Year-End Lists

Powell's Books: Best Nonfiction of 2020

[see also Best Nonfiction of 2023 • Best Fiction of 2023 • Best Nonfiction of 2022 • Best Fiction of 2022 • The 14 Best Nonfiction Books of 2021 • The 18 Best Novels of 2021 • Best Fiction of 2020 • Best Fiction of 2019 • Best Nonfiction of 2019 • Best Fiction of 2018 • Best Nonfiction of 2018 • Best Nonfiction of 2017 • Best Fiction of 2017 • Best Fiction of 2016 • Best Nonfiction of 2016 • Best Nonfiction Books of 2015 • Best Fiction Books of 2015 • Best Fiction of 2014 • Best Nonfiction of 2014]

• Surviving Autocracy
  Masha Gessen
• Say It Louder!

  Black Voters, White Narratives, and Saving Our Democracy
  Tiffany Cross
• Vesper Flights
  Helen Macdonald
• Supreme Inequality

  The Supreme Court's Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America
  Adam Cohen
• Caste

  The Origins of Our Discontents
  Isabel Wilkerson
• Uncanny Valley
  Anna Wiener
• To the Lake

  A Balkan Journey of War and Peace
  Kapka Kassabova
• The Dead Are Arising

  The Life of Malcolm X
  Les Payne and Tamara Payne
• The End of Everything

  (Astrophysically Speaking)
  Katie Mack
• Bland Fanatics

  Liberals, Race, and Empire
  Pankaj Mishra

Women's Prize for Fiction: 2020

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

Winner

• Hamnet
  Maggie O'Farrell

Shortlist

• Girl, Woman, Other
  Bernardine Evaristo
• A Thousand Ships
  Natalie Haynes
• Dominicana
  Angie Cruz
• The Mirror & the Light
  Hilary Mantel
• Weather
  Jenny Offill

Longlist

• Queenie
  Candice Carty-Williams
• The Dutch House
  Ann Patchett
• Actress
  Anne Enright
• Nightingale Point
  Luan Goldie
• Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
  Deepa Anappara
• How We Disappeared
  Jing-Jing Lee
• The Most Fun We Ever Had
  Claire Lombardo
• Girl
  Edna O’Brien
• Red at the Bone
  Jacqueline Woodson
• Fleishman Is in Trouble
  Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Boston.com: The 18 Best Books of 2019

[see also 2018]

Fiction

• Where Reasons End
  Yiyun Li
• Lost Children Archive
  Valeria Luiselli
• Territory of Light
  Yuko Tsushima
• Women Talking
  Miriam Toews
• Deep River
  Karl Marlantes
• On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
  Ocean Vuong
• The Nickel Boys
  Colson Whitehead
• Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming
  László Krasznahorkai
• The Dutch House
  Ann Patchett
• Wake, Siren

  Ovid Resung
  Nina MacLaughlin

Poetry

• Deaf Republic
  Ilya Kaminsky

Nonfiction

• Inheritance

  A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
  Dani Shapiro
• What You Have Heard Is True

  A Memoir of Witness and Resistance
  Carolyn Forché
• Furious Hours

  Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
  Casey Cep
• Trick Mirror

  Reflections on Self-Delusion
  Jia Tolentino
• Know My Name
  Chanel Miller
• The Education of an Idealist
  Samantha Power
• The Body

  A Guide for Occupants
  Bill Bryson

BuzzFeed: The 24 Best Books of the Decade

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2019 • 2018]

• The Warmth of Other Suns

  The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
  Isabel Wilkerson
• The Round House
  Louise Erdrich
• Building Stories
  Chris Ware
• Tiny Beautiful Things

  Advice on Love and Life from “Dear Sugar”
  Cheryl Strayed
• My Struggle (six volumes)
  Karl Ove Knausgaard
• The Neapolitan Novels
  Elena Ferrante
• Far From the Tree

  Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
  Andrew Solomon
• Wave
  Sonali Deraniyagala
• The Goldfinch
  Donna Tartt
• Annihilation
  Jeff VanderMeer
• Citizen

