The Ultimate Fall 2020
Books Preview

Every season brings with it a slew of reading lists, and fall—the traditional season of Big Books—is certainly no exception. But do you really have to read each one to figure out which books to read as the weather forces us inside? Of course not. Because, as usual, I have done it for you.

To create the below list-of-lists, I read 29 lists from digital and print outlets detailing the “best” or “most anticipated” or “recommended” books of fall 2020. That netted a total of 290 different books, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. 68 of those books were recommended at least 3 times, and I’ve listed those here.

One book was recommended 20 times, clearing the rest of the field by at least 2 lists—so in case you didn’t already know, consider this your mathematical proof that Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind is the book of the season. But now, without further ado, the full list:

20 lists:

Rumaan Alam, Leave the World Behind

18 lists:

Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent Kingdom

17 lists:

Bryan Washington, Memorial

15 lists:

Elena Ferrante, tr. Ann Goldstein, The Lying Life of Adults

13 lists:

Marilynne Robinson, Jack

10 lists:

Ayad Akhtar, Homeland Elegies
Emma Cline, Daddy
Danielle Evans, The Office of Historical Corrections
Sigrid Nunez, What Are You Going Through
Claudia Rankine, Just Us: An American Conversation

9 lists:

Tana French, The Searcher

8 lists:

Jess Walter, The Cold Millions
Ruth Ware, One by One
Susie Yang, White Ivy

6 lists:

Fredrik Backman, Anxious People
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Likes
Susanna Clarke, Piranesi
Alyssa Cole, When No One is Watching
Emily M. Danforth, Plain Bad Heroines
Sue Miller, Monogamy

5 lists:

K-Ming Chang, Bestiary
Alice Hoffman, Magic Lessons
Jill Lepore, If Then
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, A Girl is a Body of Water
Peace Adzo Medie, His Only Wife
Sayaka Murata, Earthlings
Aimee Nezhukumatathil, World of Wonders
Anne Helen Petersen, Can’t Even
Megan Rapinoe, One Life
Rebecca Roanhorse, Black Sun
Cecily von Ziegesar, Cobble Hill
Evie Wyld, The Bass Rock

4 lists:

Kerri Arsenault, Mill Town
Mariah Carey, The Meaning of Mariah Carey
David Chang & Gabe Ulla, Eat a Peach
Becky Cooper, We Keep the Dead Close
Ruby Hamad, White Tears/Brown Scars
Hari Kunzru, Red Pill
Aoko Matsuda, Where the Wild Ladies Are
Micah Nemerever, These Violent Delights
Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre

3 lists:

Margaret Atwood, Dearly
Eula Biss, Having and Being Had
John Birdsall, The Man Who Ate Too Much
Rachel Bloom, I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are
Ernest Cline, Ready Player Two
Olivia Dade, Spoiler Alert
Don DeLillo, The Silence
Jane Fonda, What Can I Do?
Emma Glass, Rest and Be Thankful
Max Gross, The Lost Shtetl
Phil Klay, Missionaries
Nicole Krauss, To Be a Man
Laila Lalami, Conditional Citizens
Asha Lemmie, Fifty Words for Rain
Jonathan Lethem, The Arrest
Les Payne and Tamara Payne, The Dead Are Arising
Louise Penny, All the Devils Are Here
Jodi Picoult, The Book of Two Ways
Nessa Rapoport, Evening
Dolores Reyes, Eartheater
Megan Rosenbloom, Dark Archives
V. E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Jerry Seinfeld, Is This Anything?
Namwali Serpell, Stranger Faces
Sarah Smarsh, She Come By It Natural
Nicolas Sparks, The Return
Kevin Young, ed., African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song

The lists consulted:

Vulture’s “19 Books We’re Excited to Read This Fall” • Kirkus’s “50 Most Anticipated Books of the Fall” • Alma’s “Favorite Books for Fall 2020” • Parade’s “Most Anticipated New Fall Books for 2020” • Popsugar’s “35 Picks For the Fall’s Most Exciting New Books” • Observer’s “Best New Books of Fall” • Newsweek’s “25 Must-Read Fall Fiction and Nonfiction Books” • Chicago Tribune’s “Fall 2020 book preview” • O’s “The Best Books of Fall 2020—So Far” • Bustle’s “White Ivy, Plain Bad Heroines & 39 Other Books To Read This Fall” • People’s “The 10 Best Books to Cozy Up with This Fall” • New York Post’s “Here are the novels everyone will be buzzing about this fall” • Los Angeles Magazine’s “8 New Novels You’ll Find Us Curling Up with This Fall” • TIME’s “The 42 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2020” • Newsday’s “Fall books preview 2020” • BuzzFeed News’s “21 New Fall Books You Won’t Want To Put Down” • Town & Country’s “The Must-Read Books of Fall 2020” • Refinery29’s “35 New Books To Read This Fall” • BookPage’s “Most anticipated books of fall 2020” • Washington Post’s “Fall reading: 12 books to keep you occupied for the rest of 2020” • Apartment Therapy’s “6 Fall Books to Curl Up with All Season Long” • Boston Globe’s “20 books we’re excited for this fall” • The Palm Beach Post’s “Say goodbye to summer with these fall book releases” • The Philadelphia Inquirer’ “10 big books for fall 2020” • StyleCaster’s “The Best New Books to Put on Your Fall Reading List Immediately” • The Week’s “21 books to read this fall” • Vogue’s “14 New Novels Vogue Editors Recommend for Fall” • Travel + Leisure’s “The 20 Most-anticipated Books for Fall” and of course, Lit Hub’s “2020 Fall Preview.”