Celebrating Kirkus’ Best Books of 2020 with honorees Maria Dahvana Headley and Carter Sickels.
As the year-end nears, Kirkus’ editors perform the painstaking process of combing through thousands of positive and starred reviews to determine which are the best of the best. Our Best Books of 2020 lists boast the top 100 titles in children’s, middle grade, YA, nonfiction, and fiction.
On this week’s special episode, editor-in-chief Tom Beer welcomes writer and translator Maria Dahvana Headley (Beowulf, MCD/Farrar); and host Megan Labrise chats with novelist Carter Sickels (The Prettiest Star, Hub City Press). The Kirkus editors Vicky Smith, Laura Simeon, Eric Liebetrau, and Laurie Muchnick each choose an honored title to highlight.
The Best Books of 2020 episode is sponsored by Amazon Original Stories’ new Faraway Collection and Soho Press, publisher of This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing.
Editors’ picks:
The Barren Grounds, from the Misewa Saga series, by David A. Robertson (Puffin/Penguin Random House Canada)
Bearmouth by Liz Hyder (Norton Young Readers)
The Book of Unconformities: Speculations on Lost Time by Hugh Raffles (Pantheon)
The Pull of the Starsby Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown)
Also mentioned in this episode:
Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts From the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History by Catharine Arnold (St. Martin’s)
Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.
