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Here are the Books We Love: 380+ great 2023 reads recommended by NPR

November 20, 2023 • Books We Love returns with 380+ new titles handpicked by NPR staff and trusted critics. Find 11 years of recommendations all in one place – that's more than 3,600 great reads.

11 books to look forward to in 2024

December 30, 2023 • The first few months of the year are stacked with exciting and interesting reads. Get ready for big swings from old pros and exciting new debuts.

Picture This

George takei 'lost freedom' some 80 years ago – now he's written that story for kids.

April 20, 2024 • When actor George Takei was 4 years old, he was labeled an "enemy" by the U.S. government and sent to a string of incarceration camps. His new children's book about that time is My Lost Freedom.

'When I Think of You' could be a ripped-from-the-headlines Hollywood romance

April 18, 2024 • Myah Ariel's debut is like a fizzy, angsty mash-up of Bolu Babalola and Kennedy Ryan as the challenges of doing meaningful work in Hollywood threaten two young lovers' romantic reunion.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Salman Rushdie (April 8, 2024). Nickolai Hammar/NPR hide caption

Consider This from NPR

What happened when the threat of danger became salman rushdie's reality.

April 17, 2024 • Salman Rushdie is probably most closely associated with his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, a book inspired by the life of the prophet Muhummad. The book was notorious not just for its contents but because of the intense backlash, and the threat it posed to his safety and wellbeing.

In Alua Arthur's 2023 TED Talk , she said her ideal death would happen at sunset. Yeofi Andoh/HarperCollins hide caption

Death doula says life is more meaningful if you 'get real' about the end

April 17, 2024 • Alua Arthur helps people plan for death. A big part of her work is helping them reconcile the lives they lived with the lives they might have wanted. Her memoir is called Briefly Perfectly Human.

5 new mysteries and thrillers for your nightstand this spring

April 17, 2024 • These new books will take you from murder in present-day Texas to cryptography in Cold War Berlin to an online community that might hold the solution to a missing-person case.

Watch: Salman Rushdie on the moment he was attacked on stage, and why he felt lonely

April 17, 2024 • Salman Rushdie is a storyteller. So when you ask him to describe the day, in 2022, when he was attacked and nearly killed by a young man with a knife, Rushdie paints a vivid picture.

Lindsey Anderson sits down to read Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina to her children Orion, 6, Arthur, 4, and Thora Hoke, 1, inside the exhibit inspired by the book inside The Rabbit hOle, an immersive museum dedicated to children's literature, in North Kansas City, Mo. Katie Currid for NPR hide caption

The Picture Show

An immersive museum in kansas city allows kids to explore their favorite books.

April 17, 2024 • A new museum in Kansas City is designed for kids to be immersed in their favorite books, including classics like Goodnight Moon.

Cumulative book bans in the United States, July 1, 2021 - December 31, 2023. See the full PEN America report here. PEN America hide caption

Report: Last year ended with a surge in book bans

April 16, 2024 • According to PEN America, 4,349 books were banned from schools between July and December 2023, more than the entire previous school year. More than 3,000 of those bans were in Florida.

Paralympic medalist Scout Bassett's book describes her journey in finding success on and off the track. Elsa/Getty Images hide caption

'Lucky Girl' is the global journey of a Paralympic medalist

April 16, 2024 • In the book, Lucky Girl , Paralympic medalist Scout Bassett says she felt lost until she found running.

It's a wild ride to get to the bottom of what everyone's hiding in 'A Better World'

April 16, 2024 • A very sinister thriller with a dash of science-fiction and full of inscrutabilities, Sarah Langan's novel is as entreating and creepy as it is timely and humane.

Salman Rushdie says writing Knife allowed him to change his relationship to the attack. "Instead of just being the person who got stabbed, I now see myself as the person who wrote a book about getting stabbed," he says. Rachel Eliza Griffiths/Penguin Random House hide caption

Two nights before the attack, Salman Rushdie dreamed he was stabbed onstage

April 16, 2024 • Rushdie was onstage at a literary event in 2022 when he was attacked by a man in the audience: "Dying in the company of strangers — that was what was going through my mind." His new book is Knife .

Why Patricia Highsmith's most famous creature, Tom Ripley, continues to fascinate

April 15, 2024 • Sinister and visually stunning, the new Netflix series Ripley reminds us why Patricia Highsmith's book The Talented Mr. Ripley continues to influence popular culture.

5 takeaways from Salman Rushdie's new memoir 'Knife'

April 15, 2024 • Nearly two years after the renowned author was stabbed on stage in Chautauqua, N.Y., Rushdie's new memoir unpacks everything he's been feeling since the attack.

