Ep. 143 The Best of 2020 with Christine Bollow and Oscar Almonte-Espinal

Today we’re joined by two of The Stacks’ most favorite readers, Christine Bollow (@readingismagical) and Oscar Almonte-Espinal (@booksteahenny) to share the best books of 2020. We also discuss how 2020 impacted our reading and look ahead to the books we’re most excited about in 2021.

The Stacks Book Club selection for December is Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine, we will discuss the book with Darnell Moore on December 30th.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes. You can also find everything we talked about on Amazon.

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Connect with Christine: Instagram | Twitter

Connect with Oscar: Instagram | Twitter

Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Apple Podcasts | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. If you prefer to support the show with a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.


The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

The 2020 Stacks Book Club Battle of the Books

Its back! The 3rd Annual The Stacks Book Club Battle of the Books!

We did it in 2018 and 2019 and honestly, its the best tradition and I hope you’re all as thrilled for round three as I am.

To refresh your memory, The Battle of The Books is a March Madness style bracket where you vote to pick the book club book of the year. You also get a chance to win one of TSBC books by predicting the most accurate bracket over on https://challonge.com/thestacks2020 or click here. You create your account put your predictions in for who you think will win. Then on The Stacks Instagram Stories, you’ll vote (starting 12/22) for your favorite books in head to head battles, until we crown one winner, The Stacks Book Club Book of the Year. The results of each round will be updated over on Challonge (our bracket site) and on our Instagram @thestackspod.

You have until Tuesday, December 22nd at 8:00am PST to put in your predictions. The winner will be whoever has the most accurate bracket, and they will win one of our TSBC books from 2020 (winner’s choice). We will announce the winner of the tournament and the winner of the giveaway on Thursday, December 31st once all the results are in.

Here is the important stuff.

  1. Make sure you’re following The Stacks on Instagram @thestackspod.
  2. Register for the bracket if you want to be part of the giveaway CLICK HERE
  3. Vote in each round on our Insta Stories,  starting Tuesday December 22nd . All voting on Instagram!
  4. Spread the word!

If you want all the nerdy details of how the seeding was figure out, you’ve come to the right place. Mostly I created a bunch of my own calculations to rank the books based on many factors. The rankings are full of biases and assumptions, and honestly, thats what makes this fun. You all ultimately get to vote, which means you get to decide. Here is how I ranked these books, and below find a more detailed description of what that means. 

  • Podcast Downloads– Raw number of downloads that episode received according to my data (I know older episodes will be at a disadvantage as the podcast grew over time, but also newer episodes suffer because they haven’t been up as long, I’m hoping it all evens out). It is worth noting that I excluded Citizen: An American Lyric  from this calculation since that episode is not out yet.
  • iTunes Episode Popularity– iTunes lets me see how popular each episode is. Its slight different than raw downloads, because they take into account listeners at the time of recording, but they also only include people listening through iTunes. Again, Citizen: An American Lyric was excluded from this category, see above.
  • Goodreads Scores– I looked up each book on Goodreads and took that score.
  • Goodreads Reviews– I took the raw number of Goodreads reviews for each book.
  • Test of Time– The older a book is, the more credit it got, because it has withstood the test of time. 
  • Social Media Input– I’ve asked The Stacks Instagram followers to tell me their favorite book we read this year, and those responses are incorporated.
  • Traci’s Personal Ranking– Thats right, I’m influencing this competition a little. Its my podcast, so why not?

There are 16 books in the competition, so in each of those categories the books are rated on a scale of 1-16. Each book received a score from each category, 1 being the best, 16 the worst. I then tallied all the scores and divided by 7 (in the case of Citizen: An American Lyric only 5). The lower the score, the higher the ranking.

I know that sounds like a lot, but just trust me, it makes sense. Here are the rankings based on these calculations, and their total overall raw scores, remember lower is better. Where there was a tie, I broke the tie.

  1. The Autobiography of Malcolm X – 3.28
  2. Sula – 3.85
  3. The Giver – 5.14
  4. Citizen 5.8
  5. The Undocumented Americans – 6.14
  6. Breathe – 6.57
  7. Sister Outsider – 7.57
  8. Trick Mirror – 7.71
  9. The Hating Game – 8.71
  10. Trust Exercise – 9.71
  11. Savage Appetites -9.85
  12. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed – 10.14
  13. Three Women 10.28
  14. The Butterfly Effect – 11.14
  15. Cribsheet – 11.28
  16. Number One Chinese Restaurant – 12.28

Voting begins Tuesday December 22nd, shortly after 8:00am PST for the first round, and will follow the schedule below. Remember you vote on The Stacks Instagram stories. You just click your favorite book in each round’s head to head matchup. Once the results are in, I’ll share the winners with you and we get ready for the next round. The schedule is below.

Round 1 – December 22nd – Sweet Sixteen 16

Round 2 – December 26th – Elite 8

Round 3 – December 28th – Final 4

Round 4 – December 30th – Championship

That feels like a lot, trust me, it’ll be fun and worth it.
Here is the important stuff.

  1. Make sure you’re following The Stacks on Instagram @thestackspod.
  2. Register for the bracket if you want to be part of the giveaway CLICK HERE
  3. Vote in each round on our Insta Stories,  starting Tuesday December 22.
  4. Spread the word!

For those of you curious who won in previous years, 2018 was The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, and 2019 was Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson. Who will ascend the throne in 2020?


To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of this show. If you prefer to do a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

Ep. 129 The Myth of Strength with Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is the author of The Stacks Book Club selection for September, The Undocumented Americans. On today’s episode we get a deeper (and spoiler free) look at the book, and why Karla felt compelled to tell these stories now. We also discuss the audience Karla had in mind while writing, her ideal writing set up, and why describing women of color as “strong” is a form of erasure.

The Stacks Book Club selection for September is The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, we will discuss the book with Lupita Aquino on September 30th.

LISTEN NOW

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Overcast | Stitcher

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

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Connect with Karla: Instagram
Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Subscribe

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of this show. If you prefer to do a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.


The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

The Stacks Book Club — September 2020

Our selection for The Stacks Book Club in September is The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicenio. A work of nonfiction that chronicles the lives of Villavicencio and other undocumented immigrants in The United States. The book is a mix of reportage and memoir and is an intimate look at what it means to live in America without documentation. The Undocumented Americans looks beyond the border stories and DREAMer narratives we are often inundated with, and instead tells stories of people whose lives are often politicized and overlooked. The book avoids cliche and instead brings nuance and humanity to Villavicencio’s subjects.

We will be discussing The Undocumented Americans on the podcast on Wednesday, September 30th, and you can find out who our guest will be by listening to the podcast on September 2nd. If you’d like even more discussion around the book consider joining The Stacks Pack on Patreon and participating in The Stacks’ monthly virtual book club.

Order your copy of our July book on Bookshop.org or Amazon.


To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed. For more information click here.