Our Favorite Indie Books Of 2020

At this point, everyone knows that they should buy books from their local independent bookstores, and, failing that, from small bookstores online. (I'm personally a huge fan of buying books from Pilsen Community Books, which gift-wraps each book they send you! A real treat!) And there's always bookshop.org in a pinch. But, have you paused to consider the importance of supporting indie publishing houses? Perhaps not! But now is the time to do just that. Publishing — like basically every other creative industry — is dominated by mega-corporations, which, yes, often produce wonderful books, but also flood the market with crap released only to help their bottom line (why, yes, I am thinking of all those former-Trump staffer tell-alls).

It's not that every book released by a small publishing house is perfect, but they're almost always better than perfect: They're strange, they're risky, they're singular. Supporting books like these is good for these publishing houses, but it's also good for art, and it's good for opening readers' eyes to those stories that aren't always the most marketable, and are all the more special for it. Here, then, are 15 of our favorite books to come from indie publishers this year.