In advance of picking their top 10, the New York Times Book Review editors listed their 100 notable books of 2016. Joining the notables are a number of other lists, including top 10s from Newsday and Glamour magazine, five top novels from Kevin Nguyen for GQ, and the Telegraph‘s top 50 books of the year in the UK.
Best of
The Washington Post’s 10 Best: Whitehead and More
As we’ve suggested previously, it’s pretty clear already that Colson Whitehead’s novel The Underground Railroad is the consensus “book of the year,” and the Washington Post’s just-published 10 best only adds to the case. Their full list: Fiction Commonwealth, Ann Patchett News of the World, Paulette Jiles Swing Time, Zadie Smith The Trespasser, Tana French The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead Nonfiction Evicted, Matthew Desmond The Gene, Siddartha Mukherjee The Return, Hisham Matar Rogue Heroes, Ben Macintyre Secondhand Time, Svetlana Alexievich As usual, the paper’s full “best books” package includes extensive lists of notable fiction and nonfiction. Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine has […]
Whitehead Wins (Amazon’s Book of the Year)
Ahead of tomorrow night’s National Book Awards, Amazon has named Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad as their book of the year. (While it’s early days, the book is already the clear leader in our aggregation of best book of the year lists, as well.) Also on their top 10, however, is another NBA fiction candidate, Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn. Young People’s Literature nominee Nicola Yoon also makes the Amazon list. There were some technical glitches when the “best books of 2016” package first went live — omitting Zadie Smith’s Swing Time from the top 20 carousel (even though it was listed in […]
Briefs: Kirkus Prize Winners; NYTBR Best Illustrated Children’s Books; and More
Awards The winners of the Kirkus Prize were announced Thursday night at a ceremony in Austin, TX. C.E. Morgan’s The Sport of Kings (FSG) prevailed in fiction, with Susan Faludi’s memoir In the Darkroom (Metropolitan) taking the nonfiction category. Finally, As Brave As You by Jason Reynolds won in Young Readers’ Literature. Separately, Poets & Writers announced today that their 2017 Writers for Writers Awards will be given to Francisco Goldman, Ann Patchett, and Richard Shelton. The Editor’s Award is going to Fiona McCrae and Jeff Shotts at Graywolf Press. Yasuko Thanh‘s Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains won the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. […]
November Bookseller Picks, and More Best of 2016
As you know, many publishers ran away from November and the election for their big releases, but nothing stops the lists of monthly recommendations. At Amazon, Michael Chabon’s Moonglow is their spotlight pick for November with Donna Everhart’s already-published The Education of Dixie Dupree as the featured debut (indeed four of Amazon’s selections were published October 25). The rest of their list features: Swing Time, Zadie Smith The Sun Is Also a Star, Nicola Yoon You Will Not Have My Hate, Antoine Leiris Walk Through Walls, Marina Abramovic The Earth Is Weeping, Peter Cozzens Night School, Lee Child Bear: The Life and […]
PW’s Best Books of the Year
Following Indigo’s lead earlier this week, PW has announced their picks for the 10 best books of 2016: Barkskins, Annie Proulx (Scribner) What Belongs to You, Garth Greenwell (Farrar, Straus) Ninety-Nine Stories of God, Joy Williams (Tin House) The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead (Doubleday) The Vegetarian, Han Kang, trans. fby Deborah Smith (Hogarth) Blood in the Water, Heather Ann Thompson (Pantheon) Evicted, Matthew Desmond (Crown) Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey, Frances Wilson (Farrar, Straus) A Kingdom of Their Own, Joshua Partlow (Knopf) Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, Svetlana Alexievich, trans. by Bela Shayevich (Random House)