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Goodreads Staffers Share Their Top Three Books of the Year
Every December, as we wrap up our annual Goodreads Reading Challenge, we ask our book-loving colleagues a simple yet incredibly tough question:
What were your three favorite books you read this year?
Oh, the agony! The internal debates! The anguish we caused our coworkers as they whittled down their lists to just their top few books! Hopefully our carefully considered staff picks will inspire additions to your Want to Read shelf.
You'll notice that our reading habits run the gamut. But careful perusal unveils some office favorites, including lots of love for The Vanishing Half, the novels of Yaa Gyasi, and Ijeoma Oluo's So You Want to Talk About Race.
Now it's your turn! What are your top three books of the year? Please share them with us in the comments!
Oh, the agony! The internal debates! The anguish we caused our coworkers as they whittled down their lists to just their top few books! Hopefully our carefully considered staff picks will inspire additions to your Want to Read shelf.
You'll notice that our reading habits run the gamut. But careful perusal unveils some office favorites, including lots of love for The Vanishing Half, the novels of Yaa Gyasi, and Ijeoma Oluo's So You Want to Talk About Race.
Now it's your turn! What are your top three books of the year? Please share them with us in the comments!
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Your turn! What are your top three reads of 2020? Share them with us in the comments!
Check out more recent articles:
Readers' Most Anticipated Books of December
33 Reader Approved, Highly Rated Fiction to Discover Now
Goodreads Members Suggest: Favorite Very Quick Reads
Comments Showing 151-200 of 314 (314 new)
The Giver of Stars, The Book of Lost Friends, The Book of Longings
1. Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare2. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
3. The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig
Stone Butch Blues, by Leslie FeinbergA Girl Is a Body of Water, by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
The Wood Wife, by Terri Windling
American DirtThe Book of Lost Friends
Where the Crawdads Sing
One for the blackbird, one for the crow/Olivia HawkerThe giver of stars/Jojo Moyes
A passion for nature (life of John Muir)/Donald Worster
1. One by One, Ruth Ware2. The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides
3. Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate, Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross, and From Sand and Ash by Any Harmon
Adult Fiction: The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow
Ohio by Stephen Markley
Young Adult Fiction:
The Toll by Neal Shusterman
Dig by A.S. King
Lovely War by Julie Berry
"The Man Who Invented Christmas" - Les Standiford"Gentle On My Mind" - Kim Campbell
"Finding God's Life For My Will" - Mike Donehey
1. Slade House by David Mitchell2. Oona Out Of Order by Margarita Monticore
3. Full Throttle: Stories by Joe Hill
The New Girl - Daniel SilvaThe Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ruler of England 1327-1330 - Ian Mortimer
The Great Halifax Explosion- John Bacon
1. The Fall of Marigolds (Susan Meissner)2. When Christ and the Saints Slept (Sharon Kay Penman)
3. Along the Infinite Sea (Beatriz Williams)
Disappearing EarthThe Vanishing Half
Say Nothing
The Great Believers- Rebecca Makkai Dear Edward - Anne Napolitano
The Great Alone- Kristin Hannah
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
The Handmaid's Taleby Margaret Atwood
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Dog Runner -Bren MacDibble The Night Tiger - Yangsze Choo
The Best Kind of Beautiful - Frances Whiting
American Dirt by Janine Cummings; Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb; The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
Betty Tiffany McDanielBoy Swallows Universe Trent Dalton
Thirty Girls Susan Minot
Such a hard choice...read a LOT of great books this year, but -1. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
2. Possession - A.S. Byatt
3. All of the Stormlight Archive so far! - Brandon Sanderson
Gone With the Wind by Margaret MitchellAngry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Keeping Lucy by T. Greenwood, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, and The Silent Patient
Snare - SigurdardottirThose who Forget - Geraldine Schwarz
A Dutiful Boy - Mohsin Zaidi
Catch and Kill by Ronan FarrowSmart but Stuck by Thomas E Brown
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
1. Shadows of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón2. Silent Patient by Alex Mich
3. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.
1. Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell2. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
3. The Strawberry thief by Joanna Harris
First History:1. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 by David M. Potter
2. The Lost Soul of the American Presidency by Stephen F. Knott
3. American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump by Tim Alberta
Fiction:
1. Deep River by Karl Marlantes
2. The Son by Phillip Meyer
3.( tie) The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
3. (tie) Big Lies in a Small Town by Diane Chamberlain
The Bryant and May novels by Christopher Fowler
.1. Apeirogon, Colum McCann
2. Q, Luther Blissett
3. A Legacy of Spies, John le Carre
My favourite books that I have read this year (that I have not previously read):1. Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
2. A Woman Is No Man
3. The Body: A Guide for Occupants
Honorable mention:
4. Five Little Indians
Rebel Chef- Dominique CrennFlavor- Yotam Ottolenghi
Over the Top- Jonathan Van Ness
"The Time Capture" by Annie Hoad"What I didn't Tell you," by Sheila Norton
"The Duchess" by Penny Junor
American Dirt by J. CumminsThe Mirror and the Light by H. Mantel
Snuggie Bains by D. Stuart
1) Normal People by Sally Rooney2) The book thief by Markus Zusak
3) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
1. Bone Clock by David Mitchell 2. Cassandra Speaks by Elizabeth Lesser
3. The Origin of Knowledge and Imagination by Jacob Bronowski
3 best this year: Radium Girls (excellent and shocking), Born a Crime (funny and inspiring), and Mississippi Blood (just a good escape into the old, deep South). Am working on The Giver of Stars--it's in the running with Mississippi Blood.
1) The Prisoner in the Tower by Dawn Harris2) Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
3) Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
The Eighth Life, by Nino HaratischviliSaint X, by Alexis Schaitkin
Migrations, by Charlotte McConaughy
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo IshiguroThe Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
1.The Vanishing Half2.Caste
3.The Burning
The Great Wide Open and Isabelle in the Afternoon by Douglas KennedyBecoming by Michelle Obama
Dear EdwardWicked Saints
Flash Burnout
Dear Edward is at the top, Big Brother Lionel Shriver, Half A World Away Mike Gayle.
The Overstory, Richard Powers ;
The NIght Watchman, Louise Erdrich