The 47 Most Acclaimed Books of 2020

The acclaimed books on this list have earned multiple honors including; winning an award; making our bestseller’s list, or being selected for inclusion on prominent book club’s reading lists. This list will continuously evolve as we incorporate additional sources to help readers discover excellent books. Print the 2020 reading list, view of collage of 2020’s books, view the complete list from all the years, and enjoy ♥

Fiction – Nonfiction – Children’s – Poetry

19 Fiction Books

Deacon King Kong

The Vanishing Half

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

What A Woman’s Gotta Do

Glorious

The Awkward Black Man

Speaking of Summer: A Novel

American Spy: A Novel

When No One Is Watching: A Thriller

Telephone

They Tell Me Of A Home: A Novel

Step Into a World: A Global Anthology of the New Black Literature

Black Sunday

Wild Seed (Patternist #1)

Voices of the Harlem Renaissance: Originally Published as The New Negro an Interpretation

Transcendent Kingdom

His Only Wife

It’s Not All Downhill from Here

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

11 Nonfiction Books (top)

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

Black Boy

The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations

A Promised Land

Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America

Afropessimism

The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal about Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power

Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream

14 Children’s Books (top)

Lifting as We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box

Me & Mama

When Stars Are Scattered

Nana Akua Goes to School

Dream Builder: The Story of Architect Philip Freelon

Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks

Legendborn

I Am Every Good Thing

The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person

William Still and His Freedom Stories: The Father of the Underground Railroad

A Black Women’s History of the United States

She Was the First!: The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm

King and the Dragonflies

Before the Ever After

3 Poetry Books (top)

The Age of Phillis

Fantasia for the Man in Blue

Pale Colors in a Tall Field: Poems