A couple more notable “best of 2016” lists may still trickle in (USA Today tends to run at the very end of the year) but with a wealth of lists already out — we have counted 65 in all — it’s time for our final, comprehensive aggregation of the very best books of the year. (We will update this post as necessary over the next week or so to reflect any additional lists.) As has been the case from the very start, Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad is the runaway consensus “book of the year.” With 43 votes it smashed all the records, […]
Best of
The Best of Buzz Books
We’re closing in our final, aggregated lists of the very best of the best books of 2016. But first, it’s worth a special shout out to the 25 titles receiving at least one major “best of 2016” vote that were first featured long before publication in one of our two Buzz Books 2016 adult samplers. Nearly one in three Buzz Books ranks among the best of the year (and many of the others hit bestseller lists as well), and 10 titles were among the consensus most notable books of 2016. We’ll be back in early 2017 to announce the first […]
Updated Best of the Best Books of 2016 Lists
We have our second update on the competition for the consensus best books of the year, and as naturally happens at this point in the aggregation, there is enough data for full “top 10” lists for both fiction and nonfiction. With a little over 50 votes counted at this point, Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad has already smashed the record for most votes as “book of the year.” (Last year Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me set a new record of 31, surpassing previous title holder Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers.) Here is the where the aggregated rankings stand: The Best […]
The News Editor’s Favorite Books for 2016
Our tally of the Best of the Best Books of 2016 already points to a strong consensus in both fiction and nonfiction and as it so happens, I, too, count Colson Whitehead‘s much-lauded The Underground Railroad among my favorites of this year. It is not only the novel we needed to better grapple with our profound, continuing understanding — or lack thereof — of how deeply embedded slavery is in the American fabric, but it is among the novels we will turn to for meaning in the years to come, as the country’s future grows ever more uncertain. The leading […]
Delaney Tops January Library Reads List
J.P. Delaney’s suspense thriller The Girl Before tops the January 2017 Library Reads list. Books on this list that also appear on the January Indie Next list include: The Second Mrs. Hockaday, by Susan Rivers The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden The Dry, by Jane Harper Books for Living, by Will Schwalbe The Most Dangerous Place on Earth, by Lindsey Lee Johnson Her Every Fear, by Peter Swanson The rest of the list features: Behind Her Eyes, by Sarah Pinborough The Fifth Petal, by Brunonia Barry Heartstone, by Elle Katharine White In Best of 2016 lists, you can […]
Fridlund Tops January Indie Next, and More Best of Lists
The ABA puts Emily Fridlund’s debut novel at the top of the January 2017 Indie Next list (and yes, it’s been available for a free preview in our Fall/Winter Buzz Books collection, as is Shanthi Sekaran’s Lucky Boy). The full list: History of Wolves, by Emily Fridlund The Second Mrs. Hockaday, by Susan Rivers The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden The Dry, by Jane Harper Everything You Want Me to Be, by Mindy Mejia Fever Dream, by Samanta Schweblin, Megan McDowell (Trans.) *Lucky Boy, by Shanthi Sekaran Difficult Women, by Roxane Gay Books for Living, by Will Schwalbe The […]