''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read

book review A book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is merely described (summary review) or analyzed based on content, style, and merit. A book review may be a primary source, an opinion piece, a summary review, or a scholarly view. B ...

publications in the industry. The magazine's offices are located near

Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and Neighborhoods in New York City, neighborhood in the Midtown Manhattan section of New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway (Manhattan), ...

in New York City.

Overview

The ''New York Times'' has published a book review section since Saturday, October 10, 1896, announcing: "We begin today the publication of a Supplement which contains reviews of new books ... and other interesting matter ... associated with news of the day." In 1911, the review was moved to Sundays, on the theory that it would be more appreciatively received by readers with a bit of time on their hands. The target audience is an intelligent, general-interest adult reader. The ''Times'' publishes two versions each week, one with a cover price sold via subscription, bookstores, and newsstands; the other with no cover price included as an insert in each Sunday edition of the ''Times'' (the copies are otherwise identical). Each week, the ''NYTBR'' receives 750 to 1000 books from authors and publishers in the mail, of which 20 to 30 are chosen for review. Books are selected by the "preview editors" who read over 1,500 advance galleys a year. The selection process is based on finding books that are important and notable, as well as discovering new authors whose books stand above the crowd.

Self-published books Self-publishing is an author-driven publication of any media without the involvement of a third-party publisher. Since the advent of the internet, self-published usually depends upon digital platforms and print-on-demand technology, ranging fr ...

are generally not reviewed as a matter of policy. Books not selected for review are stored in a "discard room" and then sold. ,

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. The company operates approximately 600 retail stores across the United States. Barnes & Noble operates mainly through its B ...

arrived about once a month to purchase the contents of the discard room, and the proceeds are then donated by ''NYTBR'' to charities. Books that are actually reviewed are usually donated to the reviewer. As of 2015, all review critics are freelance; the ''NYTBR'' does not have staff critics. In prior years, the ''NYTBR'' did have in-house critics, or a mix of in-house and freelance. For freelance critics, they are assigned an in-house "preview editor" who works with them in creating the final review. Freelance critics might be employees of ''The New York Times'' whose main duties are in other departments. They also include professional

literary critics A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature's ...

, novelists, academics, and artists who write reviews for the ''NYTBR'' on a regular basis. Other duties on staff include a number of senior editors and a chief editor; a team of copy editors; a letter pages editor who reads letters to the editor; columnists who write weekly columns, such as the "Paperback Row" column; a production editor; a web and Internet publishing division; and other jobs. In addition to the magazine there is an Internet site that offers additional content, including audio interviews with authors, called the "Book Review Podcast". The book review publishes each week the widely cited and influential ''New York Times'' Best Seller list, which is created by the editors of the ''Times'' "News Surveys" department. In 2021, on the 125th anniversary of the ''Book Review'',

Parul Sehgal Parul Sehgal (born ) is an American literary critic. She worked as an editor at NPR and '' The New York Times Book Review'', and later was one of the book critics at the ''New York Times''. She was a staff writer at ''The New Yorker'' from 2021 ...

a staff critic and former editor at the ''Book Review'', wrote a review of the NYTBR titled "Reviewing the Book Review". "Inside The New York Times Book Review" is the oldest and most popular podcast at The New York Times. The debut episode was released on April 30, 2006 and the show has been recorded weekly ever since.

Editors

* 2022–present: Gilbert Cruz * 2013-2022: Pamela Paul * 2004-2013:

Sam Tanenhaus Sam Tanenhaus (born October 31, 1955) is an American historian, biographer, and journalist. He currently is a writer for '' Prospect''. Early years Tanenhaus received his B.A. in English from Grinnell College in 1977 and a M.A. in English Liter ...

1983 ''Legion'' court case

In 1983,

William Peter Blatty William Peter Blatty (January 7, 1928 – January 12, 2017) was an American writer, director and producer. He is best known for his 1971 novel ''The Exorcist (novel), The Exorcist'' and for his screenplay for The Exorcist, the 1973 film adaptat ...

sued the ''New York Times Book Review'' for failing to include his 1983 novel, ''

Legion Legion may refer to: Military * Roman legion, the basic military unit of the ancient Roman army * Aviazione Legionaria, Italian air force during the Spanish Civil War * A legion is the regional unit of the Italian carabinieri * Spanish Legion, ...

'', in its best-seller list. ''The New York Times'' had previously claimed that it based its "best-seller list" is based on computer-processed sales figures from 2,000 bookstores across the United States. Blatty contended that ''Legion'' had sold enough copies to be included on the list. Lawyers for ''The New York Times'' did not deny this, but stated that the content of its best-seller list is a subjectively editorial compilation. The court ruled in favor of ''The New York Times'', relying on the

First Amendment First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

precedent of '' Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo'' (1974)''.''

Best Books of the Year and Notable Books

Each year since 1968, around the beginning of December, a list of notable books and/or editor's choice ("Best Books") is announced. Beginning in 2004, it consists of a "100 Notable Books of the Year" list (Page has links to previous years also.) which contains

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

and

non-fiction Non-fiction (or nonfiction) is any document or content (media), media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real life, real world, rather than being grounded in imagination. Non-fiction typically aims to pre ...

titles, 50 of each. From the list of 100, 10 books are awarded the "Best Books of the Year" title, five each of fiction and non-fiction. Other year-end lists include the Best Illustrated Children's Books, in which 10 books are chosen by a panel of judges.

1990s

1998 The Notable Books were announced December 6, 1998. The eleven Editor's Choice books were announced December 6, 1998. *

Lorrie Moore Lorrie Moore (born Marie Lorena Moore; January 13, 1957) is an American writer, critic, and essayist. She is best known for her short stories, some of which have won major awards. Since 1984, she has also taught creative writing. Biography Mar ...

