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The Top Books of 2020

The Books That Made Us Think and Feel This Year

Books helped Arlington readers feel a little more normal this year.

In the words of skilled writers we sought safe spaces in a year of unpredictability. We embraced calm in a year of upheaval and reached for learning in a year of strife. And we found company in a year of solitude.

These are the books Arlington readers turned to the most in 2020. Unsurprisingly, many top fiction titles were part of a series, and many top nonfiction titles reflect a yearning for social justice and a desire for human connection.
Looking for something new? We also put together lists of well-reviewed books that might have flown under your radar in 2020.

Read with the Big Book Club Podcast

Welcome back! Over the next six weeks, or three episodes of the podcast, we’ll be reading – and librarianing the heck out of – the first book in Frank Herbert’s epic Sci-Fi series, “Dune.” We chose “Dune” in part because it’s getting a lot of buzz, first-reads, and rereads this year, due to the new feature film coming out in 2021.

In part one, Megan can’t pronounce any of the made-up names, Pete reminisces about his dad reading “Dune” when he was a kid, and Jenny muses on Cold War politics.

Listen now!

Confronting Racism: Books, Films and More Resources

We have compiled a list of books, movies, podcasts, articles, and organizations where you can learn more about structural racism in the United States, how to engage with and act against anti-black racism, and what you can do to eradicate systematic racism and fight for justice in your community.

Those with the greatest privilege have the most power to make change. When you, your family, and the people around you understand how race, racism, and white privilege impacts society, then you can more effectively engage in the fight against racism.

How to Research Local History from Home

Our Library buildings may be closed, but the Center for Local History has a wide variety of digitized materials that are an excellent resource for local research.

Whether you’re diving into a new project, continuing down a longstanding research path, or just browsing for interesting material, here is a round-up of some of the great materials we have available online:

Oral Histories

Oral histories are used to understand historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of real people’s personal experiences.

The Center for Local History has hundreds of oral histories in our collections, with many of those transcripts available online. These are rich primary sources featuring interviews with civic leaders, government officials, and business owners, painting a vivid picture of what Arlington was like through many decades and perspectives.

Start exploring with interviews from civil rights leader Dorothy Hamm, renowned bluegrass musician Roy “Speedy” Tolliver, or civic activist and beekeeper Floyd A. Hawkins, or any of the many other interviews available.

Historic Newspapers

Newspapers are a great first stop for delving into a given time period. The Center for Local History has copies of the Northern Virginia Sun-Gazette available digitally:

Front page of The Sun from November 5, 1936, after the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to a second term. Available in the CLH’s Community Archives.

The newspapers are accessible by individual issues, and you can browse by an exact date or keyword. (For future use, the Library of Virginia will eventually have these newspapers in their digital collections with extended search capabilities, but this addition is still forthcoming.) These papers are robust resources for Arlington news and other events in the broader NOVA/Washington area.

Our online collection includes copies of the Sun-Gazette from 1935-1978. More recent editions of the Sun can also be found online at insidenova.com.

Genealogy Research

Ancestry Library Edition is currently available with your library card number and PIN, and includes a wide variety of genealogical sources. Ancestry also offers a series of free research guides for those getting started.

Other resources available for genealogical research with your library card include HeritageQuest, and newspaper databases including:

Photographs

Many of our photographic collections have been scanned for online viewing. These visual materials are an excellent way to see how Arlington has changed over the years.

Inspection of Barn at Dairy Farm, 1938

The photos in RG 21 feature the work of the Arlington County Department of Health, 1938-1973. Arlington's Department of Health was the first of its kind in the nation.

"West Side Story, " 1970

Peruse the colorful and creative posters in RG 188, which features about 90 posters made by students at Wakefield High School, primarily from the 1969-1970 school year.

Explore the full list of photographic collections available in the Center for Local History's Community Archives.

Online Exhibits

The Center for Local History has compiled numerous resources around topics relevant to Arlington history in the form of digital exhibits.

Project DAPS is both an online exhibit and searchable database that looks into the desegregation of Arlington Public Schools, with almost 2,000 scanned primary source materials the focus on many aspects of desegregation, including news coverage, legal proceedings, and reactions to this historic event.