  An American Lyric
  Claudia Rankine
• Station Eleven
  Emily St. John Mandel
• Dept. of Speculation
  Jenny Offill
• Tenth of December
  George Saunders
• The Argonauts
  Maggie Nelson
• A Little Life
  Hanya Yanagihara
• Outline Trilogy
  Rachel Cusk
• One of Us

  The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway
  Asne Seierstad
• Less
  Andrew Sean Greer
• Freshwater
  Akwaeke Emezi
• Severance
  Ling Ma
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation
  Ottessa Moshfegh
• Conversations with Friends
  Sally Rooney
• She Said

  Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement
  Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey

BookPage: Best Nonfiction Books of 2019

[see also The Best Nonfiction of 2023 • The Best Fiction of 2023 • Best Nonfiction of 2022 • Best Fiction of 2022 • Best Books of 2020: Nonfiction • Best Books of 2020: Fiction • Best Fiction Books of 2019]

1. In the Dream House
   Carmen Maria Machado
2. Trick Mirror

   Reflections on Self-Delusion
   Jia Tolentino
3. Underland

   A Deep Time Journey
   Robert Macfarlane
4. Say Nothing

   A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
   Patrick Radden Keefe
5. Inheritance

   A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
   Dani Shapiro
6. The End of the Myth

   From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America
   Greg Grandin
7. The British Are Coming

   The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777
   Rick Atkinson
8. How We Fight for Our Lives
   Saeed Jones
9. Late Migrations

   A Natural History of Love and Loss
   Margaret Renkl
10. Three Women
    Lisa Taddeo
11. The Plateau
    Maggie Paxson
12. Figuring
    Maria Popova
13. Ordinary Girls
    Jaquira Díaz
14. Make It Scream, Make It Burn
    Leslie Jamison
15. Mama's Last Hug

    Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves
    Frans de Waal
16. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

    Native America from 1890 to the Present
    David Treuer
17. Wild Game

    My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
    Adrienne Brodeur
18. Once More We Saw Stars
    Jayson Greene
19. The Yellow House
    Sarah M. Broom
20. No Visible Bruises

    What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us
    Rachel Louise Snyder

BookPage: Best Fiction Books of 2019

[see also The Best Nonfiction of 2023 • The Best Fiction of 2023 • Best Nonfiction of 2022 • Best Fiction of 2022 • Best Books of 2020: Nonfiction • Best Books of 2020: Fiction • Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

1. The Nickel Boys
   Colson Whitehead
2. Fleishman Is in Trouble
   Taffy Brodesser-Akner
3. Late in the Day
   Tessa Hadley
4. The Shadow King
   Maaza Mengiste
5. The Tenth Muse
   Catherine Chung
6. Olive, Again
   Elizabeth Strout
7. The Testaments
   Margaret Atwood
8. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
   Ocean Vuong
9. Lot
   Bryan Washington
10. The Dutch House
    Ann Patchett
11. Naamah
    Sarah Blake
12. Normal People
    Sally Rooney
13. The Old Drift
    Namwali Serpell
14. Disappearing Earth
    Julia Phillips
15. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World
    Elif Shafak
16. The Need
    Helen Phillips
17. Miracle Creek
    Angie Kim
18. Inland
    Téa Obreht
19. The Night Tiger
    Yangsze Choo
20. The Other Americans
    Laila Lalami

Barack Obama: Favorite Books of 2019, as posted to Twitter

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2018 • 2017]

• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

  The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
  Shoshana Zuboff
• The Anarchy

  The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire
  William Dalrymple
• Furious Hours

  Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
  Casey Cep
• Girl, Woman, Other
  Bernardine Evaristo
• The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

  Native America from 1890 to the Present
  David Treuer
• How to Do Nothing

  Resisting the Attention Economy
  Jenny Odell
• Lost Children Archive
  Valeria Luiselli
• Lot
  Bryan Washington
• Normal People
  Sally Rooney
• The Orphan Master’s Son
  Adam Johnson
• The Yellow House
  Sarah M. Broom
• Say Nothing

