Best of

Yes I know, another favorite books of 2012 list. And truth be told, many of those on mine mirror our consensus “Best of the Best” tabulation. To save some time and space, I’d like to take a cue from the game show Wheel of Fortune and the beginning of every final round since 1988: giving contestants the six most commonly picked letters — R,S,T,L,N,E — so that they can choose six additional ones before guessing the missing vowels and consonants: R: BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS, Katherine Boo S: BRING UP THE BODIES, Hilary Mantel T: GONE GIRL, Gillian Flynn L: […]

USA Today agrees with a good part of the consensus on some of the best books of the year, though they add some other contenders in their list of favorites for 2012. 1. Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver 2. Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel 3. Are You My Mother?, by Alison Bechdel 4. Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn 5. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce 6. The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy, by David Nasaw 7. The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green 8. What It Was, by […]

The Wall Street Journal published their lists of best fiction and nonfiction over the weekend. Their picks are a bit more distinctive than some of the other “best of” lists, with independent presses comprising a good portion of the fiction picks (including titles from the University of Chicago Press, Small Beer Press, Soho Press, and Grove/Atlantic). Fiction The People of Forever Are Not Afraid, Shani Boianjiu Tell the Wolves I’m Home, Carol Rifka Brunt A Naked Singularity, Sergio De La Pava Earth and Air, Peter Dickinson Absolution, Patrick Flanery The Orphan Master’s Son, Adam Johnson The Thief, Fuminori Nakamura John […]

Apple’s iTunes named their top 10 lists for the year across all product categories, including their favorite books–with Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars their top novel, John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars their favorite YA book, and Katherine Boo’s much-heralded Behind the Beautiful Forevers their top nonfiction title. Fiction The Dog Stars, Peter Heller The Yellow Birds, Kevin Power The Round House, Louise Erdrich Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Ben Fountain How Should a Person Be, Sheila Heti Shine Shine Shine, Lydia Netzer This Is How You Lose Her, Junot Diaz The Light Between Oceans, ML Stedman Heft, Liz […]

The Best of 2012 lists continue to stream in (which means we’ll have another update to our “best of the best” master list very soon.) Entertainment Weekly offered its 10 best fiction and nonfiction lists: Fiction Hilary Mantel, BRING UP THE BODIES Adam Johnson, THE ORPHAN MASTER’S SON Jess Walter, BEAUTIFUL RUINS Maria Semple, WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE Ben Fountain, BILLY LYNN’S LONG HALFTIME WALK Nell Freudenberger, THE NEWLYWEDS John Green, THE FAULT IN OUR STARS Gillian Flynn, GONE GIRL Chris Ware, BUILDING STORIES Junot Diaz, THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE HER Nonfiction Katherine Boo, BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS Cheryl […]

The latest set of top 10 lists comes from Time magazine, which names John Green’s YA novel their No. 1 work of fiction and joins GoodReads as the first critics list to rank JK Rowling’s novel for adults among the year’s best: Fiction 1. The Fault in Our Stars, John Green 2. Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel 3. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Ben Fountain 4. At Last, Edward St. Aubyn 5. The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, Catherynne Valente 6. The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling 7. Building Stories, Chris Ware 8. NW, Zadie […]