NYWW Board Members offer their personal picks for books of the year
(or of years gone by).
Please buy books from your favorite independent bookstore, or online at bookshop.org.
Most of these NYWW Board Picks are hotlinked to bookshop.org.
Several are not due to lack of availability.
Christina Chiu’s picks
Fiction
Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart
Book of the Little Ax, Lauren Francis-Sharma
The Lazarus Project, Aleksandar Hemon
The Resisters, Gish Jen
The World Doesn’t Require You, Rion Amilcar Scott
Glorious Boy, Aimee Liu
Stay Up With Hugo Best, Erin Somers
Non-Fiction
The Shadow System, Sylvia A. Harvey
Losing the Atmosphere, Vivian Conan
KILO, Toby Muse
YA
Finding My Voice, Marie Myung-Ok Lee
Farah Rocks Fifth Grade, Susan Muaddi Darraj
Taylor Before and After, Jennie Englund
Poetry
Mouth Full of Seeds, Marcela Sulak
Slide to Unloc, Julie Bloemeke
Charles Salzberg’s picks
Fiction
Beauty, Christina Chiu
Madness of the Q, Gray Basnight
Dead West, Matt Goldman
Lucky Bones, Michael Wiley
Nonfiction
Losing the Atmosphere, Vivian Conan
Concealed, Esther Amini
Curious Hours, Casey Cep
The Third Rainbow Girl, Emma Copley Eisenberg
Demagogue, Larry Tye
We Keep the Dead Close, Becky Cooper
Chaos, Tom O'Neill
Tim Tomlinson’s picks
It’s rare that I get to read any year’s current crop of releases. Usually, I’m catching up a year, or two, or ten, later. So rather than give a “best of” list, I’ll identify the ten books that connected with me deeply in 2020.
Frances Kai-Hwa Wang's top 8 book recs of 2020 (and one 2021)
Everything Naomi Loved
by Katie Yamasaki (Author, Illustrator), Ian Lendler (Author)
Norton Young Readers
Children's picture book
Katie Yamasaki’s Murals Probe Complex Issues of Race and Justice, Frances Kai-Hwa Wang in Hour Detroit
"Yamasaki’s children’s picture books also explore themes of race and justice in stories that reflect Detroit and the issues that young people here face today. In Everything Naomi Loved (Norton Young Readers, 2020), for instance, a girl notices changes in her neighborhood as gentrification bears down on it. She decides to paint a mural of everything in her neighborhood that she loves so there will be a record of it. “You might feel devastated that the restaurant is moving, but you can also be painting, and you’re loving painting, and then a dog walks by and licks your leg and that’s hilarious,” she says. “It might feel weird to feel that you’re laughing out loud when something terrible is happening, but that’s just the human experience.”"
Fauja Singh Keeps Going: The True Story of the Oldest Person to Ever Run a Marathon, Simran Jeet Singh (Author), Baljinder Kaur (Illustrator)
Penguin Random House
Children's picture book
The Most Beautiful Thing, Kao Kalia Yang (Author), Khoa Le (Illustrator)
Carolrhoda Books
Children's picture book
David Tung Can't Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets Into an Ivy League College, Ed Lin Kaya Press
Fiction
The Day the Moon Split in Two: A Grief Poetry Collection, Tanzila Ahmed
Independently published
Poetry
Before We Remember We Dream, Bryan Thao Worra (Author), Nor Sanavongsay (Illustrator)
Sahtu Press
Poetry
Xi'an Famous Foods: The Cuisine of Western China, from New York's Favorite Noodle Shop, Jason Wang (Author), Jenny Huang (Photographer), Jessica Chou (Contributor)
Harry N. Abrams Books
Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping (coming January 19, 2021), Matthew Salesses
Catapult
On Writing
Ravi Shankar’s picks
Nonfiction
Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, Isabel Wikerson
As an Indian American, I have to put Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wikerson at the top of my nonfiction books for the year. As she defines it, "caste focuses in on the infrastructure of our divisions and the rankings, whereas race is the metric that's used to determine one's place in that." There are some stunning revelations in that book such as the fact that the Nazi's considered America's "one drop rule," which maintained that a person with any amount of 'black'' blood would be considered so in th eyes of the law, to extreme for their own Arayan ideas! It's necessary reading.
Biography
Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, Heather Clark
This mammoth biograpy recovers the three-dimensionality of a poet who has slipped into popular culture as referrent for madness and suicide, a bleak joke which ignores her extraordinary contriution to literature. I always think of Sylvia Plath when I doubt the aesthetics of detachment because there could never have been an Arial without that tempestuous emotion and re-contextualizes Ted Hughes as neither monster nor martyr, but a flawed man, like Sylvia. Joins the list of very best writers biographies for me.
