Welcome to the third post in my Holiday Posts series for 2020. Today we look at books, book lists, and stuff about reading. It is that time of the year when anybody who is anybody makes a list of books for the year that they think you ought to read. For me, doing this post serves as an overview of what happened with books during the year, plus it can be a bit of reader's advisory, and it can also give me new books to add to the ever growing To Be Read (TBR) list. As usual, I will add commentary here or there.
General Lists
Let's start with general lists. I will do my best to avoid the big "usual" lists since I am sure you can find those on your own just fine. 2020 was a year when a lot of politics, social issues, and activism took front and center, which for me means they fall under my moratorium on reading those types of books. Therefore there is a lot that came out recently I have not read (in order to keep my sanity and keep my blood pressure low). Still I am sharing these lists for those of you out there who may be interested. These are in no particular order.
- Literary Hub offers their "65 Favorite Books of the Year."
- Time magazine has their "100 Must Read Books of 2020."
- From this list, I'd be interested in reading The Address Book by Deirdre Mask.
- Amazon has their best books of 2020.
- Publishers Weekly has their best of 2020 list. This page takes you to their top 10, but you can also see their best in various categories like comics and nonfiction as well as see lists from previous years.
- The Top 10 list also features The Address Book.
- USA Today has a list of 13 best books.
- Across the pond:
- The Guardian offers their list of best books of 2020 as chosen by their "acclaimed guest authors."
- The Irish Times has Ireland's bestselling books of 2020.
- The Guardian also looks at best Australian books of 2020.
- Ask A Manager offers her 2020 book recommendations. The list is more than just business books, which is why I include it with general lists.
- Not all books are good. For your amusement, and maybe as a cautionary note of what to avoid, Open Letters Review offers the "Worst Books of 2020: Fiction" and "Worst Books of 2020: Nonfiction."
Specific Topics
Lists of books in specific topics and categories.
- Inc. has a list of 6 best business books.
- Joshua Kim has his list of books reviewed for Inside Higher Ed in 2020. Books on this list mainly focus on higher education and the topic of innovation in general.
- It's the holiday season, so let's have a bit of horror. Electric Lit has a list of "9 Books About Krampus and Other Holiday Horrors."
- Literary Hub has a lost of their best reviewed scifi, fantasy, and horror for 2020.
- Books in translation. Given all the other types of books I read already, this is an area that often falls off the radar for me:
- Chicago Review of Books lists "13 Books in Translation You May Have Missed in 2020."
- Words Without Borders also has a list of "Best Translation Books You Missed in 2020." I love how here they just automatically assume you missed them.
- In Spanish, El Mundo (Spain) offers "los 30 mejores libros de literatura en español de 2020."
- Latino Rebels offers a list of 21 Best LatinX Books of 2020.
Graphic Novels
- Literary Hub has their best reviewed graphic literature of 2020.
- For a more comprehensive list, Comics Beat has a list of 50 best comics of 2020.
Bookish stuff and trivia
- Literary Hub looks back at the literary people deaths of 2020. Among those we lost this year are Christopher Tolkien, Mary Higgins Clark, Clive Cussler, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Ben Bova, and John le Carré.
- The Associated Press has a look at the resilience of the publishing industry in 2020.
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