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My friend hesitated when I asked her to loan me this trilogy last March, because global pandemic + being laid off + having your children at home indefinitely + dystopian series about the end of the world doesn’t equal a nice, relaxing time. But what I needed was a place to escape to plus a kick in the pants, and Jemisin’s award-winning story of a crumbling world — and the deeply flawed, deeply powerful mother-daughter duo intent on reshaping it — gave me both. — Rhianna W.

2020 was a year of a lot of tears for all of the obvious reasons, so I'm thrilled to report that Cemetery Boys was only a source of sorely needed happy tears. If you're in need of romance, mystery, and graveyard gays, let this be your next read. — Rachel M.

Editor's note: This popular title is on backorder and expected soon. Put it on your Powell's Wishlist or get the audio book here.

In this action-packed rom-com with explosions, Ferrett creates real, believable, and engaging characters. Mat is a body-hacker with PTSD and Silvia is an AI-hybrid with panic disorder. I love that both characters are deeply flawed and they have to work together to overcome those flaws to win the day. The action stays tense without being over-the-top, and the romantic story is sweet and genuine. This is a perfect choice for your next escape read, or as a gift for someone who likes their sci-fi with a heavy dose of humor. — Deana R.

Intimations was a salve to my hurting heart during quarantine. I listened to the book on audio first, and Zadie herself actually reads it — her voice is SO soothing! I loved it so much I went and bought a physical copy so I could sit with her words and really soak it all in. Her essays are wise, affirming, and insightful, and I'll always remember this collection fondly as a bright spot in a crazy year. — Carrie K.

In the midst of a deadly pandemic in South Africa, Faith works collecting the dead and sanitizing contaminated areas. This victims of the disease fall prey to uncontrollable laughter before succumbing to fever and death. Laughter is a symptom that can get you quarantined and is to be suppressed at all times. Comedy becomes almost pornographic. The disease causes hallucinations and the characters seem to slip in and out of reality as if in a fever dream. It’s never quite clear if what’s happening is really happening, and the inhabitants of the city struggle to go about their daily lives and find subsistence. I started reading this in March and it was eerily prescient, from the mass production of masks with cutesy prints being sold at every vendor, to the adaptations the inhabitants must make to their everyday lives, to the grim reality of facing so much death. Hugo has done an uncanny job of describing life in a pandemic, but it’s also a lush, imaginative, and magical story filled with singular characters whose lives intersect in the strangest of ways. — Serra T.

In a year as grim as 2020, only the brilliance of a writer like Dubravka Ugrešic could make days so merciless and monotonous any more bearable. In her stunning new essay collection, The Age of Skin (translated from the Croatian by Ellen Elias-Bursac), Ugrešic writes with fervor and flair, in equal measure hilarious and profound. Though often alighting on dark subjects, Ugrešic’s resplendent prose, blazing wit, and luminescent intellect combine to offer a potent salve. — Jeremy G.

If there was a year that needed some escapism this was it. Planet Wax: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Soundtracks on Vinyl was the perfect book to provide a journey into the worlds of retro sci-fi and fantasy art, which at times were probably better than the scores they represented. It had just as much eye candy as its predecessor, Blood on Black Wax: Horror Soundtracks on Vinyl. — Nate A.

This book is a great American novel for right now. Filled with personal tragedy and small triumphs, mythical and personal all at once. — Doug C.

I read this book the week we went into lockdown, and it was exactly what I needed. An incredibly vulnerable graphic memoir by the beloved Wild Unknown artist and tarot creator Kim Krans, this book recounts her "rock-bottom"-type personal crisis, and the intuitive, honest art that helped move her through it. It doesn't shy away from the most difficult, dark feelings associated with her eating disorder, multiple miscarriages, and divorce, but confronts them with humility and grace, transforming them into an original and completely transcendent illustrated story. This book's depth and relatability gave me a sense of hope as the world started to fall apart, and for that I am very grateful. — Ariel K.

Most of my 2020 reading life was spent indulging in the brilliantly presented little histories of thought published by Icon Books as the "Introducing" series. One standout example, Introducing Logic, performed the weird trick of seeming to have been written from inside my head, addressing each of my objections and confusions precisely as they arose. — Jesse I.-H.

