Exploring Emotional Depths in Literature

Every Fall NPR asks our critics and staff to pick their favorite books from the past year. Those nominations - there's hundreds of them - are then sorted down to a semi-manageable number. This year is our largest list yet with 383 titles.

Click here to visit NPR's Book Concierge for 2020.

The hosts of Consider This all submitted their picks to the list. Here are some of their favorites:

Ari Shapiro recommends Susanna Clarke's novel Piranesi. A mythic story about a man who is disoriented and trapped in a mysterious sort of house.

Mary Louise Kelly has a suggestion great for a book club. Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet explores the connection between what was arguably William Shakespeare's greatest play, Hamlet, and the death of his only son four years before.

Ailsa Chang's pick is a good read for ages 10 and up. Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri takes you on a journey through myth, youth and cultural clash as a young boy and his family flee Iran and end up in Oklahoma.

Audie Cornish chose to share Just Us by poet Claudia Rankine. It's a collection of essays, photos, poems and conversations that Rankine has been having with friends and strangers about race.

In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

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