Book lovers need to read. Book lovers need to get through their reading lists. Book lovers have a terrible habit of never actually getting through their reading lists and instead, simply adding another deeply fascinating and engaging book onto their near-infinite list in the hope that one day, maybe one day, they will finally get around to putting their adoring eyes on the words they’ve waited so long for.
Most book lovers are probably never going to break the cycle.
Most. But not you.
As a book lover myself, I know roughly what the projected time period is between receiving a book recommendation and actually, eventually, acting upon said recommendation. If you’re not one of those supremely diligent people who put the rest of us to shame, then said time period is – at a minimum – half a year. Half a year to finish the five other books you’re currently poring through – half a year to set your sights on even more thrilling worlds.
By recommending these books to read in half a year’s time, book lovers, I have helped you to break the cycle. They’re good books, so you’ll want to get round to them eventually – but they’re so good that you can be certain you will. Here are 5 best-selling books to read in 2020.
Literature is one of the most popular ways we dissect our perspectives on what’s happening in the here and now, and why – and this trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down, ever.
America’s polarisation of its politics has had a profound effect on how we view its future, its past, and its present. It has never been more fractious. In An American Marriage, Jones’ ability to look through the eyes of two ordinary people aspiring to bigger and better things in the country, lets her crafts a prism through which racism and injustice intersect to expose the lie of just how good things are.
2020 will be the year of the presidential election: the US will decide whether it wants to keep its highly controversial, highly emotional, highly powerful incumbent – or it will discard him and embark on, hopefully, a franker conversation about how racism still pervades in all levels of American society today. With this in mind, An American Marriage couldn’t be more timely.
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If you are at all aware of streaming services or have perhaps heard of social media sites in passing, it’s highly likely that you’ve already heard of a TV show Good Omens. One of its main features that social media is frankly melting over, is a sweet relationship between an angel and a demon, played by the ever-delightful Michael Sheen and the constantly thrilling David Tennant.
If these don’t at all ring a bell – then, congratulations, you belong to the very rare 1% of the world currently living in ignorance. You may also be surprised to know that the TV show is based on the highly successful book of the same name, a collaboration between American God‘s Neil Gaiman and the late-but-forever-great Terry Pratchett.
The TV show has seen no end of celebration and applause, for its humour, drama and its endless delights. These are all thanks to the writing of Gaiman and Pratchett and are present from page one of the book.
If you’ve watched the show, and if you’ve never watched it before, Good Omens – the book – is a certified success.
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Even though we read to get away from our ordinary lives, sometimes reading about ordinary life can be just as interesting as reading the next hot sci-fi/fantasy trilogy. Quite often, it’s not the surroundings that make it so engaging; it’s the humans.
Convenience Store Woman, Sayaka Murata’s first novel to be translated into English, bucks this trend. The normal life isn’t the background upon which the plot plays out: for the protagonist, Keiko, her job at a convenience store is one of the only ways in which she can fit in with humanity, simply because the instructions tell her exactly what to do. A veritable oddball of a character, Keiko presents another way to be a human and the difficulties of being another sort of human being when pressured by the rest of society. Eccentric, deadpan and beautiful, Convenience Store Woman may not be a usual choice but that’s exactly why it shines.
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There is no denying that we’re in the Age of Image Control. Through the likes of Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter, we’re all cultivating our own brands, learning how to market ourselves as constantly happy, constantly someone to click on. Social media is a dominant powerhouse in the cultural conversation, this isn’t likely to fade away any time soon.
How Do You Like Me Now? touches on this with no subtlety necessary. A successful memoir writer and self-help star, Tori is torn between performance and reality. Pretending she has a perfect life to fans, she must go back home to the realisation that her boyfriend is not the perfect man she believed she’d ended up with – and that she is as scared as the rest of them. Because her performance is based on authenticity, it is inevitable pressure, when applied, that causes the strictly-set boundaries to fray.
This novel is a stark reminder of how deceiving we can be if we let ourselves if we take things too far. A necessary presence for the Age of Instagram, its caution will not go amiss for any internet-savvy book lover today.
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Literature has its finger on the pulse when it comes to politics, to history; when it comes to society. Its biggest triumph, however, is arguably to dig deep into the human mind, to explore what makes us tick and why we do the things we do – and still make it entertaining.
Our sympathy for grievers comes from our collective kindness, an ability we all possess to feel for people that may not even be real. But what happens when grief causes dire consequences? Reeling from a terrorist attack that changed the path of his life forever, the protagonist Theodore Decker steals a painting and uses it as a crutch for hope as he finds himself in an increasingly dark world.
Threading real-life, heavy situations such as grief and mourning, with a tantalising plot diving deeper and deeper into the crime genre, Tartt delivers a genre-defying book that dares you to put it down.
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