I 100 migliori libri del 2020 secondo il Times

Ogni novembre, gli editori del New York Times stilano una lista dei 100 migliori libri pubblicati negli ultimi 12 mesi, per poi rivolgere immediatamente la loro attenzione all’anno successivo. Ogni mese si annotano i romanzi e i saggi più interessanti per poi, nel novembre successivo, scegliere quali sono effettivamente i lavori degni di nota.

Il Times ha pubblicato una versione di questa lista ogni anno dal 1968 (anche se le prime erano assai più lunghe) e gli editori affermano che spesso questa ha un grande effetto sulle vendite di un libro piuttosto che un altro.

La lista dei 100 migliori libri del 2020 secondo il Times offre ai lettori contenuti sia senza tempo che estremamente attuali. Include romanzi che sarebbero potuti uscire un anno qualsiasi – come quelli di Hilary Mantel, J.M. Coetzee, Megha Majumdar e Lily King – ma l’elenco riflette anche i temi più importanti di questo anno così difficile.

“La giustizia razziale, l’immigrazione, le divisioni ideologiche, l’identità e le disparità economiche permeano sia il lato di finzione che quello di saggistica dell’elenco di quest’anno”: dice Pamela Paul, la book review editor. Troviamo infatti libri sulla violenza contro i neri americani, sull’alienazione politica della classe operaia bianca americana e altro ancora.

Ci sono persino alcuni romanzi che riescono a parlare della vita durante la pandemia, anche se indirettamente, come il libro di memorie di Ben Ehrenreich sulla vita solitaria nel West americano.

Perciò, senza ulteriori indugi, ecco la lista dei 100 migliori libri del 2020 secondo il Times.

1. The Aosawa Murders,by Riku Onda (Narrativa);
2. The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir, by Michele Harper (Saggistica);
3. The Beauty of Your Face, by Sahar Mustafah (Narrativa);
4. Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace, by Carl Safina (Saggistica);
5. Beheld, by TaraShea Nesbit (Narrativa);
6. The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win, by Maria Konnikova (Saggistica);
7. Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East, by Kim Ghattas (Saggistica);
8. Blacktop Wasteland, by S. A. Cosby (Narrativa);
9. The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination With the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World, by Patrik Svensson (Saggistica);
   
10. The Boy In The Field, by Margot Livesey (Narrativa);
    
11. Breasts and Eggs, by Mieko Kawakami (Narrativa);
12. A Burning, by Megha Majumdar (Narrativa);
    
13. Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party, by Julian E. Zelizer (Saggistica);
    
14. Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson (Saggistica);
    
15. A Children’s Bible, by Lydia Millet (Narrativa);
    
16. Cleanness, by Garth Greenwell (Narrativa);
17. Deacon King Kong, by James McBride (Narrativa);
    
18. The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, by Les Payne and Tamara Payne (Saggistica);
    
19. The Death of Jesus, by J. M. Coetzee (Narrativa);
20. The Death of Vivek Oji, by Akwaeke Emezi (Narrativa);
21. Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, by Anne Case and Angus Deaton (Saggistica);
    
22. Desert Notebooks: A Road Map for the End of Time, by Ben Ehrenreich (Saggistica);
23. Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, by Deepa Anappara (Narrativa);
24. A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J. B. S. Haldane, by Samanth Subramanian (Saggistica);
    
25. The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir, by Wayétu Moore (Saggistica);
    
26. The Duke Who Didn’t, by Courtney Milan (Narrativa);
27. Earthlings,by Sayaka Murata (Narrativa);
28. Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town, by Barbara Demick (Saggistica);
29. The End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking), by Katie Mack (Saggistica);
30. Everywhere You Don’t Belong, by Gabriel Bump (Narrativa);
    
31. Exercise of Power: American Failures, Successes, and a New Path Forward in the Post-Cold War World, by Robert M. Gates (Saggistica);
32. Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-Up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World, by Lesley M. M. Blume (Saggistica);
33. Feed, by Tommy Pico (Poesia);
34. Felon: Poems, by Reginald Dwayne Betts (Poesia);
    