The Nauck/Green Valley Heritage Project features a large selection of primary sources, focusing on the history of the Green Valley (formerly Nauck/Green Valley) neighborhood. The goal of this digital repository for images, memories, and documents is to make the history of the neighborhood available to the community.

Through objects donated to the Community Archive, Women’s Work: Stories of Persistence and Influence is an online exhibit that tells the stories of Arlington women and women’s groups who contributed to our community.

Do you have a question about this story, or a personal experience to share? 

Use this form to send a message to the Center for Local History.

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Do you have a question about this story, or a personal experience to share? Use this form to send a message to the Center for Local History.

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Big Book Club Podcast: “Ayiti” by Roxane Gay

Episode 5

Charlotte and Megan sat down with Pete to talk about "Ayiti," Roxane Gay's first volume of short stories.

Originally published in 2011, it was re-released in 2018.

Join the Conversation

We have a Big Book Club Podcast Facebook group and a Goodreads group, or share your thoughts with the hashtag #BigBookPodcast.

Learn more about the Big Book Club Podcast and listen to previous episodes.

Read More

Ayiti: Suggested Further Reading book list

What we're reading next:

Our March Book

Marathon to Go DVD Boxes

4 DVDs Packaged Around a Theme

Planning a staycation or a long weekend? Want to brush up on your French New Wave or get acquainted with a new director?

Check out a Marathon to Go box!

Marathon To Go boxes are sets of 4 DVDs packaged around a theme. They can be placed on hold through the Library catalog, and check out for one week, just like regular DVDs. You'll find Marathon to Go boxes shelved at the Library with our regular DVDs, wherever they get returned.

Browse Marathon to Go DVD Boxes in the Library Catalog

Whether you're in the mood for zombies or New Hollywood; movies with Pride, films directed by Black women or personal documentaries; 80s kids, Spike Lee, Nora Ephron, baseball or space disasters, we've got you covered!

Spotlight on New Hollywood

The New Hollywood period in American cinema lasted from the late 1960s into the early 1980s. Audiences for films had been decreasing as television became more ubiquitous and eventually studio executives threw up their hands and gave a new generation of directors more control over which movies were produced and how they were made.

Check out our New Hollywood boxes for selections from this period.

Younger audiences flocked to these films and many directors made a name for themselves during this period including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and William Friedkin.

Want to read more about New Hollywood? Check out "Pictures at a Revolution" by Mark Harris and "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" by Peter Biskind, from the Library catalog.

Discover New Grab & Go Titles, and Read-Alike Lists

Have you borrowed a popular book or eBook from our Grab & Go express book collection?

Did you love what you read?

Browse our Grab & Go Read-Alike Book Lists to find more great books!

The Library's new Grab & Go collection, which launched last year, gives you quick access to the most popular books and eBooks without having to wait. The express book collection consists of over 900 items, with more on the way.

These New York Times bestselling titles will soon be included: “Such a Fun Age” by Kiley Reid, “Say Nothing” by Patrick Radden Keefe, “The Topeka School” by Ben Lerner, and “Long Bright River” by Liz Moore.

“Six months later, this initiative has been a tremendous success story,” said Peter Petruski, Division Chief for Materials and Technology Management. "Grab & Go books have been flying off our cyber and branch shelves."

Look for the Grab & Go express book collection on designated shelves at Central Library and the Branch Libraries. Grab & Go titles do not display in the online catalog, so the only way to know if a book is on the shelf is the visit the Library!

What Was Most Popular in 2019?

Our Annual List of the 100 Top Titles In Arlington

It's safe to say that Arlington is a reading town - and you have excellent taste!

The 100 most popular titles in 2019 include memoirs, thrillers, history, mythology, dystopia, romance and adventure, as well as magazines, DVDs and a whole lot of Elephant and Piggy!

Which of the Top 100 Have You Read (or Watched)?

The list is organized from left to right, in descending rows: "Educated" had the most checkouts in 2019, "Becoming" had the second most checkouts, etc. Use the genre/format/audience buttons to limit the list to only items within that genre, format or audience.

Please note: As in previous years, the Top 100 of 2019 list only tracks borrowing data for physical materials at all Library locations between January and November.

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