller
• Apartment
  Teddy Wayne
• Shuggie Bain
  Douglas Stuart
• A Burning
  Megha Majumdar
• Tender Is the Flesh
  Agustina Bazterrica
• Luster
  Raven Leilani