I knew I would like this book, but I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did. In many biographies I find myself reading the tales of childhood with impatience, waiting to get to the good stuff of adulthood. That was not the case in Obama’s autobiography. I found every page — from growing up on the South Side of Chicago to fascinating details on how the Secret Service operates — inspiring and perfectly written. Becoming helped me realize there are plenty of very good and ambitious people in this country. — Jeff J.

This is a collection of writing and poetry by mostly local authors, speaking in their own ways about how COVID-19 has affected their personal lives. It is one of the most moving, deep-feeling, soul-touching books that I have ever read, at a time when I needed so much to feel connection and community in the midst of uncertainty, loneliness, and an unexpected growth in, and new understanding of, love. It brought me to tears and made me laugh out loud, sometimes within the same sitting. — Anna A.

Editor's note: This title is out of print. Visit the author's website to request a reprint.

One of the most achingly beautiful and intensely romantic books I've ever read — totally unexpected and deeply, lyrically human, right in the middle of a science fiction story about two far-future agents on opposing sides — one a technotopia, the other an organic hive. If these two opposites can fall in love, then there is hope for all of us. — Warren B.

The English language is a beautiful and eloquent one that finds its best expression in verse. I've always turned to poetry whenever I've wanted to restore my equilibrium, and British poetry, especially verse written between the 16th and 19th centuries, has always provided joy and comfort. The New Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1950 has a nice selection of poems and would be a good anthology to recommend to anyone wanting to (re)discover the pleasures and pertinence of poetry. — Sheila N.

I read Days of Distraction in the eerie, early days of lockdown, as the trees started to bloom and the world fell apart. It's a phenomenal book that precisely captures the main character's uncertainties with her career, interracial relationship, family history, and her broader sense of belonging. It's also a witty, interior, and observant novel with great travel scenes, which turned out to be the right combination to combat (or face?) my existential dread. — Michelle C.

Once our Cedar Hills store reopened, I was so happy to be back in a physical bookstore that I went on a shopping spree and picked up a 50th anniversary edition copy of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. The book is very representative of this moment — everything is backward and upside-down, and the things that are crucial to our lives and well-being are in grave danger. And, this book also felt uncomfortably close to home. With a firefighting daughter on the front lines of COVID-19, it was bizarre and disturbing to imagine her as the protagonist in this story, starting fires rather than fighting fires. Acclaimed as one of Bradbury's best works, Fahrenheit 451 reminded me how lucky I am to freely access an abundance of books (more than I can ever read in my lifetime) and the ideas they contain. — Kim S.

Reading Just Mercy this year rekindled my faith in mankind while teaching me three valuable lessons:
1. The power of collective perseverance is what builds the future.
2. Perseverance is the repetition of hope against odds.
3. No life's wreckage is ever unsalvageable.
— Aubrey W.

Naomi Novik is a drop-all-chores, ignore-the-clock author for me, so I ran straight for the first book in her new series about... wait for it... a magic school for wizards! I know, you’re thinking you’ve been here before, but you really haven’t. The Scholomance is a terrifying place filled with monsters and ambitious teenagers (not the same thing, incredibly), and at its heart is rude, snarky, upright El, who does everything in her power not to give in to her natural predilection for mass violence. So funny, so intricately built, so absorbing (you will read this at the dinner table), A Deadly Education — for all its deadliness — was a much-needed break from the many stresses of 2020. I mean, I’d rather wear a mask than be eternally eaten by a maw mouth, you know?
— Rhianna W.

So many books — and just books in general — felt like a lifeline this year, but one of the things that sustained me the most was getting to read wonderful yet-to-be-published works in progress by some super talented writers in my two different writing groups (yes, we've been meeting virtually). Every one of these writers is skilled, unique, and creative, and reading their words each week has been the best type of escape, but I would love to use this post to give a shout-out to Brian S. Ellis, a poet and novelist whose voice is so particular and full of beauty, whose ability to spin detail into life so complete, that I could read ravenously anything he could ever put on the page. Because the book he's been presenting in group isn't yet something you can pick up at the store and read (sorry), I offer Uncontrolled Experiments in Freedom, which is a great example of just what the brilliant voice and big brain of Brian S. Ellis can do. — Gigi L.

Probably the best book I read this past year is a classic — A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Aside from being an excellent and still timely novel, it was a reminder to me that there have been many other times in history that have been as difficult or even more difficult than 2020. It also made me grateful for the modern technology that we hope to bring an end to COVID-19. In the time of the French Revolution, modern technology was the guillotine! — Genevieve F.

I must admit that I have never read The Iliad myself, but this retelling of the end of the Trojan War from the perspective of a captured Trojan queen was exhilarating. I loved this book for the vivid escapism but also the reminder of the resilience, strength, and courage of mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters throughout history, despite the male-centric narrative of most historical events. — Maarika K.

I recently finished Kurt Andersen's Evil Geniuses and it was the perfect book for making sense of 2020 America. For every time this year that I have thought "How did we get here?" or "Where did we go wrong?" or "How can America be so divorced from reality?" he had an answer. From the dismantling of unions and the deregulation of industry to the rise of nativism and the revival of Gilded Age inequality, he describes how we got to our current divisive, selfish, "neoliberal" moment. He also takes a longer view to describe the ways in which it did not used to be this way and the ways in which it can be undone. A welcome reminder that things can be different for this millennial, who has spent her entire life in the callous world wrought by the titular "Evil Geniuses." — Emily B.

An amazing novel, richly written for all the senses. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World is a vivid story of loss and friendship. It is a gritty novel of place; Istanbul is every bit a character on the page. Lovely, grimy, heartbreaking, and uplifting — this is a book to read for your soul. — Tracey T.

If you’re a fan of Ennio Morricone’s soundtracks, then this is the book you’ve been waiting for! It was a particular highlight this year, since the Maestro passed away in July. A beautiful coffee table book collecting all of his album covers, which is no small feat, seeing as he composed over 400 scores. Included are interviews with the more famous directors he worked with and with the composer himself. An essential addition to your book and music libraries. — Nate A.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah really helped me accept all the sudden changes that unfurled themselves in our lives this past spring. The protagonist, teenaged Leni, moves to a remote town in Alaska when her father is given some property from a war buddy. Leni’s world is turned upside down by events completely out of her control, yet she adapts, and even finds comfort in the unpredictable wilderness. Leni's strong connection to nature in the Alaskan wilderness rekindled my own need to get out in the woods, which eased the sting of losing so many social activities and events. The Great Alone delves deeply into domestic violence and alcoholism, ripping off the veneer of a happy family and exposing the reality of what can happen behind closed doors, yet doesn't ignore the complications of loving someone who is hurting you, something that is so important to be cognizant of. While this story is a work of fiction, it's so often someone's reality with a different backdrop. We all need to look out for each other, and this book serves as a solid reminder of what can happen when you look away. Wrought with emotional highs and lows, it's hard to say that this tale ends on a high note, but it really does. It stayed with me long after I read it. — Summer R.

I really loved The Seep by Chana Porter. It’s really difficult to find utopian sci-fi, and this book was a rare “aliens come to earth and make everything better” story. — Serra T.

I struggled to read in so many reasons: the initial, confusing shutdown in March; the long-overdue nationwide protests for Black Lives Matter and against police brutality; the month when the sky was orange and the air was toxic from massive wildfires; the election and the countless news cycles. I became a regular romance reader this year, because the joyful zaniness of the books could hold my focus and provide an escape that nothing else quite managed. The Worst Best Man has a truly bonkers premise (a wedding planner who must work with the brother of her ex-fiancé, who somehow caused their breakup) and delivers the over-the-top rom-com perfection that I needed. It's delightful and steamy and fun, and became my go-to recommendation for anyone who wanted to to force themselves out of a doom-scroll spiral. — Michelle C.

There's nothing that fuels me like grapevine gossip. And while so much happened this year, my well of gossip was fairly dry... until I read White Ivy. Susie Yang's story perfectly filled that void with drama and plot twists so intense that I will be screaming about it for another two years. — Rachel M.

For years, I've been meaning to read What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, after hearing so many colleagues talk about the book. In August, I was browsing the literature aisles and this particular book was faced out in a beautiful collection of Murakami books, impossible not to see. It was perfect timing because earlier in the year I was forced to take a break from running, my primary form of exercise, due to a shoulder injury. The book not only motivated me to get back into my running routine and hit the pavement, but it was also a delightful, intimate look inside Murakami's world. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who is a runner, and/or who loves Murakami. — Kim S.