Doris Kearns Goodwin and Dick Goodwin were married in 1975. Marc Peloquin, courtesy of the author. hide caption

A historian's view of 'an extraordinary time capsule of the '60s'

April 15, 2024 • In her new book, Doris Kearns Goodwin revisits the '60s through her late husband Richard Goodwin's perspective—and her own.

An illustration from his book Rohan Bullkin and the Shadows , by illustrator Rachel Moss. It depicts Juleus Ghunta and his teacher described in his Unsung Hero story. Juleus Ghunta hide caption

My Unsung Hero

Growing up, he struggled to read. then a young teacher saw his potential.

April 15, 2024 • Juleus Ghunta is a published children's author and award-winning poet. But growing up, he could barely read. That was until a teacher saw his potential.

Pop Culture Happy Hour

Books we love: love and romance.

April 15, 2024 • NPR's Books We Love is a roundup of favorite books of the year, sorted and tagged to help you find exactly what you're looking for. From the meet cutes to the happy endings and through all the ups and downs in between, we're recommending great books for people who love love and romance.

In 'Like Happiness,' a woman struggles to define a past, destructive relationship

April 12, 2024 • Ursula Villarreal-Moura's debut novel movingly portrays its protagonist coming to terms with an imbalanced, difficult, and sometimes harmful friendship that was also a key part of her life for years.

'The Familiar' is a romance, coming-of-age tale, and a story about fighting for more

April 11, 2024 • In her new novel, Leigh Bardugo drags readers into a world of servitude, magic, power struggles, and intrigue — one where there isn't a single character that doesn't have a secret agenda.

Excerpts from the works of the 2024 Whiting award winners

April 10, 2024 • The 2024 Whiting Award winners were announced Wednesday night. Below are excerpts from their work.

Book News & Features

10 writers win 2024 whiting awards for emerging authors.

April 10, 2024 • Each writer will receive $50,000 to help support their craft — one of largest awards granted to new authors.

An American hauls in a HA-19 Japanese submarine following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Submarine warfare would prove crucial during WWII. Penguin Random House hide caption

Seizures, broken spines and vomiting: Scientific testing that helped facilitate D-Day

April 10, 2024 • Biomedical engineer Rachel Lance says British scientists submitted themselves to experiments that would be considered wildly unethical today in an effort to shore up the war effort.

Amanda Montell hosts the podcast Sounds Like a Cult . She's also the author of Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism . Kaitlyn Mikayla/Simon & Schuster hide caption

'Magical Overthinking' author says information overload can stoke irrational thoughts

April 9, 2024 • Author and podcast host Amanda Montell says our brains are overloaded with a constant stream of information that stokes our innate tendency to believe conspiracy theories and mysticism.

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John Ferguson is a principled man. But when, in 1843, those principles drive him to break from the established Church of Scotland, the evangelical minister soon finds himself a poor man, too. Stripped...

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In Say Hello to My Little Friend, main character Izzy Reyes traveled by raft from Cuba to the United States in 2003 at age seven with his mother, who drowned during the trip. It is mentioned in ...

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Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.

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The best books of 2021

John le Carré’s final novel, the race to make a vaccine and the conclusion of the groundbreaking Noughts and Crosses series… Guardian critics pick the year’s best fiction, politics, science, children’s books and more. Let us know in the comments what your favourite books have been.

• The Observer’s best books of 2021, chosen by guest authors

Sally Rooney’s much-anticipated third novel, Damon Galgut’s Booker-winning family saga and Kazuo Ishiguro’s take on AI - Justine Jordan chooses the best novels of the year.

Read the full list Best fiction of 2021

Children’s books

Imogen Russell Williams on reimaginings of King Arthur and Medusa, luminous fairytales and the conclusion to the unforgettable Noughts and Crosses series - plus books for young readers by Ben Okri and inaugural poet Amanda Gorman.

Read the full list Best children’s books of 2021

Crime and thrillers

Final outings from John le Carré and Andrea Camilleri, plus three standout debuts - Laura Wilson picks five of the year’s best thrillers and crime novels.

Read the full list Best crime and thrillers of 2021

Science fiction

Adam Roberts selects five of the best science fiction novels of the year - from murder on a spaceship to a feminist utopia.

Read the full list Best science fiction books of 2021

Biography and memoir

Fiona Sturges rounds up the best celebrity autobiographies, from Brian Cox to Miriam Margolyes, as well as a poignant account of a woman who helped Aids patients and terrific studies of DH Lawrence and Barbara Pym.

Read the full list Best biography and memoir books of 2021

The inside stories of Brexit, Sage and Unite, plus a reckoning with Britain’s imperial history - Gaby Hinsliff’s choice of books about politics and politicians.

Read the full list Best politics books of 2021

Nicholas Wroe picks the best books about sport, covering everything from racism on the pitch to the history of female cycling - as well as memoirs by Billie Jean King and Rob Burrow.

