BEST BOOKS 2020

"Part memoir and part joyful romp through the fields of imagination, the story behind a beloved pseudonymous Twitter account reveals how a writer deep in grief rebuilt a life worth living"--

"In the late 1930s, civil war gripped Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life irreversibly intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage...

"Hadley Freeman knew her grandmother Sara had lived in France, just as Hitler started to gain power in Europe, but rarely did anyone in her family talk about it. Until long after her grandmother's death, she found a shoebox tucked in a closet. In it was: a photograph of her grandmother with a mysterious stranger; a cryptic telegram from the Red Cross; and a drawing signed by Picasso. This discovery sent Freeman on a decade-long journey, as she tried...

"A sweeping examination of how American racism has broken the country's social compact, eroded America's common goods, and damaged the lives of every American--and a heartfelt look at how these deep wounds might begin to heal" --

"An absentee father collects his son from boarding school after a shocking act of violence. A nanny to a celebrity family hides out in Laurel Canyon in the aftermath of a tabloid scandal. A young woman sells her underwear to strangers. A notorious guest arrives at a placid, not-quite rehab in the Southwest. In ten remarkable stories, Emma Cline portrays moments when the ordinary is disturbed, when daily life buckles, revealing the perversity and violence...

"In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her loveless marriage to join an ashram, endured a brief stint as a beggar (mostly to spite her affluent parents), and spent years chasing after a dishevelled, homeless 'artist' -- all with her young child in tow. Now she is forgetting things, and her grown-up daughter is faced with the task of caring for a woman who never cared for her. This is a love story and a story about betrayal. But not between lovers...

"From prizewinning and first generation Chinese American author Susie Yang comes a delicious debut novel about a young immigrant woman's obsession with her privileged male classmate - and the lengths she'll go to win his love"--

A 1980s cultural assessment of the fantastical future of online behavior continues the story that began in the internationally best-selling futuristic novel, Ready Player One, that inspired a blockbuster Steven Spielberg film. Days after winning control of OASIS, the immersive virtual reality environment in which most of humanity chooses to live, Wade Watts discovers a world-changing technological advancement and draws the attention of a merciless...

"A crackling, satirical debut novel about a young Black man who accidentally impresses a CEO while serving his Starbucks order, catapulting him into the opportunity of a lifetime--a shot at stardom as the lone Black salesman at an eccentric, mysterious, and wildly successful startup where, he will soon learn, nothing is as it seems"--

A chilling and revelatory expose of the KGB's renaissance, Putin's rise to power, and how Russian black cash is subverting the world. In Putin's People, former Moscow correspondent and investigative journalist Catherine Belton reveals the untold story of how Vladimir Putin and his entourage of KGB men seized power in Russia and built a new league of oligarchs. Through exclusive interviews with key inside players, Belton tells how Putin's people conducted...