Best & Overlooked Books: Suggestions for Good Reads, New Authors, Audiobooks & More

With more people working from home and having more time on their hands, it was a banner year for readers. Our panel will share which books were their favorites of 2020.  And we’ll get some recommendations for some of the best audiobooks of the year.

Heidi Carter, owner of Bogan Books in Fort Kent; former graphic designer/marketing consultant

Susan Conley, author of five books, including "Elsey Come Home" and "The Foremost Good Fortune"; her novel "Landslide" will be published in Feb. 2021

Lewis Robinson, author who currently teaches at University of Maine at Farmington; his works include "Water Dogs" and "Officer Friendly and Other Stories"; he is also the creator of the podcast TalkShop—writers in conversation with writers

Emily Connelly, assistant editor, Audiofile magazine

• "The Bear," by Andrew Krivak
• "The Book of Longings," by Sue Monk Kidd
• "Magic Lessons," by Alice Hoffman
• "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You," by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
• "Be You," by Peter H. Reynolds
• "The Day You Begin," by Jacequline Woodson
• "The Lost Queen" and "The Forgotten Kingdom," by Signe Pike
• "Mill Town," by Kerri Arsenault
• "Friends and Strangers," by J. Courtney Sullivan
• "Almost Maine," by John Cariani
• "Stories of Aroostook" and "True North," by Kathryn Olmstead
• "Ready Player Two," by Ernest Kline
• "The Four Winds," by Kristin Hannah
• "Super Host," by Kate Russo

• "Dear Edward," by Anna Napolatino
• "Memorial," by Bryan Washington
• "Just Us," by Claudia Rankine
• "Notes on a Silencing," by Lacy Crawford
• "The Boy in the Field," by Margot Livesey
• "The Lost Children Archive," by Valerie Luiselli
• "Recollections of My Non-existence," by Rebecca Solnit
• "The Summer Book," by Tove Jansson
• "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents," by Isabel Wilkerson

• "Enter the Aardvark," by Jessica Anthony
• "Sigh, Gone," by Phuc Tran
• "Transcendent Kingdom," by Yaa Gyasi
• "Writers and Lovers," by Lily King
• "Interior Chinatown," by Charles Yu
• "Nothing to See Here," by Kevin Wilson
• "Another Country," by James Baldwin
• "Shuggie Bain," by Douglas Stuart
• "A Promised Land," by Barack Obama
• "Landslide," by Susan Conley

• "Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor," by Layla F. Saad 
• "A Promised Land," by Barack Obama
• "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book," by Ibram X. Kendi, Jason Reynolds

• "Underland: A Deep Time Journey," by Robert MacFarlane
• "The Lost Spells," by Robert MacFarlane
• "Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine," by Gail Honeyman
• "The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone," by Olivia Laing
• "Tales of the St. John River And Other Stories," by Ernest Stanley Kirkpatrick
• "A People's History of the United States," by Howard Zinn
• "Ben of Old Monhegan: A Boy's Life Among the Fisher Folk Off the Coast of Maine," by Sidney Baldwin
• "Unsinkable: Five Men and the Indomitable Run of the USS Plunkett," by James Sullivan
• "A Visit to the Bahamas from A to Z," by Veronica McFall
• "Nine Mile Bridge," by Helen Hamlin
• "My Life in the Maine Woods: A Game Warden's Wife in the Allagash Country," by Annette Jackson
• "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry," by Rachel Joyce
• "One Day in December," by Josie Silver
• "Looking for Travolta: A Ghost Story for Christmas," by Vicki Doudera
• "Rhythm of War," by Brandon Sanderson
• "Hello Darling: Historical Love Letters 1938-1945," by Patricia Schoen
• "On Gilbert Head," by Elizabeth Etnier
• "To Sleep in a Sea of Stars," by Christopher Paolini
• "Eragon," by Christopher Paolini
• "Uncanny Valley," by Anna Wiener
• "We Met in Paris: Grace Frick and Her Life with Marguerite Yourcenar," by Joan E. Howard
• "The Boy Who Knew Too Much: An Astounding True Story of a Young Boy's Past-Life Memories," by Cathy Byrd