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Best Books of 2020

The Bentley Library's 12th annual Best Books display.

Introducing the Best Books of 2020

The online Best Books of 2020 display was featured during February 2021. This page is a snapshot of the items included in that display and is no longer updated. Availability of items listed below may vary. If an item is not in our collection that you would like to read, consider placing an Interlibrary Loan request.

We’re celebrating the best of 2020 – best books, that is! Browse below by category (fiction or nonfiction) and format (print or electronic) to see more than 190 titles that appeared on 17 year-end best books lists.*  Click on any book cover image to check current availability and/or place holds.

Bentley students, staff, and faculty can access the titles on the e-books and digital audiobooks lists with a Bentley email address and password. Members of the Bentley community who are enrolled in the University’s COVID screening program are also welcome to visit the library to browse and borrow print books and CD audiobooks from our stacks. If you place a hold on a book, you'll be notified when it is ready to be picked up. Current students, staff or faculty members who are not enrolled in the program may contact Library Services for assistance.

Happy reading!

Fiction (E-Books)

A Burning
All the Devils Are Here
Anxious People
Beach Read
The Beauty of Your Face
Blacktop Wasteland
The Boy in the Field
Broken
Cemetery Boys
A Children's Bible
Clap When You Land
The Cold Millions
Days of Distraction
Dead Land
The Death of Vivek Oji
Devolution
Earthlings
Eight Perfect Murders
Everywhere You Don't Belong
Exciting Times
The Exiles
Feed
Girl Gone Viral
The Glass Hotel
Godshot
Grown
Hamnet
Harrow the Ninth
His Only Wife
Homeland Elegies: A Novel
Interior Chinatown
The Invisible Life of Addie Larue
Leave the World Behind
Little Eyes: A Novel
Long Bright River
Luster: A Novel
The Lying Life of Adults: A Novel
Mexican Gothic
The Midnight Library
Missionaries
Monogamy
Moonflower Murders
My Dark Vanessa
The Night Watchman
One by One
One Fatal Flaw
Party of Two
Piranesi
The Pull of the Stars
Punching the Air
Real Life
Sea Wife
The Searcher
Sex and Vanity
Shuggie Bain
Simon the Fiddler
Such a Fun Age
Survivor Song
These Ghosts Are Family
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
Transcendent Kingdom
The Vanishing Half
Weather
When No One Is Watching
Writers and Lovers
Written in the Stars

Nonfiction (E-Books)

The Address Book
The Biggest Bluff
The Book of Rosy
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Competing in the Age of AI
Dark Mirror
The Dead Are Arising
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
The Decline of Magic
The Dragons, the Giant, the Women
Eat the Buddha
Experimentation Works
Grow the Pie
Here For It
Hidden Valley Road
If Then
Intimations: Six Essays
Joe Biden
Kent State
A Knock at Midnight
Me and White Supremacy
Memorial Drive
No Filter
No Rules Rules
Our Time Is Now
Overground Railroad
A Peculiar Indifference
The Passion Economy
A Promised Land
Reaganland
Rust
The Room Where It Happened
Shakespeare in a Divided America
The Splendid and the Vile
Trade Wars Are Class Wars
Twilight of Democracy
Uncanny Valley
The Undocumented Americans
Untamed
We Are Called to Be a Movement
We Keep the Dead Close
Why We're Polarized

Fiction (Print)

Afterlife
Agency
Amnesty
Anxious People
Beheld
The Boy in the Field
The City We Became
Collected Stories
Conjure Women
Days of Distraction
Deacon King Kong
Dear Justyce
The Discomfort of Evening
Everywhere You Don't Belong
The Exiles
Followers
The Girl with the Louding Voice
The Glass Hotel
Hamnet
Heart of Junk
Homeland Elegies: A Novel
How Much of These Hills Is Gold
Interior Chinatown
The Invisible Life of Addie Larue
The Last Emperox
Leave the World Behind
Long Bright River
Mexican Gothic
Migrations
The Mirror and the Light
Moonflower Murders
The Mountains Sing
The Night Watchman
One Fatal Flaw
Party of Two
Rodham
Sex and Vanity
Shuggie Bain
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
Squeeze Me
Such a Fun Age
These Ghosts Are Family
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
Transcendent Kingdom
The Vanishing Half
What Are You Going Through

Nonfiction (Print)

The Age of Football
Agent Sonya
All the Way to the Tigers
Apollo's Arrow
Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother
Becoming Wild
Being Heumann
Black Spartacus
A Black Women's History of the United States
The Book of Rosy
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Children of Ash and Elm
Children of the Land
Cooking for One
The Dead Are Arising
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
The Dragons, the Giant, the Women
Eleanor
Exercised
Fairest
Five Days
The Folly and the Glory
The Future Is Faster Than You Think
Good Boy
Hidden Valley Road
Hood Feminism
How to Make a Slave and Other Essays
Humankind
I Want You to Know We're Still Here
If Then
Just Us
Katrina
The Man Who Ran Washington
Me and White Supremacy
Memorial Drive
Minor Feelings
The Nation City
One Life
Our Bodies, Their Battlefields
Our Time Is Now
Overground Railroad
A Peculiar Indifference
The Pink Line
A Promised Land
The Purpose of Power
Putin's People
The Rise
The Room Where It Happened
Rust
Sexual Citizens
Solutions and Other Problems
Spies and Scholars
The Splendid and the Vile
The Story of China
Stranger in the Shogun's City
Too Much and Never Enough
The Tyranny of Merit
The Undocumented Americans
Untamed
Until the End of Time
Unworthy Republic
The WEIRDest People in the World
Wild Thing
Yellow Bird
You're Not Listening

Digital Audiobooks

All the Devils Are Here
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Clap When You Land
Deacon King Kong
Hidden Valley Road
His Truth Is Marching On
The Law of Innocence
Mexican Gothic
A Promised Land
Shuggie Bain
The Splendid and the Vile
The Vanishing Half

Audiobooks on CD

All the Devils Are Here
Deacon King Kong
The Night Watchman
The Searcher
The Splendid and the Vile