The 10 Best Books of 2020 The editors of the Journal’s books pages pick the year’s most distinguished fiction and nonfiction. Dec. 9, 2020 6:26 pm ET Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times By David S. Reynolds | Penguin Press Antebellum America was a rough-and-tumble proposition, with the dangerous and uncouth life of the frontier reflected in a fractious political scene in which violent language often crossed over into fistfights and worse. In this revelatory work of cultural biography, Abraham Lincoln emerges as a leader who embodied the wildness and exuberance of the era.