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 […]
Best of
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 […]
Bestsellers and More Best Ofs: Amazon and Apple
Amazon released their annual package of bestseller lists, and as the etailer continues to gain market share on their competitors, those list take on ever greater significance. As usual, the list that they promote only features new books published in 2016, and it combines print and ebook sales. To see the actual overall bestsellers this year, you need to look at their separate print and ebook charts. Amazon’s top 20 new books are: 1. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2, Special Rehearsal Edition Script by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany 2. When Breath Becomes […]
The Best of the Best of 2016, to Start
For the ninth year, we’re tracking selective “best books of 2016” lists from all over to provide a comprehensive, aggregated view of the consensus picks for the year’s very best titles. As usual, we’re drawing on newspaper, magazine and online publications and critics, but also count lists from booksellers, librarians, major awards nominees and more. With today’s GoodReads picks and other highlighted lists included, we have almost 35 “votes” in so far — which is a little more than half the expected total, and this is usually right around when we start issuing our semi-weekly aggregations. As we have already mentioned informally, […]