Read the full list Best sport books of 2021

Ian Sample on a history of quarantine, a biography of the family that helped to fuel the US opioid crisis and the inside story of how the Oxford vaccine was made.

Read the full list Best science books of 2021

Covid-19 and the climate crisis haunt much of this year’s poetry, including Michael Rosen’s response to his experience in intensive care and Kate Simpson’s hopeful environmentally-themed anthology - Rishi Dastidar picks the best collections.

Read the full list Best poetry books of 2021

Comics and graphic novels

The return of Alison Bechdel, a cold war epic and a nuanced observation of a mother’s illness - James Smart marks a year of excellent graphic books.

Read the full list Best comics and graphic novels of 2021

Alexis Petridis chooses the best books about music and musicians - including Sinéad O’Connor’s striking memoir, Paul McCartney’s autobiography in lyrics and the story of a stolen piece of Nina Simone’s chewing gum.

Read the full list Best music books of 2021

A fascinating memoir of food and grief, Stanley Tucci’s life story in recipes and new cookbooks from Ruby Tandoh and the Ottolenghi test kitchen - Rukmini Iyer selects the best food books of the year.

Read the full list Best food books of 2021

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The 13 Best Book Review Sites and Book Rating Sites

Knowing where to buy books can be challenging. So, here are the best book review sites to help you avoid buying books that you'll regret reading.

Nobody likes to spend money on a new book only to face that overwhelming feeling of disappointment when it doesn't live up to your expectations. The solution is to check out a few book review sites before you hit the shops. The greater the diversity of opinions you can gather, the more confidence you can have that you'll enjoy the title.

Which book review and book rating sites are worth considering? Here are the best ones.

1. Goodreads

Goodreads is arguably the leading online community for book lovers. If you want some inspiration for which novel or biography to read next, this is the book review site to visit.

There's an endless number of user-generated reading lists to explore, and Goodreads itself publishes dozens of "best of" lists across a number of categories. You can do a book search by plot or subject , or join book discussions and reading groups with thousands of members.

You can participate in the community by adding your own rankings to books you've read and leaving reviews for other people to check out. Occasionally, there are even bonus events like question and answer sessions with authors.

2. LibraryThing

LibraryThing is the self-proclaimed largest book club in the world. It has more than 2.3 million members and is one of the best social networking platforms for book lovers .

With a free account, you can add up to 200 books to your library and share them with other users. But it's in the other areas where LibraryThing can claim to be one of the best book review sites.

Naturally, there are ratings, user reviews, and tags. But be sure to click on the Zeitgeist tab at the top of the page. It contains masses of information, including the top books by rating, by the number of reviews, by authors, and loads more.

3. Book Riot

Book Riot is a blog. It publishes listicles on dozens of different topics, many of which review the best books in a certain genre. To give you an idea, some recent articles include Keeping Hoping Alive: 11 Thrilling YA Survival Stories and The Best Historical Fiction Books You’ve Never Heard Of .

Of course, there's also plenty of non-reading list content. If you have a general affinity for literature, Book Riot is definitely worth adding to the list of websites you browse every day.

Bookish is a site that all members of book clubs should know about. It helps you prep for your next meeting with discussion guides, book quizzes, and book games. There are even food and drink suggestions, as well as playlist recommendations.

But the site is more than just book club meetings. It also offers lots of editorial content. That comes in the form of author interviews, opinion essays, book reviews and recommendations, reading challenges, and giveaways.

Be sure to look at the Must-Reads section of the site regularly to get the latest book reviews. Also, it goes without saying that the people behind Bookish are book lovers, too. To get a glimpse of what they’re reading, check out their Staff Reads articles.

5. Booklist

Booklist is a print magazine that also offers an online portal. Trusted experts from the American Library Association write all the book reviews.

You can see snippets of reviews for different books. However, to read them in full, you will need to subscribe. An annual plan for this book review site costs $184.95 per year.

6. Fantasy Book Review

Fantasy Book Review should be high on the list for anyone who is a fan of fantasy works. The book review site publishes reviews for both children's books and adults' books.

It has a section on the top fantasy books of all time and a continually updated list of must-read books for each year. You can also search through the recommended books by sub-genres such as Sword and Sorcery, Parallel Worlds, and Epic Fantasy.

7. LoveReading

LoveReading is one of the most popular book review sites in the UK, but American audiences will find it to be equally useful.

The site is divided into fiction and non-fiction works. In each area, it publishes weekly staff picks, books of the month, debuts of the month, ebooks of the month, audiobooks of the month, and the nationwide bestsellers. Each book on every list has a full review that you can read for free.

Make sure you also check out their Highlights tab to get book reviews for selected titles of the month. In Collections , you'll also find themed reading lists such as World War One Literature and Green Reads .

Kirkus has been involved in producing book reviews since the 1930s. This book review site looks at the week's bestselling books, and provides lengthy critiques for each one.

