Your Best Book of This Unusual Summer
Friday, September 18, 2020
In our September newsletters we asked readers "What was the BEST book you read this summer?" We got a fall harvest-worth of responses! One early respondent made the crucial distinction that best can mean highest-quality or can simply mean most enjoyed, writing, "...it really has been the book I have most *enjoyed* this summer, though others may have been more serious and thought-provoking." Keeping that in mind, here are those best books of both types - old and new, substantial and sparkling. Perhaps someone's great read of the summer past is your next one of the autumn. Many are available as print books, e-books, and/or physical or downloadable audiobooks.
Mentioned By Two or More Readers
- Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing: A Novel
- Erik Larson, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
- Colum McCann, Apeirogon: A Novel
- Silva Moreno-Garcia, Mexican Gothic
- Maggie O'Farrell, Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague
- Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
- Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
- Niall Williams, This is Happiness
Classics and Friends
- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
- Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart
- Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (translated by Edith Grossman) – “With Nicholas Birns,” this reader added, a nod to the Library's summer seminar.
- Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
- John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman
- "Henry James’ shorter novels"
- Philip Lopate, ed., Writing New York: A Literary Anthology
- Toni Morrison, Beloved
- Charles Portis, True Grit
- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace - “Finally, after putting it off for 60 years."
Nonfiction
- David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
- Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House
- Robert A. Caro, Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing
- Arthur Gelb, City Room
- Park Honan, Jane Austen: Her Life
- Samantha Irby, Wow, No Thank You
- Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
- Sy Montgomery, The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness
- Sonia Purnell, A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
- Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America (Watch his Library event on Revolution Song here!)
- Patti Smith, Just Kids
- Andrea Wulf, The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World
Fiction
- Margaret Atwood, The Testaments
- Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half
- Thomas Bernhard, Extinction: A Novel
- Larry Brown, Joe: A Novel
- E.L. Doctorow, The March: A Novel
- Elena Ferrante, The Lying Life of Adults
- Natalia Ginzburg, All Our Yesterdays
- Debra Jo Immergut, You Again: A Novel
- P. D. James, Devices and Desires
- Lily King, Writers and Lovers: A Novel
- Hilary Mantel, The Mirror & the Light
- James McBride, Deacon King Kong
- Andrew Miller, The Crossing
- Kate Reed Petty, True Story: A Novel
- Richard Powers, The Overstory: A Novel
- Etaf Rum, A Woman is No Man: A Novel
- Mémé Santerre/Serge Grafteaux, Mémé Santerre: A French Woman of the People
- George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel
- Lore Segal, Her First American
- Jesse Stuart, Taps for Private Tussie
- Olga Tokarczuk, Flights
Children's Fiction
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