35. The Glass Kingdom, by Lawrence Osborne (Narrativa);
36. The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution, by David Paul Kuhn (Saggistica);
37. Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell (Saggistica);
38. Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, by Robert Kolker (Saggistica);
39. His Only Wife, by Peace Adzo Medie (Narrativa);
40. Homeland Elegies, by Ayad Akhtar (Narrativa);
41. How Much of These Hills Is Gold, by C Pam Zhang (Narrativa);
42. Hurricane Season, by Fernanda Melchor (Narrativa);
43. The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World, by Barry Gewen (Saggistica);
44. Jack, by Marilynne Robinson (Narrativa);
45. Just Us: An American Conversation, by Claudia Rankine (Saggistica);
46. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, by Cho Nam-Joo (Narrativa);
47. The King at the Edge of the World, by Arthur Phillips (Narrativa);
48. Little Eyes, by Samanta Schweblin (Narrativa);
49. The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist, by Adrian Tomine (Saggistica);
50. Luster, by Raven Leilani (Narrativa);
51. Man of My Time, by Dalia Sofer (Narrativa);
52. The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III, by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser (Saggistica);
53. Memorial, by Bryan Washington (Narrativa);
54. Memorial Drive: A Memoir, by Natasha Trethewey (Saggistica);
55. The Memory Monster, by Yishai Sarid (Narrativa);
56. The Mercies, by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Narrativa);
57. Minor Detail,by Adania Shibli (Narrativa);
58. The Mirror & the Light, by Hilary Mantel (Narrativa);
59. Missionaries, by Phil Klay (Narrativa);
60. Monogamy, by Sue Miller (Narrativa);
61. 97,196 Words: Essays, by Emmanuel Carrère (Saggistica);
62. Notes on a Silencing: A Memoir, by Lacy Crawford (Saggistica);
63. Obit: Poems, by Victoria Chang (Poesia);
64. Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America, by Candacy Taylor (Saggistica);
65. Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl, by Jonathan C. Slaght (Saggistica);
66. A Peculiar Indifference: The Neglected Toll of Violence on Black America,by Elliott Currie (Saggistica);
67. A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith, by Timothy Egan (Saggistica);
68. A Promised Land, by Barack Obama (Saggistica);
69. The Quiet Americans: Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War — a Tragedy in Three Acts, by Scott Anderson (Saggistica);
70. Reaganland: America’s Right Turn, 1976-1980, by Rick Perlstein (Saggistica);
71. Real Life, by Brandon Taylor (Narrativa);
72. Red Pill, by Hari Kunzru (Narrativa);
73. The Saddest Words: William Faulkner’s Civil War, by Michael Gorra (Saggistica);
74. Saint X, by Alexis Schaitkin (Narrativa);
75. Sea Wife, by Amity Gaige (Narrativa);
76. The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison, edited by John F. Callahan and Marc C. Conner (Saggistica);
77. Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future, by James Shapiro (Saggistica);
78. Sharks in the Time of Saviors, by Kawai Strong Washburn (Narrativa);
79. Shuggie Bain, by Douglas Stuart (Narrativa);
80. The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World, by Sarah Stewart Johnson (Saggistica);
81. Sisters, by Daisy Johnson (Narrativa);
82. Soul Full of Coal Dust: A Fight for Breath and Justice in Appalachia, by Chris Hamby (Saggistica);
    
83. The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, by Erik Larson (Saggistica);
84. The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia, by Emma Copley Eisenberg (Saggistica);
85. This Is All I Got: A New Mother’s Search for Home, by Lauren Sandler (Saggistica);
86. Tokyo Ueno Station, by Yu Miri (Narrativa);
87. The Tunnel, by A. B. Yehoshu (Narrativa);
88. Uncanny Valley: A Memoir, by Anna Wiener (Saggistica);
89. The Undocumented Americans, by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (Saggistica);
90. Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe, by Brian Greene (Saggistica);
91. The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett (Narrativa);
92. The Vapors: A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America’s Forgotten Capital of Vice, by David Hill (Saggistica);
93. Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music, by Alex Ross (Saggistica);
94. War: How Conflict Shaped Us, by Margaret MacMillan (Saggistica);
95. The Weirdest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous, by Joseph Henrich (Saggistica);
96. Who Gets in and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions, by Jeffrey Selingo (Saggistica);
97. Why I Don’t Write: And Other Stories, by Susan Minot (Narrativa);
98. A Woman Like Her: The Story Behind the Honor Killing of a Social Media Star, by Sanam Maher (Saggistica);
99. Writers & Lovers, by Lily King (Narrativa);
100. Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country, by Sierra Crane Murdoch (Saggistica);

Leggi anche: Le 10 librerie più belle del mondo