Ah, December. As the year winds down, all the major periodical publications start putting out their “Best of the Year” lists. And for me, the best of the “best” lists are the “Best Books of the Year” lists.
This phenomenon means there’s no shortage of ideas for books to read. I’m not going to pretend that I’ll ever read more than a tiny percentage of the books listed here. But at least if there are great books out there that I might be interested in, I can be reasonably certain I can find them on one of these lists.
So, for your use and mine, here are a few “Best Books of 2019” lists:
National Public Radio:
Here Are 10 Unputdownable Reads
Oh, and if you want a truly massive list from NPR, click here.
The New Yorker:
The Best Books of 2019
New York Times:
The 10 Best Books of 2019
Washington Post:
50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2019
50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2019
St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Another List for Santa: Our 25 Favorite Books of 2019
Time Magazine:
The 100 Must-Read Books of 2019
Oprah:
The Best Books of 2019, According to Oprah Magazine
Publishers Weekly:
Best Books 2019
Vox:
The Best Books I Read in 2019
Slate:
The Best Books of 2019
Literary Hub:
Our 50 Favorite Books of the Year
Electric Literature:
Electric Lit’s 15 Best Novels of 2019
Electric Lit’s 15 Best Short Story Collections of 2019
Electric Lit’s 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019
Part of the fun of lists like this is in collecting, collating and comparing them to find out those books that pop up on multiple lists, and therefore, theoretically at least, might be the “best of the best.” The aforementioned Literary Hub (a site I have only discovered in 2019) took some of the work out of that for you, here.
It’s Also The End Of The Decade
Not only does December mark the end of this year, it also marks the end of a decade, which gives us another whole set of lists. (And don’t give me any of that “No Year Zero” nonsense; 2020 will in fact be the first year of the 2020s.)
So, looking back, here are a few lists of the best books of the “twenty-teens”:
Literary Hub, again:
The 20 Best Novels of the Decade
The 20 Best Works of Nonfiction of the Decade
And even more…
Buzzfeed News:
The 24 Best Books of the Decade
Esquire:
The Best Books of the 2010s Nudged the World in a New, Better Direction
Time:
The 10 Best Fiction Books of the 2010s
Bookbub:
The Breakthrough Books of the Decade
School Library Journal:
Best YA Books of the Decade, According to the Best YA Authors of the Year
Happy reading!
Featured photo credit: Pexels
