Pile by the Bed reviews and recommends Talk to Me by TC Boyle’s 18th novel, this one dealing compassionately and empathetically with issues of animal exploitation, experimentation and ethics.
Pile by the Bed reviews and recommends A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine (Texicalaan #2) – a worthy sequel to her 2020 Hugo Award Winning debut A Memory Called Empire.
Pile by the Bed reviews Second Place by Rachel Cusk – an rish exploration of life, art, parenthood and gender.
Pile by the Bed reviews The Final Revival of Opal and Nev, Dawnie Walton’s debut which explores issues of racism, gender relations, privilege and entitlement in the context of the story of a pair of 1970s music maker.
Pile by the Bed reviews What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch, the latest novella set in his Rivers of London universe featuring precocious teenager Abigail.
Pile by the Bed reviews and recommends Like Mother by Cassandra Austin – a dark, engaging thematically rich novel with a devastating premise.
Pile by the Bed reviews and recommends The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex – an assured and absorbing debut based on the true story of the locked door disappearance of a group of lighthouse keepers.
Pile By The Bed reviews and recommends Smoke, the fifth book in Joe Ide’s IQ series
Pile by the Bed reviews and recommends Lightseekers the debut crime fiction novel by Nigerian author Femi Kayode
Pile by the Bed reviews and recommends Open Water, the assured debut novel by British author Caleb Azuma Nelson.
Pile by the Bed reviews and recommends the new translation of the ancient English epic poem Beowulf by Maria Dahvana Headley.
Pile by the Bed reviews and recommends The Stranger Times a new comic urban fantasy set in Manchester by CK McDonnell
A pre-apocalypse, the labyrinth, an Australian drought, the US gold rush from a new perspective and an ode to our relationship with trees form Pile by the Bed’s Top 5 reads for 2020, together with six just as interesting and engaging honourable mentions.
Pile By the Bed’s top 5 science fiction books for 2020 and 5 honourable mentions (so actually a top 10).
Pile by the Bed’s top 5 (okay, 6) fantasy novels for 2020 and four honourable mentions.
Pile by bthe Bed reviews From A Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back – forty short stories celebrating the 40th anniversary of arguably the best of the Star Wars films.
Pile by the Bed reviews and recommends Hollow Empire the second in Australian author Sam Hawke’s Poison War fantasy series.
Pile by the Bed reviews The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton, a rollicking historical crime novel with possible supernatural elements and a tip of the hat to Sherlock Holmes.
Pile by the Bed reviews Consolation, the third book in Garry Disher’s Paul Hirschhausen series of Australian rural crime procedurals.
Pile by the Bed reviews Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson, a book that follows the lives of multiple generations of an Aboriginal family living in rural NSW.