Fiction
A Burning, Megha Majumdar
Isn't this what we are all afraid of? Social media gone amiss? In this taut and engaging debut novel, the protagonist Jivan is a Muslim girl who is accused of a terroist attack because of naive comment made on Facebook. It is spellbinding and traces the largest themes of extremism and modernity with the most delicate of verbal brushes.
Poetry
How to Wash a Heart (Pavilion), Bhanu Kapil
I'm so glad to see that one of the finest poets of her generation is finally getting the attention that she deserves. This poem is about immigration as a conceptual and metaphoric reality and the formally inventive poem are searing. She nails what it is like to be an artist in lines like:
As your guest, I trained myself
To beautify
Our collective trauma.
YA
Furia, Yamile Saied Méndez
Bend it like Beckham meet Camilla "Furia" Hassan, a headstrong 17 year-old living in Rosario, Chile to an abusive family; this book is polyglot and mixes Spanish words with dialogue and vivid details from the country of Pablo Neruda. Though it's meant for 7th graders, it tackles mature subjects in a sensitive way and it is about the beautiful game, futbol, in a moment when the legend Diego Maradona has just passed away so I have to give this nod to girl power and the idea that a movie about a British Indian teen can become the inspiration for a book about a Chilean teen. Now that rocks!
Translation
The Disaster Tourist, Yun Ko-eun, translated from the Korean by Lizzie Buehler
I realize that a lot of my top choices were going to the big houses, so here's a book by Counterpoint Press that's dark, surrealistic, and timely, offering a take on the #metoo movement that is truly original. Call it a feminist eco-thriller or the newst in a line of strident international voices that are shaking the landscape of US letters, but this book resonates with real power.
Graphic Novel
Flake, Matthew Dooley
Matthew Dooley's Flake which is set in a north English town and full of comic local interactions, pub quizzes and the enduring power of friendship is like watching Wallace & Grommit as claymation. The story is touching and absurd; it's about a man obsessed with ice cream and the illustrations heart-warming which just enough of a sardonic edge to make the action lively, comic and highly relatable.
Most of these NYWW Board Picks are hotlinked to bookshop.org.
Several are not due to lack of availability.
Christina Chiu’s picks
Fiction
Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart
Book of the Little Ax, Lauren Francis-Sharma
The Lazarus Project, Aleksandar Hemon
The Resisters, Gish Jen
The World Doesn’t Require You, Rion Amilcar Scott
Glorious Boy, Aimee Liu
Stay Up With Hugo Best, Erin Somers
Non-Fiction
The Shadow System, Sylvia A. Harvey
Losing the Atmosphere, Vivian Conan
KILO, Toby Muse
YA
Finding My Voice, Marie Myung-Ok Lee
Farah Rocks Fifth Grade, Susan Muaddi Darraj
Taylor Before and After, Jennie Englund
Poetry
Mouth Full of Seeds, Marcela Sulak
Slide to Unloc, Julie Bloemeke
Charles Salzberg’s picks
Fiction
Beauty, Christina Chiu
Madness of the Q, Gray Basnight
Dead West, Matt Goldman
Lucky Bones, Michael Wiley
Nonfiction
Losing the Atmosphere, Vivian Conan
Concealed, Esther Amini
Curious Hours, Casey Cep
The Third Rainbow Girl, Emma Copley Eisenberg
Demagogue, Larry Tye
We Keep the Dead Close, Becky Cooper
Chaos, Tom O'Neill
Tim Tomlinson’s picks
It’s rare that I get to read any year’s current crop of releases. Usually, I’m catching up a year, or two, or ten, later. So rather than give a “best of” list, I’ll identify the ten books that connected with me deeply in 2020.
- Oblivion Banjo, Charles Wright
— a venerable poet’s collected work—quite a volume - Palestine’s Children, Ghassan Kanafani
— a collection from the Palestinian master, including “Returning to Haifa” - Screen Tests, Kate Zambreno
— a trove of difficult-to-define delights - So We Can Glow, Leesa Cross-Smith
— another trove, but with this one you know what you’re reading: a natural born storyteller - Normal People, Sally Rooney
— fiction the old-fashioned way: with a plot; makes you feel like you’re back in 11th grade, and relieved that you’re not - Mean, Myriam Gurba
— a coming-of-age memoir rich with piss and vinegar - Stories & Texts for Nothing, Samuel Beckett
— where so much of today was invented fifty years ago - Paul Klee (Diaries and Theoretical Writings), Paul Klee
— “Often I said that I served Beauty by drawing her enemies…” An important point for the writers of “unlikeable” characters - You Beneath Your Skin, Damyanti Biswas
— a disturbing novel about a disturbing crime against women - Luster, Raven Leilani
— “…a depressing intergenerational love story with a heart of noir…” says Gabino Iglesias of NPR. Who can resist that?