As you'd expect, you'll also find dozens of "best of" lists and individual book reviews across many categories and genres.

And while you're on the site, make sure you click on the Kirkus Prize section. You can look at all the past winners and finalists, complete with the accompanying reviews of their books.

Although Reddit is a social media site, you can use it to get book reviews of famous books, or almost any other book for that matter! Reddit has a Subreddit, r/books, that is dedicated to book reviews and reading lists.

The subreddit has weekly scheduled threads about a particular topic or genre. Anyone can then chip in with their opinions about which books are recommendable. Several new threads are published every day, with people discussing their latest discovery with an accompanying book rating or review.

You'll also discover a weekly recommendation thread. Recent threads have included subjects such as Favorite Books About Climate Science , Literature of Indigenous Peoples , and Books Set in the Desert . There’s also a weekly What are you Reading? discussion and frequent AMAs.

For more social media-like platforms, check out these must-have apps for book lovers .

10. YouTube

YouTube is not the type of place that immediately springs to mind when you think of the best book review sites online.

Nonetheless, there are several engaging YouTube channels that frequently offer opinions on books they've read. You’ll easily find book reviews of famous books here.

Some of the most notable book review YouTube channels include Better Than Food: Book Reviews , Little Book Owl , PolandBananasBooks , and Rincey Reads .

Amazon is probably one of your go-to site when you want to buy something. If you don’t mind used copies, it’s also one of the best websites to buy second-hand books .

Now, to get book reviews, just search and click on a title, then scroll down to see the ratings and what others who have bought the book are saying. It’s a quick way to have an overview of the book’s rating. If you spot the words Look Inside above the book cover, it means you get to preview the first few pages of the book, too!

Regardless of the praises or criticisms you have heard from other book review sites, reading a sample is the most direct way to help you gauge the content’s potential and see whether the author’s writing style suits your tastes.

12. StoryGraph

StoryGraph is another good book review site that's worth checking out. The book rating is determined by the site's large community of readers. Key in the title of a book you're interested in and click on it in StoryGraph's search results to have an overall view of its rating.

Each book review provides information on the moods and pacing of the story. It also indicates whether the tale is plot or character-driven, what readers feel about the extent of character development, how lovable the characters generally are, and the diversity of the cast.

13. London Review of Books

The London Review of Books is a magazine that covers a range of subjects such as culture, literature, and philosophy. Part of its content includes amazingly detailed book reviews. If you feel that most modern book reviews are too brief for your liking, the London Review of Books should suit you best.

You'll gain insight into the flow and themes of the story, as well as a more thorough picture of the events taking place in the book.

Read Book Reviews Before You Buy

The book review sites we've discussed will appeal to different types of readers. Some people will be more comfortable with the easy-to-interpret book rating systems; others will prefer extensive reviews written by experienced professionals.

Although it’s easy to be tempted by a gorgeous book cover, it’s always best to have a quick look at the book reviews before actually buying a copy. This way, you can save your money and spend it on the books that you’ll be proud to display on your shelves for a long time. And check out recommendations, as well, to help you find what's worth reading.

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The 10 Best Book Reviews of 2023

Parul sehgal on james ellroy, merve emre on italo calvino, namwali serpell on "hit me" novels, and more.

Good book criticism is booming right now. I have at least some degree of confidence in saying this because for the past six years, I’ve been keeping track of my favorite reviews to prepare for these annual roundups, and my 2023 longlist was by far the biggest and most difficult to narrow down.

We’ve lost venues for writing about books (RIP Astra ), but we’ve gained some as well, including a few we feared were dead (welcome back, Bookforum ). But publications aside, the sheer number of critics who take reviews seriously as a genre of creative nonfiction—with attention to style, momentum, humor, and surprise—feels to me like it’s only getting bigger.

Here are my 10 favorite book reviews of 2023, though it easily could have been 100.

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s home for book reviews.

Parul Sehgal on James Ellroy’s The Enchanters ( The New Yorker )

Sehgal is still the GOAT when it comes to writing ledes. This one might be my all-time favorite of hers.

“In the spring of 1995, dozens of snakes appeared on the beaches of Southern California. Panic. A Biblical curse, some held, to punish the wicked. ‘California has been given so many signs: floods, drought, fires, earthquakes lifting mountains two feet high in Northridge,’ the California congresswoman Andrea Seastrand declared. ‘Yet people turn from His ways.’ The Los Angeles Times made soothing noises, counselling against the curse theory. But the obvious person to consult would have been a native son of Los Angeles who saw geography as destiny, who specialized in snakes of all stripes, and whose characters find, in natural disasters, their only competitors in the making of mayhem.”

Merve Emre on Italo Calvino’s The Written World and the Unwritten World , translated by Ann Goldstein ( The New Yorker )

Emre and Calvino are a dream pairing on the level of Scorsese and DiCaprio. I also love her use of second person, which can be as difficult as a broadsword to wield well.

