From The Washington Post: What is the country reading during the pandemic: Dystopias, social justice and steamy romance…  Support our news coverage by subscribing to our Kindle Nation Daily Digest. Joining is free!

This year, perhaps as never before, our reading habits reflect our precarious reality. As the country has muddled through a deadly pandemic and a racial reckoning under a cloud of exhaustion and dread, we’ve used books to escape the present, inform our beliefs and educate our homebound children. We’ve found catharsis in apocalyptic science fiction and comfort in romance; advice in self-help guides and a moment of peace, thanks to children’s activity books. Most strikingly, since the death of George Floyd in May, we’ve flocked to books about race and social justice.

Data collected from publishers, libraries, associations, data firms and readers of our website provide a snapshot of book trends during the spring and summer of 2020. Together, these literary choices mirror our collective mood.

In August, the five most-read authors were:

1. Brit Bennett

“I feel like it’s important in these times to read books about the Black experience in the United States,” Diane Starke of El Paso wrote about “The Vanishing Half.”

2. Ibram X. Kendi

About “Stamped From the Beginning,” Tracy Spangler of South Orange, N.J., wrote: “As a White person, it made me angry and ashamed — that this is the reality, and that I wasn’t taught very much of it as a student growing up here.”

3. Hilary Mantel

Heather Feeney of Meridian, Idaho, remarked on “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies”: “Reading these for the first time (and intending to take up ‘The Mirror & the Light’ very soon) has given me occasion to reflect on my personal values and on my purpose as a government employee in this time of uncertainty, turmoil and even death.”

4. Isabel Wilkerson

“The Warmth of Other Suns” is a “a masterpiece that’s changed and deepened my thinking about racism in America,” wrote Linda Kusserow of Minneapolis.

5. Jeanine Cummins

“‘American Dirt’ was a blisteringly paced thriller with a heartbreaking message,” wrote Shelly Wiltshire of Richmond. “I know it’s been controversial, but I found the insights to the migrant story meaningful and the ‘nowhere else to turn’ scenario horrifyingly relatable.”

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