One of the few constants in a world of uncertainty is the continual stream of new books from talented authors. This is the time for those of us who once said that we'd be voracious readers if we only had more downtime at home.

This pick of the best 20 books of 2020 has something for everyone, from important new novels by Brit Bennett and Rumaan Alam to striking debuts by Raven Leilani and Megha Majumdar.

1. Deacon King Kong

By James McBride

The most recent novel by James McBride features one of literature's most vivid towns and a tragic though frequently humorous protagonist. In 1969 Brooklyn, an old church deacon named Sportcoat makes headlines when he murders a neighborhood drug dealer in broad daylight.

In a story that highlights the strength of interpersonal relationships, memory, and compassion, Sportcoat discovers the reason behind the crime, which he can't remember.

2. Homeland Elegies

By Ayad Akhtar

Akhtar's second book, which is both personal and political, has the potential to read like a collection of flawless essays, making it one of the best books for defining a prismatic identity. In the virtuoso chapters that follow, the narrator painstakingly dismantles Walt Whitman's soaring overture to America and sense of national belonging.

Capitalism's allure and destruction, 9/11's wounds, and the bitter medicine of cultural rejection: Akhtar is blunt in his criticism of the most prevalent narratives in the nation. To find the answer to the question, "What does it take to be an American after all," he constantly brings up his father, a Pakistani immigrant and former doctor to Donald Trump.

3. The Vanishing Half

By Brit Bennett

The best book to read is Bennett's carefully crafted novel, which includes characters like a trans man and an actress who ask us to think about how identity is both chosen and enforced and the extent to which "passing" may describe a phenomenon more frequently than we realize.

After her much-praised "The Mothers," Bennett's second book has a polished exterior and captivating plotlines, but beneath it is a thought-provoking study on the potential and constraints of self-definition. Stella and Desiree are twin sisters from a Black Louisiana community during Jim Crow, where the people take pride in their fair skin, and their individual stories are told in alternate sections. The sisters' lives split as Stella decides to pass for white, only for them to unexpectedly converge years later.

4. Hidden Valley Road

By Robert Kolker

The first of Don and Mimi Galvin's 12 children were born in 1945. It turns out that mental disease also ran in the family, as six of the ten Galvin sons had schizophrenia by the middle of the 1970s, in addition to intelligence and good looks. According to Kolker, "schizophrenia is essentially a felt experience for a family as if the family's foundation is permanently shifted."

His work is a masterwork of narrative journalism as well as a case study in empathy; he tells the experiences of the Galvin siblings with great compassion while charting medical progress in the fight against the disease. One of the best books you'll ever read is this one.

5. A Promised Land

By Barack Obama

Obama's memoir follows the tradition of presidential memoirs, which aim to educate, enhance reputations, and, to some extent, influence the course of history. In one of his best books, he invites the reader inside his head as he mulls over critical matters of national security, scrutinizing every aspect of his choices.

He also outlines his thoughts on health care reform and the economic crisis and describes what it's like to go through the grueling legislative process. He writes simply and elegantly, peppering his story with loving family memories and brief biographical sketches of colleagues and world leaders.

6. War

By Margaret MacMillan

Even though it's brief, this best book nonetheless has a great theme. According to MacMillan, considering war as an anomaly is missing the point since it is so closely linked to what it is to be human. In addition to many of the worst catastrophes in human history, war has also produced many of its greatest successes.

Everything we see and do is affected by it; it is ingrained in us. It is all around us. MacMillan has remarkable ease in writing. Almost every page of her book is engaging and, despite the depressing nature of its argument, even enjoyable.

7. Uncanny Valley

By Anna Wiener

However, Wiener's unassuming vantage point proves to be advantageous, offering a singular viewpoint from which to examine her sector. The result is a meticulously documented and subtly scathing exposé of the chasm between a sector's internal injustices and its public idealism.

This book is known among the best books of 2020 of all genres.

8. Shakespeare in a Divided America

By James Shapiro

Shakespeare and America are two enormous cultural hyper-objects that the author examines in this best book to analyze the results of their collision. Every chapter focuses on a different year with a unique theme.

9. Hamnet

By Maggie O’Farrell

This tale provides context and emotion for a historical mystery: how Shakespeare's play "Hamlet," which was written a few years later, may have been influenced by the death of his 11-year-old son, Hamnet, in 1596.

