This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2020.
Events
April 14 – Bookshops are among the first few premises permitted to reopen on relaxation of restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. May 26–July 10 – J. K. Rowling releases her new fairy tale The Ickabog in free online instalments during restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. June 25 – Louisa May Alcott's unfinished "Aunt Nellie's Story" (c.1849) is first published, in The Strand Magazine. July 31 – 2020 Booker Prize longlisted (later shortlisted) author Tsitsi Dangarembga is arrested in Zimbabwe as part of a government crackdown ahead of anti-corruption protests. August – The Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, purchases Das Große Stammbuch, an album amicorum compiled by diplomat Philipp Hainhofer, which the library's patron Augustus the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, tried but failed to acquire following Hainhofer's death in 1647. October 13 – A first issue first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone sells at auction in the UK for £60,000 and a copy of Isaac Newton's The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in the 1729 English translation (the second to sell in recent weeks) for £24,000. October 14 – A Shakespeare First Folio sells at auction in New York City for $9.98M (£7.6M) (50% more than the previous copy auctioned in 2001). November 25 – Penguin Random House agrees to acquire rival publisher Simon & Schuster from ViacomCBS for US$2.175 billion.
New books
Dates after each title indicate the first publication, unless otherwise indicated.
ISBN in first citation always refers to the first edition published. Links should point to first edition, though they may point to newer editions by the same publisher. If the publisher does not present the first edition online, a second citation is provided with a link to a newer one on the publisher's site.
OCLC may represent other ISBNs in some cases.
Fiction
Children and young people
Raymond Antrobus – Can Bears Ski? (November 10, UK) Sophie Blackall – If You Come to Earth (September 15) Jordan Ifueko – Raybearer (August 8) Tae Keller – When You Trap a Tiger Jeff Kinney Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Deep End (October 27) Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure (August 4) E. Lockhart – Again Again (June 2) J. K. Rowling – The Ickabog (November, UK, book publication) Trung Le Nguyen – The Magic Fish (graphic novel) Jacqueline Wilson – Love Frankie (August 20, UK)
Poetry
Eavan Boland (died 2020) – The Historians (October 29, UK) Lana Del Rey – Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass (September 29) Carolyn Forché – In The Lateness of The World: Poems (March 10) Srikanth Reddy – Underworld Lit (August 4)
Drama
Ben Elton – The Upstart Crow
David Hare – Beat the Devil
David Williamson – Family Values
Non-fiction
Craig Brown – One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time (April 10, UK) Emily Levesque – The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers Dara McAnulty – Diary of a Young Naturalist (May 21, UK) James Nestor – Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art (May 26) Barack Obama - A Promised Land (November 17, US) Camilla Pang – Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us about Life, Love and Relationships (March 12, UK) Jay Parini – Borges and Me: An Encounter Stuart Ritchie – Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth (July 21, UK) Megan Rosenbloom – Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig – A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America Peter Sloterdijk – Making the Heavens Speak (Den Himmel zum Sprechen bringen) (October 26, Germany) Mary Trump – Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man (August 11) Debora MacKenzie - COVID-19: The Pandemic that Never Should Have Happened, and How to Stop the Next One (June 30) Joseph M. Reagle Jr. and Jackie Koerner - Wikipedia @ 20: Stories of an Incomplete Revolution Xiaowei Wang - Blockchain Chicken Farm
Biography and memoirs
Lee Lawrence – The Louder I Will Sing (September 17, UK)
Films
The Witches
Deaths
Awards
The following list is arranged alphabetically:
