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Your next favorite book
is waiting.
Whether you're wondering if a book might be right for your book club, or you just want to see what others have said about a
book you've read, BookBrowse's Book Club discussions are an excellent resource. In 2020, our members exchanged views on 17 different books.
What sets BookBrowse's Book Club apart from others online is the quality of the discussion. Participants come together with
the intent of sharing and learning from each other, just as they would if they were physically in the same room.
Most of these discussions are now closed for new posts, but you can browse them all to find out what people thought of
each book and discover which topics generated the most lively debate.
There can be few of us who aren't wishing for the Covid-19 pandemic to be over so we can go about our lives again. But when will that be? And will things go back to the same as they were or will there be a "new normal"?
This was one of the topics we explored for our just published "Book Clubs in Lockdown" report based on an October 2020 survey of more than 3,400 book club members, 90% of whom live in the USA. You can download the full report for free at bookbrowse.com/wp/lockdown.
At the time of the survey, three-quarters of respondents were in groups that were currently meeting (and had been doing so through most of the pandemic) but they were meeting very differently from how they did before. Whereas the great majority said their primary book club used to meet in person and indoors, now two-thirds are meeting virtually (almost all on Zoom), and of the remainder, half were meeting outside at the time of the survey (with many eyeing the weather and looking to make new winter plans).
Although a difficult year for many, 2020 turned out to be a great year for excellent books. If you don't already have a stack of
unread books on your nightstand waiting for your attention (or even if you do), you'll definitely want to pick up a few of
these titles from our Best of Year lineup - the highest rated books of 2020, as voted on by BookBrowse subscribers in our
annual Best of Year survey (over 9,400 votes were cast). The books are listed in ratings order lower down this page; but first, the four 2020 Award Winners!
There are many places to find reader reviews on the web, but it can be a challenge to know which are truly independent.
The reader reviews offered through BookBrowse's First Impressions program are trustworthy because only our members can post them. Members have the opportunity to request books to read months ahead of their publication dates in exchange for their honest opinion. They can request specific titles but the books are assigned by an algorithm. So, while it's conceivable that someone with a personal connection to the book might receive a copy to review, the chances of there being enough people to influence the overall consensus is effectively zero.
2020 has been a tough year; we have faced restrictions due to the ongoing pandemic, social unrest, and a bitterly contested and divisive Presidential election in the USA. Many of us have been separated from our family and friends. With so many lives disrupted, we wondered…how has all this impacted readers and particularly those in book clubs? So in October we launched a survey to find out! Within two weeks we had over 4,500 responses, including 3,400 from book club members.
Since then, the BookBrowse team has been working to analyze the responses (there was a lot of information!) to build a clearer picture of how book clubs are reacting to the challenges they've faced this year, and what this might mean for the long term. I want to thank all who took part in the survey, many with very detailed and well-considered comments, through which we've gained many insights that we're eager to share with you.
The "Book Clubs in Lockdown" report is just released and is available to you in full for free. Go to bookbrowse.com/wp/lockdown to download your copy and, when you have, please do share with others.
It's been a challenging year on a number of levels and we hope you've managed to keep your book club going strong as we all rethink and rework the way we live our daily lives. The end of the year is a great time to take stock of your book group and make plans for the future. In this roundup, we recommend a dozen books for your book group in 2021, all of which are newly released in paperback or will be available in paperback soon.
The list features books by award-winning and tremendously popular authors like Elizabeth Strout's Olive, Again and Ann Patchett's The Dutch House, along with some debut novels such as The Yellow Bird Sings by Jennifer Rosner. We also have two young adult recommendations, two mysteries and a good splash of historical fiction; and for nonfiction fans we suggest Richard Askwith's captivating biography of World War II-era horse racing phenom Lata Brandisová, and Anne Gardiner Perkin's biography of the ground-breaking first cohort of women to join Yale in 1969.
All 12 books earned five stars from BookBrowse reviewers, so you can't go wrong whatever you choose. Also, we invite you to check out the selections from our Anti-Racist Reading List which includes books from the past two years that should foster dialogue on current events.