“The bookstore in your neighborhood sits on a busy corner. You pass it on your walk to work in the mornings, and on your walk home in the evenings, and although you sometimes admire the clever geometries of its window display, rarely do you take a closer look. But, not long ago, the sight of a particular book made you pause. Your eye lingered on its pure-white cover and on a curious shape cut into it. Without thinking, you walked into the store. The clerk was working at her computer. The other customers were leafing through books lifted from the great pyramids of new releases on the front table. No one paid any attention to you.”

Phillip Maciak on Jaime Green’s The Possibility of Life ( The New Republic )

I rarely laugh out loud when reading criticism, but Maciak made it happen in this take on one of my favorite books of the year.

“I remember being considerably less excited about seeing Ellie’s dad than Ellie was when I saw Contact in high school… Likewise, I recall being similarly disappointed when Jessica Chastain unravels the mysteries of the universe in Christopher Nolan’s own visually arresting wormhole epic Interstellar, only to realize that the unseen intelligence transmitting messages to her was also, if you can believe it, her long lost father Matthew McConaughey. Are there any aliens out there who don’t look like our dads? My kingdom for a xenomorph!”

Ginny Hogan on Josh Hawley’s Manhood ( The Nation )

Hogan is the other critic who made me laugh out loud this year, right from the first paragraph.

“Josh Hawley, best known for fleeing a mob he helped incite, has written a book on manhood. In Hawley’s defense, he began writing the book before everyone found out about the running-away situation. But it was, unfortunately, after he did the running.”

Namwali Serpell on 10 recent novels ( New York Review of Books )

Serpell’s criticism is written with the same striking, fluid precision as her fiction. It’s impossible to stop reading her once you start. She also coins a new phrase here, ambisextrous .

“Lately there’s been a spate of novels written by young women that have a remarkably similar plot. I’ve been calling them the ‘hit me’ books. Let’s be less incendiary: let’s call them the ‘remaster novels.’”

Michelle Hart on Emma Cline’s The Guest ( Los Angeles Times )

I love it when a critic instills a sense of the author’s style into their own writing, as Hart does here.

“They say not to use high beams in fog. The water vapor refracts the intense glare of headlights back toward the driver in a way that actually decreases visibility. Best, then, to use low light. This is the vibe of a story by Emma Cline, who writes so luminously about the haziness of female desire that even the most revelatory moments unfold in a sort of soft focus.”

Ayesha A. Siddiqi on Zadie Smith’s The Fraud ( Bookforum )

First of all, Bookforum is back! What a treat. Covering a book by a literary powerhouse like Smith is no small task, and Siddiqi adds crucial context on how The Fraud conflicts with Smith’s other writing about art.

“The way Smith treats every detail in her book as equally important forecloses The Fraud ’s potential and exposes how ill served Smith is by her philosophy on fiction. After years of deriding the shallowness of treating art as a site of radical struggle, Smith is left with a book that falters as art because of how shallowly it treats political consciousness.”

J. Howard Rosier on Celes Tisdale’s When the Smoke Cleared ( The Nation )

Rosier is one of our clearest-eyed critics of historical fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and an expert at weaving past narratives together with new insights.

“The smoldering embers of a failed revolution hang over When the Smoke Cleared , a collection of poems by Attica inmates along with Tisdale’s journal entries from the period, as well as a searing introduction by Nowak. Among the many strengths of this anthology is a blunt acknowledgment of the uprising as part of much larger historical mechanisms: namely, the last gasps of the civil rights movement and the nation’s violent reaction to Black liberation.”

Malavika Praseed on Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water ( Chicago Review of Books )

Praseed brings her own experience and historical knowledge to bear in this concise but nuanced look at Verghese’s first novel in 15 years.

“Kerala is a complex region, anchored by its history of multiple religions, competing political ideals, and creative legacy. I have seen these firsthand in myriad visits to my grandmothers’ houses, and heard the stories my mother and father often tell. Verghese brings all these elements to the forefront with numerous plotlines concerning the Saint Thomas Christian faith, the rise of Communism in Kerala, and the inclusion of literary and artistic characters.”

Lauren LeBlanc on Ali Smith’s Companion Piece ( Los Angeles Times )

LeBlanc accomplished the feat of getting me interested in a book I had unfairly dismissed as an optional “spin-off” of Smith’s seasonal quartet.

“It is remarkable to be alive at the same time as Scottish writer Ali Smith. No one else, I would argue, captures our ongoing contemporary nightmare in a manner that is both expansively imaginative and the perfect mirror of its abrupt absurdity.”

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Blog – Posted on Friday, May 01

The best book review sites for enthusiastic readers.