  A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• Solitary

  Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement. My Story of Transformation and Hope
  Albert Woodfox
• The Topeka School
  Ben Lerner
• Trick Mirror

  Reflections on Self-Delusion
  Jia Tolentino
• Trust Exercise
  Susan Choi
• We Live in Water
  Jess Walter

For the Sports Fans

• A Different Way to Win

  Dan Rooney's Story from the Super Bowl to the Rooney Rule
  Jim Rooney
• The Sixth Man
  Andre Iguodala

And here's a reminder of books I recommended earlier this year

• American Spy
  Lauren Wilkinson
• The Education of an Idealist
  Samantha Power
• Exhalation
  Ted Chiang
• Finding My Voice

  My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward
  Valerie Jarrett
• Heartland

  A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
  Sarah Smarsh
• How to Read the Air
  Dinaw Mengestu
• Inland
  Téa Obreht
• Lab Girl
  Hope Jahren
• Maid

  Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive
  Stephanie Land
• Men Without Women
  Haruki Murakami
• The Moment of Lift

  How Empowering Women Changes the World
  Melinda Gates
• The Nickel Boys
  Colson Whitehead
• Pachinko
  Min Jin Lee
• The Shadow of Sirius
  W.S. Merwin
• The Shallows

  What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
  Nicholas Carr
• Toni Morrison's collected works
• Tough Love

  My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For
  Susan Rice
• The Warmth of Other Suns

  The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
  Isabel Wilkerson
• Wolf Hall
  Hilary Mantel

The Atlantic: The 15 Best Books of 2019

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021]

• The Old Drift
  Namwali Serpell
• Music

  A Subversive History
  Ted Gioia
• Say Nothing

  A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• Trust Exercise
  Susan Choi
• Night Boat to Tangier
  Kevin Barry
• The Topeka School
  Ben Lerner
• Lost Children Archive
  Valeria Luiselli
• She Said

  Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement
  Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey
• EEG
  Daša Drndic
• In the Dream House
  Carmen Maria Machado
• Mostly Dead Things
  Kristen Arnett
• Three Women
  Lisa Taddeo
• Lot
  Bryan Washington
• Meander, Spiral, Explode

  Design and Pattern in Narrative
  Jane Alison
• Wrote For Luck

  Selected Lyrics
  Shaun Ryder

Spectrum Culture: Favorite Books of 2019, which "includes any book we read in 2019, regardless of release date"

[see also 2018]

• Deep River
  Karl Marlantes
• Charlotte Salomon. Life? or Theatre?
  Judith C.E. Belinfante and Evelyn Benesch
• Annunciation

  A Call to Faith in a Broken World
  Sally Read
• Fossil Capital

  The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming
  Andreas Malm
• House of Stone
  Novuyo Rosa Tshuma
• Once More We Saw Stars
  Jayson Greene
• On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
  Ocean Vuong
• Dril Official "Mr. Ten Years" Anniversary Collection
  Dril
• Territory of Light
  Yuko Tsushima
• The Fifth Season
  N.K. Jemisin
• Who Is Michael Jang?
  Michael Jang
• Goodbye, Vitamin
  Rachel Khong
• A Cathedral of Myth and Bone
  Kat Howard
• The Testaments
  Margaret Atwood

Publishers Weekly: 10 Best Books of 2019

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

• Audience of One

  Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America
  James Poniewozik
• The British Are Coming

  The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777
  Rick Atkinson
• Good Talk

  A Memoir in Conversations
  Mira Jacob
• From the Shadows
  Juan José Millás
• Guest House for Young Widows

  Among the Women of ISIS
  Azadeh Moaveni
• The Man Who Saw Everything
  Deborah Levy
• The Nickel Boys
  Colson Whitehead
• Optic Nerve
  Maria Gainza
• Solitary

  Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement. My Story of Transformation and Hope
  Albert Woodfox
• Trust Exercise
  Susan Choi