The playwright's hometown is brought to life by Irish novelist O'Farrell in sensual detail, including the smell of fresh leather in his eccentric father's glove shop, the aroma of apples in the storage shed where he first kissed Agnes, the farmer's daughter, and talented healer who becomes his wife, and not least the devastation she experiences when she is unable to save her son from the plague. This finest novel paints a picture of unfathomable anguish encircled in stunning beauty.

10. The Office of Historical Corrections: A Novella and Stories

By Danielle Evans

Danielle Evans is a master of the genre, and her most recent work, Sharp Observations, Perfect Alignment, is one of the greatest.

Evans vividly constructs microclimates that explore the ponderous nature of mourning, the imperceptible border between micro- and macro aggressions, and the fog of relationships with sardonic observation and an ear for the inner and outward monologue.

11. Bestiary

By K-Ming Chang

One of the best books. This captivating, gritty debut explores the queer desires, violent urges, and hidden secrets of one family through the eyes of three generations of Taiwanese American women.

One night, Mother tells her daughter a tale of a tiger spirit that had taken up residence in a human body.

12. Transcendent Kingdom

By Yaa Gyasi

Although sophomore novels are supposedly the hardest to write, Yaa Gyasi makes it seem simple.

The narrative follows Gifty, a gifted Ph.D. candidate who is studying neuroscience in a vain effort to comprehend human misery as it wreaks havoc on her own family. It's impossible to miss this stunning tale about the intersection of science and religion. In conclusion, it's the best book.

13. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

By Deesha Philyaw

The debut compilation by Deesha Philyaw announces the entry of vital new talent. She depicts the demands, desires, and inconsistencies of contemporary Black femininity in this best book's nine exquisite short stories with honest, compassionate prose.

14. Leave the World Behind

By Rumaan Alam

In Leave the World Behind, a couple arrives at the door of a family of four asking for a place to stay as they are leaving for a trip at a secluded but opulent Airbnb. Things are going bad all around them.

These two stranger-filled groups are thrown together in an unsettling and growingly ominous circumstance, heightening the tension. This is the best book ever you'll read.

15. A Burning

By Megha Majumdar

Megha Majumdar establishes herself as a remarkable new talent with this debut novel, one of the best books, which is so incisive and exquisite it feels anything but.

The story, which is set in India, centers on three characters who are inextricably linked to a brutal terrorist attack on a train. Each character is depicted by Majumdar with sad tenderness, and her plot moves quickly without ever losing touch with emotion.

16. Luster

By Raven Leilani

With Luster, Raven Leilani solidifies her reputation as a writer who can wittily and compassionately capture millennial culture and the effects of race and class.

Her main heroine, the twenty-something New Yorker Edie, has a life that is both really out of the ordinary (she moves in with the wife and child of the man she's having an affair with) and eminently relatable (her city apartment issues will have you nodding with sad recognition). The outstanding debut book by Leilani is razor-sharp, hilarious, and transcendent.

17. Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots

By Morgan Jerkins

In this book, the author travels across the nation to examine both the road her family followed and her cultural identity as a Black woman. You will be motivated to learn about your own personal and cultural roots by her eagerness to do so.

18. Sea Wife

By Amity Gaige

To embark on a yearlong Caribbean cruise with their two children, a husband anxious to get away from it all and his reluctant wife leave their Connecticut homes. The husband never comes back.

Amity Gaige's best book, Sea Wife, tells the story from two different points of view, alternating between the wife's memories of what went wrong and the husband's diary entries, both of which go to the heart of everyday marital conflict and the effects of trauma.

19. Drifts

By Kate Zambreno

Drifts take discursive turns into topics including female friendship, writer's block, and jealousy in the workplace.

The narrator, who is navigating pregnancy and job instability, draws inspiration from what she refers to as "the canon of the bachelor hermits." It's ideal for this lonesome, ambiguous moment, similar to reading a string of rambling postcards from your most learned buddy.

20. I Don't Want to Die Poor: Essays by Michael Arceneaux

The excellent follow-up to Arceneaux's 2018 book I Can't Date Jesus, I Don't Want to Die Poor, is one of the best books that examine how the author's student loan debt has affected every aspect of her life.

Many people will be touched by the apparent difficulties of achieving financial security while pursuing their creative passions.

With this list, we have handed you the 20 best-ever books of 2020.

Happy binging!

20 Best Books of 2020 That Will Blow Your Mind