Book lovers, stop us if you’ve heard this one before: you’ve just finished a mind-blowing book and you need to hear some discussion about it. What do you do? Dive straight into the limitless realm of the Internet and search for book review sites, of course. 

Or here’s another scenario: you’ve finished reading a novel and now you’re searching for something to fill the void. Maybe you want more of the same, or maybe something completely different to switch things up. You’ll probably also scour the Internet for ratings and trustworthy recommendations. 

Fortunately, there are endless review blogs and book review sites that you can peruse. Un fortunately, not every one of them features a wide enough variety to help you. But don’t worry: we’ve got you covered with ten of the best book review sites to satisfy the bookworm in you. If you want to cut to the chase and get a personalized pick for a book review site in 30 seconds, we first recommend taking this quick quiz:

Which review community should you join?

Find out which review community is best for your style. Takes 30 seconds!

Then read on for the full explanation of all of the best book review sites out there!

1. Goodreads 

It’s impossible not to mention Goodreads when discussing book communities: it’s the Facebook of book reviews — the ultimate social media platform for bibliophiles. If you’ve somehow managed to go this long without stumbling upon this omnipresent site, here’s the run-down: you can use Goodreads to organize, display, and discuss your virtual bookshelf with other users. 

Goodreads recommendations are based on your listed interests. You can follow authors and book influencers ranging from Celeste Ng to Bill Gates . This allows you to see all their reviews, which vary from compact one-liners to critical analysis, and watch the new reviews roll in. For a quick verdict, just take a look at the star rating that they give the book. 

Also if you like to browse lists, Goodreads compiles the best and most popular books for every genre. There’s also the annual Goodreads’ Choice Awards to celebrate each year’s new releases, where you can cast your vote or peruse the list of contenders to find a new book to read. It’s a site for every kind of reader, with abundant ways to comment and interact. 

2. LibraryThing

This is the OG of all online book catalogues and discussion boards — take a look and you’ll see that it’s an oldie but a goodie. Of course, the basic functions of LibraryThing are rather similar to Goodreads: there are millions of books that readers can add to their lists, as well as review with star ratings.

While the interface harks back to the earlier days of the world wide web, LibraryThing has a secret weapon that’ll appeal to all readers, especially modern ones: their Zeitgeist . This page displays the latest crème de la crème of the whole site, from the most popular books to the hottest reviews , which you can also write with the help of a good book review template . Just a glance shows that the readers here know how to read between the lines and wield their words!

So if you’re hoping to read or share some in-depth literary thoughts with fellow sharp-minded users , LibraryThing is the site to browse. (You can even access it without creating an account!) 

3. Reedsy Discovery 

Now, if you’re searching for some hidden gems to peruse, Reedsy Discovery ’s got your back. While our blog features everything from classics to contemporary hits, Discovery’s specialty is indie publications, many of which are accompanied with succinct comments from experienced reviewers . There’s no better way to broaden your horizon! 

Moreover, if casual and creative reviews are more your cup of tea, then rejoice: the burgeoning community of readers on Discovery can leave comments, one-line reviews, and video reviews (calling all Booktubers!) on just about any book. It’s a fun and interactive way to geek out over your favorite reads and discover all the coolest new titles you won’t find anywhere else.

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4. LoveReading 

Though it’s UK-based, this prolific site caters to audiences around the world. LoveReading is strictly a reviewing site, with a base of staff writers and carefully selected contributors, so you know the reviews are top-notch. The staff often give quite personal reading experiences in their reviews, which make their recommendations very endearing, like they’re from a close friend. They even offer you presents — well, if you think of giveaways as presents! 

LoveReading covers books from every genre you can think of. They also have weekly, monthly, and yearly list features to keep you up to date with the latest stellar releases, so you’ll never be in want of something to pore over. 

5. The Millions 

In search of reviews that really dive into the themes, metaphors, and overall executions of interesting and highbrow books? The Millions has got you covered. 

Written by a collection of seasoned critics, these reviews are speckled with memorable quotes, elegant analysis, and plentiful comparisons to other works — which means extra reading recommendations for you! If contemporary and literary fictions are your go-tos, then The Millions is the site for all your lit nerd needs. 

6. SFBook Reviews 

Those who think quantity and quality don’t go hand in hand, you clearly haven’t encountered SFBook Review . The five reviewers on the team here share two common and important goals: firstly, to follow the outpour of new titles in the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres every year, and secondly, to give thoughtful reviews to as many of them as possible.

This team knows their SFF niches inside out, so their verdicts are very credible. Still, their reviews are quite friendly and personal — they discuss other related books and share their reading experiences to help you make your own reading choices. 

7. Bookpage

Bookpage features all kinds of genres: from children’s books to nonfiction, from the works of household names to debut authors, and so much more. Their format is neat and straightforward — they bring you the volumes they think are most worthwhile, recommending them to you by summarizing and concisely commenting on the prose, the theme, and the plot of each chosen book.

