Well, we made it. The end of 2020 is finally in sight, and never before have we been so grateful for outstanding books. If nothing else, this year has reinforced the power of books to sustain us and guide us during difficult times, and they have provided us with opportunities to both grow and escape.

With that in mind, we're delighted to announce our 2020 Award Winners, our full list of Top 20 Books of 2020, and we look ahead to the Best Books for Book Clubs in 2021.

 

As a special gift, we are also sharing our new research report Book Clubs in Lockdown, which you can download for free. And we invite you to join our upcoming webinar -- Building Community Through Book Clubs (we'll have more dates in the new year).

Then, for a little festive fun, we invite you to play our annual Big Holiday Wordplay and, we preview next month's new and notable books.

Lastly, don't forget! Our fall sale ends soon! Make sure to sign up before the end of December.

Wishing you a cozy and peaceful holiday season -- and an uplifting New Year.

Elena Spagnolie, Library Specialist

Here they are! The 2020 Award Winners -- top nonfiction, fiction, debut and YA picks -- as voted by BookBrowse subscribers in our annual Best of Year survey (over 9,400 votes were cast). Each book has a review, excerpt and "beyond the book" article.

There were so many great books that were voted on and we wanted to share the full top 20 list with you! Below is the full list of BookBrowse's highest rated books of 2020, in ratings order:

BookBrowse's Awards are different to other popular awards for two reasons. Firstly, voting is only open to BookBrowse subscribers - so there is no vote stuffing by rabid fan bases. Secondly, instead of just voting for a book (which favors the most widely read titles) participants rate each book they've read that is on the shortlist, and the winners are the books with the highest overall rating. More about the process.

Curious about past winners? You can browse 16 years of Award Winners and 21 years of Favorites on BookBrowse.

Topics include:

We will set up more dates early in the new year

BookBrowse for Libraries is a curated, budget-friendly readers' advisory resource that specializes in enriching supplementary materials for readers and features over 20 years of hand-selected recommendations across a range of genres. A perfect resource for book club members and busy librarians responsible for collection development.

Check to see if your library subscribes and if it does, access for free with your library card: bookbrowse.com/library

Here is a sample of libraries that currently subscribe:

If your library doesn't subscribe, suggest BookBrowse as a resource for purchase or join as an individual member!

From the many books that will publish in January, we currently list 65 of particular note (and more will be added over the coming weeks).

Below is a small sample; click the jackets for more information on those particular titles, or go straight to our January books page.

Subscribers (both individuals, and patrons and librarians of subscribing libraries) can see and sort the full list by date and genre. They can also download the list in spreadsheet format, including ISBN, publisher, genre, page count, etc.

Non-members can see and sort books by month up until the current month.

If you are not interested in receiving library related emails, click here and you will be removed from future communications. If you wish to be removed from all BookBrowse mailings, click unsubscribe below.