Year 2020

Inside Story by Martin Amis (Knopf) “Fiction is freedom,” Martin Amis tells us repeatedly throughout his self-dubbed “novelised autobiography,” a supposed work of fiction with an index full of real

Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America by Wendy A. Woloson (University of Chicago Press) Part history, part sociology, with some firecracker economic insights to boot, Crap: A History

The Shore by Chris Nealon (Wave) Anti-capitalist poetry—arguably because it is itself the product of consumer capitalism—comes in an extravagant variety of flavors from the subversive head-trips of Allen Ginsberg

How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa (Little, Brown) Canadian poet Thammavongsa, born in Thailand and the daughter of Laotian refugees, makes her fiction debut with this Giller Prize-winning collection,

Island on Fire: The Revolt that Ended Slavery in the British Empire by Tom Zoellner (Harvard University Press) Even during the pandemic, cable-tv watchers get a steady dose of commercials

Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration by Nicole R. Fleetwood (Harvard University Press) That few people believe prisons and museums have much in common is the literal

Homie by Danez Smith (Graywolf) This third, highly anticipated collection of poetry from Smith has been praised for its “startling originality and ambition,” recognized as “deeply moving and funny,” and

Stranger Faces by Namwali Serpell (Transit Books) Namwali Serpell’s provocative collection of speculative essays, Stranger Faces, showcases her originality, clarity, nuanced language, wry wit and cultural range (from Derrida to

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark (Knopf) Before reading Heather Clark’s Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath 

Home Baked: Marijuana, My Mother and the Stoning of San Francisco by Alia Volz (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Ample, skillfully researched, and cleanly narrated, Volz’s debut is really five books in