In addition to this, Bookpage also features author interviews and articles that unearth the deeper themes and purposes of certain books. If you’re a true book lover seeking like-minded literary aficionados, this may be the perfect place for you.

8. Book Riot 

Avid readers, you’ve probably stumbled upon Book Riot more times than you can remember. While it’s not a site that individually assesses titles, it has lists for everything — from timeless literary giants to the top books in each genre. What’s more, Book Riot has lots of thinkpieces that dive deep into the way certain titles make readers feel — be it exhilarated, motivated, or enraged — and that’s really all you need to know when deciding to embark on a new reading adventure. 

Additionally, if you’d rather listen to discussions and reviews rather than read them, you'll be happy to know that Book Riot has a range of podcasts for you to choose from. 

9. NetGalley 

NetGalley is another platform bringing you new and unconventional recommendations. They specialize in connecting authors who are publishing to readers who’d like to preview and put in their two cents. While the database of books available here are not the most expansive, those that are featured are certainly worth your time. 

Readers can benefit most from NetGalley via their book recommendation site, Bookish , where the staff reviewers update you with their recent reads and in-depth thoughts on those reads. Along with that, Bookish also has book club kits, equipped with comprehension questions and discussion points, to help readers explore stories mindfully. 

10. BookBub

While it’s very similar to Goodreads, BookBub focuses more on connecting readers to books that might suit them specifically — which is partly why you’ll see plenty of bargains and deals promoted on the site.

Because of this promotional value, BookBub has quite a strong author community. Diana Gabaldon and Gillian Flynn , for instance, are constantly recommending books on their accounts. So if you’d like to tag along with your favorite author, this is an excellent website to visit. The only drawback of BookBub is that they only have community reviews from users based in the US, and you have to sign up in order to read them. 

With these ten sites, you’ll be sure to find your little community of fellow book lovers regardless of what your interests are. Here’s to exciting TBR lists and nourished minds!

If you want to try your hand at reviewing, we’ve got a little guide to help you out ! On the other hand, if you want to plough away at your books, why not consider the Kindle Cloud Reader ?

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The 10 Best Books of 2020

The editors of The Times Book Review choose the best fiction and nonfiction titles this year.

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A Children’s Bible

By lydia millet.

In Millet’s latest novel, a bevy of kids and their middle-aged parents convene for the summer at a country house in America’s Northeast. While the grown-ups indulge (pills, benders, bed-hopping), the kids, disaffected teenagers and their parentally neglected younger siblings, look on with mounting disgust. But what begins as generational comedy soon takes a darker turn, as climate collapse and societal breakdown encroach. The ensuing chaos is underscored by scenes and symbols repurposed from the Bible — a man on a blowup raft among the reeds, animals rescued from a deluge into the back of a van, a baby born in a manger. With an unfailingly light touch, Millet delivers a wry fable about climate change, imbuing foundational myths with new meaning and, finally, hope.

Fiction | W.W. Norton & Company. $25.95. | Read the review | Listen: Lydia Millet on the podcast

Deacon King Kong

By james mcbride.

A mystery story, a crime novel, an urban farce, a sociological portrait of late-1960s Brooklyn: McBride’s novel contains multitudes. At its rollicking heart is Deacon Cuffy Lambkin, a.k.a. Sportcoat, veteran resident of the Causeway Housing Projects, widower, churchgoer, odd-jobber, home brew-tippler and, now, after inexplicably shooting an ear clean off a local drug dealer, a wanted man. The elastic plot expands to encompass rival drug crews, an Italian smuggler, buried treasure, church sisters and Sportcoat’s long-dead wife, still nagging from beyond the grave. McBride, the author of the National Book Award-winning novel “The Good Lord Bird” and the memoir “The Color of Water,” among other books, conducts his antic symphony with deep feeling, never losing sight of the suffering and inequity within the merriment.

Fiction | Riverhead Books. $28. | Read the review | Listen: James McBride on the podcast

By Maggie O’Farrell

A bold feat of imagination and empathy, this novel gives flesh and feeling to a historical mystery: how the death of Shakespeare’s 11-year-old son, Hamnet, in 1596, may have shaped his play “Hamlet,” written a few years later. O’Farrell, an Irish-born novelist, conjures with sensual vividness the world of the playwright’s hometown: the tang of new leather in his cantankerous father’s glove shop; the scent of apples in the storage shed where he first kisses Agnes, the farmer’s daughter and gifted healer who becomes his wife; and, not least, the devastation that befalls her when she cannot save her son from the plague. The novel is a portrait of unspeakable grief wreathed in great beauty.

Fiction | Alfred A. Knopf. $26.95. | Read the review

Homeland Elegies

By ayad akhtar.

