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Book reviews & excerpts from exceptional books set during more than one decade of the 20th Century.

20th Century (multiple decades)

Recommended books found: 449

20th Century (multiple decades) is a members-only category, so your results have been limited to 12 books. If you are a member, please log in. If not, please consider joining today!.

Contrapposto

A Novel

by Dave Eggers

Hardcover: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

A sweeping novel about friendship, love, and the lifelong pursuit of art from Dave Eggers, the award-winning, bestselling author of The Circle, Hologram for the King, and The Eyes & the Impossible.

The Afterlife of Malcolm X

An Outcast Turned Icon's Enduring Impact on America

by Mark Whitaker

Hardcover: May 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

Published to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the first major study of Malcolm X's influence in the sixty years since his assassination, exploring his enduring impact on culture, politics, and civil rights.

Returns and Exchanges

A Novel

by Kayla Rae Whitaker

Hardcover: May 2026

Critics' Consensus:

A sweeping novel of one Kentucky family's rise and fall throughout the 1980s—a tragicomic tour de force about love and marriage, parents and children, and the perils of mixing family with business, from the acclaimed author of The Animators.

Livonia Chow Mein

A Novel

by Abigail Savitch-Lew

Hardcover: Apr 2026

Critics' Consensus:

In the vein of Happiness Falls and Family Lore, a gripping story of family history and political upheaval centered around a Chinese family-owned restaurant in Brownsville, Brooklyn and its impact on the neighborhood's Jewish and Black residents over ...

The Bewitching

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Hardcover: Jul 2025 | Paperback: Apr 2026

Critics' Consensus:

Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in this eerie multigenerational horror saga from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.

Brawler

Stories

by Lauren Groff

Hardcover: Feb 2026

Critics' Consensus:

A stunning, fierce collection from a master of the short story and one of the most important writers of our time.

A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls

Margaret C. Anderson, Book Bans, and the Fight to Modernize Literature

by Adam Morgan

Hardcover: Dec 2025

Critics' Consensus:

The definitive biography of overlooked queer icon Margaret C. Anderson, whose fight to publish James Joyce's Ulysses led to her arrest and trial for obscenity. Perfect for fans of The Editor and The Book-Makers.

Indignity

A Life Reimagined

by Lea Ypi

Hardcover: Nov 2025 | Paperback: Nov 2026

Critics' Consensus:

The author of Free returns with an extraordinary inquiry into historical injustice, dignity, truth, and imagination.

Bad Bad Girl

A Novel

by Gish Jen

Hardcover: Oct 2025 | Paperback: Sep 2026

Critics' Consensus:

The award-winning author of The Resisters returns with an engrossing, blisteringly funny-sad autobiographical novel tracing a tumultuous mother-daughter relationship.

Buckeye

A Novel

by Patrick Ryan

Hardcover: Sep 2025

Critics' Consensus:

"A small-town novel of epic proportions" (Tom Perrotta), this captivating story weaves the intimate lives of two midwestern families across generations, from World War II to the late twentieth century.

A Truce That Is Not Peace

by Miriam Toews

Hardcover: Aug 2025

Critics' Consensus:

Internationally bestselling author Miriam Toews' memoir of the will to write-a work of disobedient memory, humor, and exquisite craft set against a content-hungry, prose-stuffed society.

Everything We Never Had

by Randy Ribay

Hardcover: Aug 2024 | Paperback: Aug 2025

Critics' Consensus:

From the author of the National Book Award finalist Patron Saints of Nothing comes an emotionally charged, moving novel about four generations of Filipino American boys grappling with identity, masculinity, and their fraught father-son relationships.

20th Century (multiple decades) is a members-only category, so your results have been limited to 12 books. If you are a member, please log in. If not, please consider joining today!

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