We asked for your favorite new books in 2020. You answered.
Dozens and dozens of titles were submitted as the top of the year.

Recently, local booksellers shared their picks for the best books of 2020.
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Now, Boston.com readers are naming their favorite new titles of the year. Scores of readers responded to our call for recommendations, putting forward a range of fiction and nonfiction titles — from thrillers to beach reads to history to memoirs.
Four new books from the year stood out among the slew of picks for the best books of the year, drawing a handful of selections each from readers: “A Promised Land” by Barack Obama, “Caste” by Isabel Wilkerson, “The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett, and “Hamnet” by Maggie O’Farrell.
Below, we list 79 titles organized by genre and publish date that Boston.com readers say were the best books published in 2020.
Fiction
- “American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins (Jan.)
- “Deep State” by Chris Hauty (Jan.)
- “One of Us is Next” by Karen M. McManus (Jan.)
- “Dear Edward” by Ann Napolitano (Jan.)
- “The Mercies” by Kirin Millwood Hargrave (Feb.)
- “We Ride Upon Sticks” by Quan Barry (March)
- “Serenade for Nadia” by Zülfü Livaneli (March)
- “The City We Became” by N. K. Jemisin (March)
- “The Henna Artist” by Alka Joshi (March)
- “Hamnet” by Maggie O’Farrell (March)
- “Savage Son” by Jack Carr (April)
- “The Book of Longings” by Sue Monk Kidd (April)
- “How Much of These Hills Is Gold” by C Pam Zhang (April)
- “The Index of Self-Destructive Acts” by Christopher Beha (May)
- “Ghosts of Harvard” by Francesca Serritella (May)
- “Exile Music” by Jennifer Steil (May)
- “All Adults Here” by Emma Straub (May)
- “Big Summer” by Jennifer Weiner (May)
- “The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett (June)
- “28 Summers” by Elin Hilderbrand (June)
- “Party of Two” by Jasmine Guillory (June)
- “The Guest List” by Lucy Foley (June)
- “The Invincible Summer of Juniper Jones” by Daven McQueen (June)
- “Mexican Gothic” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (June)
- “Friends and Strangers” by J. Courtney Sullivan (June)
- “Florence Adler Swims Forever” by Rachel Beanland (July)
- “A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor” by Hank Green (July)
- “Midnight Sun” by Stephanie Meyer (Aug.)
- “The First to Lie” by Hank Phillipi Ryan (Aug.)
- “Anxious People” by Fredrik Backman (Sept.)
- “Eli’s Promise” by Ronald H. Balson (Sept.)
- “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig (Sept.)
- “Troubled Blood” by Robert Galbraith (Sept.)
- “Transcendent Kingdom” by Yaa Gyasi (Sept.)
- “All the Devils Are Here” by Louise Penny (Sept.)
- “Here We Are” by Graham Swift (Sept.)
- “One by One” by Ruth Ware (Sept.)
- “The Searcher” by Tana French (Oct.)
- “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” by V.E. Schwab (Oct.)
- “The Sun Collective” by Charles Baxter (Nov.)
- “The Archer” by Paulo Coelho (Nov.)
- “The Awakening” by Nora Roberts (Nov.)
Poetry
- “Swimming Lessons” by Lili Reinhart (Sept.)
- “Home Body” by Rupi Kaur (Nov.)
Nonfiction
- “Uncanny Valley” by Anna Wiener (Jan.)
- “The Splendid and the Vile” by Erik Larson (Feb.)
- “Untamed” by Glennon Doyle (March)
- “Becoming Better Grownups” by Brad Montague (March)
- “Leave Only Footprints” by Conor Knighton (April)
- “Hidden Valley Road” by Robert Kolker (April)
- “Sigh, Gone” by Phuc Tran (April)
- “Hollywood Park” by Mikel Jollett (May)
- “A Most Beautiful Thing” by Arshay Cooper (June)
- “The Buddha and the Badass” by Vishen Lakhiani (June)
- “Collywobbles” by Moshe Cohen (July)
- “Remain in Love” by Chris Frantz (July)
- “A Very Punchable Face” by Colin Jost (July)
- “Memorial Drive” by Natasha Tretheway (July)
- “Too Much and Never Enough” by Mary Trump (July)
- “Entitled” by Kate Manne (Aug.)
- “Liberal Privilege” by Donald Trump Jr. (Aug.)
- “Caste” by Isabel Wilkerson (Aug.)
- “The Quiet Americans” by Scott Anderson (Sept.)
- “The Dynasty” by Jeff Benedict (Sept.)
- “Gods at Play” by Tom Callahan (Sept.)
- “The Meaning of Mariah Carey” by Mariah Carey (Sept.)
- “Eat a Peach” by David Chang (Sept.)
- “Disloyal” by Michael Cohen (Sept.)
- “The Tsarina’s Lost Treasure” by Gerald Easter & Mara Vorhees (Sept.)
- “Once I Was You” by Maria Hinojosa (Sept.)
- “Blackout” by Candace Owens (Sept.)
- “The Tyranny of Merit” by Michael J. Sandel (Sept.)
- “Think Like a Monk” by Jay Shetty (Sept.)
- “Trust” by Pete Buttigieg (Oct.)
- “As Far As I Can Tell” by Phillip Gambone (Oct.)
- “Greenlights” by Matthew McConaughey (Oct.)
- “Traitor” by David Rothkopf (Oct.)
- “101 Things I Learned® In Product Design School” by Martin Thaler, Matthew Frederick, & Sung Jang (Oct.)
- “A Promised Land” by Barack Obama (Nov.)
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