At once personal and political, Akhtar’s second novel can read like a collection of pitch-perfect essays that give shape to a prismatic identity. We begin with Walt Whitman, with a soaring overture to America and a dream of national belonging — which the narrator methodically dismantles in the virtuosic chapters that follow. The lure and ruin of capital, the wounds of 9/11, the bitter pill of cultural rejection: Akhtar pulls no punches critiquing the country’s most dominant narratives. He returns frequently to the subject of his father, a Pakistani immigrant and onetime doctor to Donald Trump, seeking in his life the answer to a burning question: What, after all, does it take to be an American?

Fiction | Little, Brown & Company. $28. | Read the review | Listen: Ayad Akhtar on the podcast

The Vanishing Half

By brit bennett.

Beneath the polished surface and enthralling plotlines of Bennett’s second novel, after her much admired “The Mothers,” lies a provocative meditation on the possibilities and limits of self-definition. Alternating sections recount the separate fates of Stella and Desiree, twin sisters from a Black Louisiana town during Jim Crow, whose residents pride themselves on their light skin. When Stella decides to pass for white, the sisters’ lives diverge, only to intersect unexpectedly, years later. Bennett has constructed her novel with great care, populating it with characters, including a trans man and an actress, who invite us to consider how identity is both chosen and imposed, and the degree to which “passing” may describe a phenomenon more common than we think.

Fiction | Riverhead Books. $27. | Read the review | Read our profile

[ See all of our 10 Best Book lists . ]

Hidden Valley Road

By robert kolker.

Don and Mimi Galvin had the first of their 12 children in 1945. Intelligence and good looks ran in the family, but so, it turns out, did mental illness: By the mid-1970s, six of the 10 Galvin sons had developed schizophrenia. “For a family, schizophrenia is, primarily, a felt experience, as if the foundation of the family is permanently tilted,” Kolker writes. His is a feat of narrative journalism but also a study in empathy; he unspools the stories of the Galvin siblings with enormous compassion while tracing the scientific advances in treating the illness.

Nonfiction | Doubleday. $29.95. | Read the review | Listen: Robert Kolker on the podcast

A Promised Land

By barack obama.

Presidential memoirs are meant to inform, to burnish reputations and, to a certain extent, to shape the course of history, and Obama’s is no exception. What sets it apart from his predecessors’ books is the remarkable degree of introspection. He invites the reader inside his head as he ponders life-or-death issues of national security, examining every detail of his decision-making; he describes what it’s like to endure the bruising legislative process and lays out his thinking on health care reform and the economic crisis. An easy, elegant writer, he studs his narrative with affectionate family anecdotes and thumbnail sketches of world leaders and colleagues. “A Promised Land” is the first of two volumes — it ends in 2011 — and it is as contemplative and measured as the former president himself.

Nonfiction | Crown. $45. | Read the review

Shakespeare in a Divided America

By james shapiro.

In his latest book, the author of “Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?” and “1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare” has outdone himself. He takes two huge cultural hyper-objects — Shakespeare and America — and dissects the effects of their collision. Each chapter centers on a year with a different thematic focus. The first chapter, “1833: Miscegenation,” revolves around John Quincy Adams and his obsessive hatred of Desdemona. The last chapter, “2017: Left | Right,” where Shapiro truly soars, analyzes the notorious Central Park production of “Julius Caesar.” By this point it is clear that the real subject of the book is not Shakespeare plays, but us, the U.S.

Nonfiction | Penguin Press. $27. | Read the review

Uncanny Valley

By anna wiener.

Wiener’s stylish memoir is an uncommonly literary chronicle of tech-world disillusionment. Soured on her job as an underpaid assistant at a literary agency in New York, Wiener, then in her mid-20s, heads west, heeding the siren call of Bay Area start-ups aglow with optimism, vitality and cash. A series of unglamorous jobs — in various customer support positions — follow. But Wiener’s unobtrusive perch turns out to be a boon, providing an unparalleled vantage point from which to scrutinize her field. The result is a scrupulously observed and quietly damning exposé of the yawning gap between an industry’s public idealism and its internal iniquities.

Nonfiction | MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $27. | Read the review | Listen: Anna Wiener on the podcast

By Margaret MacMillan

This is a short book but a rich one with a profound theme. MacMillan argues that war — fighting and killing — is so intimately bound up with what it means to be human that viewing it as an aberration misses the point. War has led to many of civilization’s great disasters but also to many of civilization’s greatest achievements. It’s all around us, influencing everything we see and do; it’s in our bones. MacMillan writes with impressive ease. Practically every page of her book is interesting and, despite the grimness of its argument, even entertaining.

Nonfiction | Random House. $30. | Read the review

[ Want more? Check out our list of 100 notable books of 2020 . ]

Illustration by Luis Mazon. Produced by Lauryn Stallings.

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