Frances Kai-Hwa Wang's top 8 book recs of 2020 (and one 2021)
Everything Naomi Loved
by Katie Yamasaki (Author, Illustrator), Ian Lendler (Author)
Norton Young Readers
Children's picture book
Katie Yamasaki’s Murals Probe Complex Issues of Race and Justice, Frances Kai-Hwa Wang in Hour Detroit
"Yamasaki’s children’s picture books also explore themes of race and justice in stories that reflect Detroit and the issues that young people here face today. In Everything Naomi Loved (Norton Young Readers, 2020), for instance, a girl notices changes in her neighborhood as gentrification bears down on it. She decides to paint a mural of everything in her neighborhood that she loves so there will be a record of it. “You might feel devastated that the restaurant is moving, but you can also be painting, and you’re loving painting, and then a dog walks by and licks your leg and that’s hilarious,” she says. “It might feel weird to feel that you’re laughing out loud when something terrible is happening, but that’s just the human experience.”"
Fauja Singh Keeps Going: The True Story of the Oldest Person to Ever Run a Marathon, Simran Jeet Singh (Author), Baljinder Kaur (Illustrator)
Penguin Random House
Children's picture book
The Most Beautiful Thing, Kao Kalia Yang (Author), Khoa Le (Illustrator)
Carolrhoda Books
Children's picture book
David Tung Can't Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets Into an Ivy League College, Ed Lin Kaya Press
Fiction
The Day the Moon Split in Two: A Grief Poetry Collection, Tanzila Ahmed
Independently published
Poetry
Before We Remember We Dream, Bryan Thao Worra (Author), Nor Sanavongsay (Illustrator)
Sahtu Press
Poetry
Xi'an Famous Foods: The Cuisine of Western China, from New York's Favorite Noodle Shop, Jason Wang (Author), Jenny Huang (Photographer), Jessica Chou (Contributor)
Harry N. Abrams Books
Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping (coming January 19, 2021), Matthew Salesses
Catapult
On Writing
Ravi Shankar’s picks
Nonfiction
Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, Isabel Wikerson
As an Indian American, I have to put Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wikerson at the top of my nonfiction books for the year. As she defines it, "caste focuses in on the infrastructure of our divisions and the rankings, whereas race is the metric that's used to determine one's place in that." There are some stunning revelations in that book such as the fact that the Nazi's considered America's "one drop rule," which maintained that a person with any amount of 'black'' blood would be considered so in th eyes of the law, to extreme for their own Arayan ideas! It's necessary reading.
Biography
Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, Heather Clark
This mammoth biograpy recovers the three-dimensionality of a poet who has slipped into popular culture as referrent for madness and suicide, a bleak joke which ignores her extraordinary contriution to literature. I always think of Sylvia Plath when I doubt the aesthetics of detachment because there could never have been an Arial without that tempestuous emotion and re-contextualizes Ted Hughes as neither monster nor martyr, but a flawed man, like Sylvia. Joins the list of very best writers biographies for me.
Fiction
A Burning, Megha Majumdar
Isn't this what we are all afraid of? Social media gone amiss? In this taut and engaging debut novel, the protagonist Jivan is a Muslim girl who is accused of a terroist attack because of naive comment made on Facebook. It is spellbinding and traces the largest themes of extremism and modernity with the most delicate of verbal brushes.
Poetry
How to Wash a Heart (Pavilion), Bhanu Kapil
I'm so glad to see that one of the finest poets of her generation is finally getting the attention that she deserves. This poem is about immigration as a conceptual and metaphoric reality and the formally inventive poem are searing. She nails what it is like to be an artist in lines like:
As your guest, I trained myself
To beautify
Our collective trauma.
YA
Furia, Yamile Saied Méndez
Bend it like Beckham meet Camilla "Furia" Hassan, a headstrong 17 year-old living in Rosario, Chile to an abusive family; this book is polyglot and mixes Spanish words with dialogue and vivid details from the country of Pablo Neruda. Though it's meant for 7th graders, it tackles mature subjects in a sensitive way and it is about the beautiful game, futbol, in a moment when the legend Diego Maradona has just passed away so I have to give this nod to girl power and the idea that a movie about a British Indian teen can become the inspiration for a book about a Chilean teen. Now that rocks!
Translation
The Disaster Tourist, Yun Ko-eun, translated from the Korean by Lizzie Buehler
I realize that a lot of my top choices were going to the big houses, so here's a book by Counterpoint Press that's dark, surrealistic, and timely, offering a take on the #metoo movement that is truly original. Call it a feminist eco-thriller or the newst in a line of strident international voices that are shaking the landscape of US letters, but this book resonates with real power.
Graphic Novel
Flake, Matthew Dooley
Matthew Dooley's Flake which is set in a north English town and full of comic local interactions, pub quizzes and the enduring power of friendship is like watching Wallace & Grommit as claymation. The story is touching and absurd; it's about a man obsessed with ice cream and the illustrations heart-warming which just enough of a sardonic edge to make the action lively, comic and highly relatable.