, '' Birds of America'' *

Russell Banks Russell Earl Banks (March 28, 1940 – January 8, 2023) was an American writer of fiction and poetry. His novels are known for "detailed accounts of domestic strife and the daily struggles of ordinary often-marginalized characters". He drew from ...

, ''

Cloudsplitter ''Cloudsplitter'' is a 1998 historical novel by Russell Banks relating the story of abolitionist John Brown. The novel is narrated as a retrospective by John Brown's son, Owen Brown, from his hermitage in the San Gabriel Mountains of Califor ...

'' *

Richard Fortey Richard Alan Fortey (15 February 1946 – 7 March 2025) was a British palaeontologist, natural historian, writer and television presenter, who served as president of the Geological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007. As a paleo ...

, '' Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth'' *

Alice Munro Alice Ann Munro ( ; ; 10 July 1931 – 13 May 2024) was a Canadian short story writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Her work tends to move forward and backward in time, with integrated short story cycles. Munro's ...

, '' The Love of a Good Woman'' *

Barbara Kingsolver Barbara Ellen Kingsolver (born April 8, 1955) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, essayist, and poet. Her widely known works include '' The Poisonwood Bible'', the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and '' Animal, Vegetable, Mira ...

, '' The Poisonwood Bible'' *

David Gates David Ashworth Gates (born December 11, 1940) is a retired American singer-songwriter, guitarist, musician and producer, frontman and co-lead singer (with Jimmy Griffin) of the group Bread (band), Bread, which reached the top of the musical ch ...

, ''Preston Falls'' *

Ron Chernow Ronald Chernow (; born March 3, 1949) is an American writer, journalist, and biographer. He has written bestselling historical non-fiction biographies. Chernow won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the 2011 American ...

, '' Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.'' *

Richard Holbrooke Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke (April 24, 1941 – December 13, 2010) was an American diplomat and author. He was the only person to have held the position of Assistant Secretary of State for two different regions of the world (Asia from 1977 ...

, ''To End a War'' *

Hilary Spurling Susan Hilary Spurling ( Forrest; born 25 December 1940) is a British writer, known for her work as a journalist and biographer. Early life and education Born in Stockport, Cheshire, to circuit judge Gilbert Alexander Forrest (1912–1977) and t ...

, ''The Unknown Matisse'' * Graham Robb, ''Victor Hugo: A Biography'' *

Philip Gourevitch Philip Gourevitch (born 1961), an American author and journalist, is a longtime staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' and a former editor of ''The Paris Review''. His most recent book is '' The Ballad of Abu Ghraib'' (2008), an account of Iraq's A ...

, '' We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda'' 1999 The Notable Books were announced December 5, 1999. The eleven Editor's Choice books were announced December 5, 1999. *

Richard A. Posner Richard Allen Posner (; born January 11, 1939) is an American legal scholar and retired United States circuit judge who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chicag ...

, ''An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton'' *

Annie Proulx Edna Ann Proulx ( ; born August 22, 1935) is an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. She has written most frequently as Annie Proulx but has also used the names E. Annie Proulx and E.A. Proulx. She won the PEN/Faulkner Award f ...

, '' Close Range: Wyoming Stories'' * Richard Holmes, ''Coleridge: Darker Reflections, 1804-1834'' *

J. M. Coetzee John Maxwell Coetzee Order of Australia, AC Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, FRSL Order of Mapungubwe, OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African and Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, and translator. The recipient of the 2003 ...

, '' Disgrace'' *

Antonio Damasio Antonio Damasio (; born 25 February 1944) is a Portuguese neuroscientist. He is currently the David Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience, as well as Professor of Psychology, Philosophy, and Neurology, at the University of Southern California, and, add ...

, ''The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness'' *

John Keegan Sir John Desmond Patrick Keegan (15 May 1934 – 2 August 2012) was an English military historian, lecturer, author and journalist. He wrote many published works on the nature of combat between prehistory and the 21st century, covering land, ...

, ''The First World War'' *

Michael Frayn Michael Frayn, FRSL (; born 8 September 1933) is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce ''Noises Off'' and the dramas ''Copenhagen (play), Copenhagen'' and ''Democracy (play), Democracy''. Frayn's novel ...

, '' Headlong'' *

Jean Strouse Jean Strouse (born 1945) is an American biographer, cultural administrator, and critic. She is best known for her biographies of diarist Alice James and financier J. Pierpont Morgan. Life Strouse graduated from Radcliffe College in 1968. She t ...

, ''Morgan: American Financier'' *

Inga Clendinnen Inga Vivienne Clendinnen, (; 17 August 1934 – 8 September 2016) was an Australian author, historian, anthropologist, and academic. Her work focused on social history, and the history of cultural encounters. She was an authority on Aztec civili ...

, ''Reading the Holocaust'' * Judith Thurman, ''Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette'' *

Roddy Doyle Roderick Doyle (born 8 May 1958) is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. He is the author of eleven novels for adults, eight books for children, seven plays and screenplays, and dozens of short stories. Several of his books have been ...

, '' A Star Called Henry''

2000s

2000 The Notable Books were announced December 3, 2000. The 10 Editor's Choice books were announced December 3, 2000. * Jim Crace, '' Being Dead'' * Unknown, ''

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ) is an Old English poetry, Old English poem, an Epic poetry, epic in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translat ...

'' (translation by

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish Irish poetry, poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966), his first m ...

) *

Matt Ridley Matthew White Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley (born 7 February 1958), is a British science writer, journalist and businessman. He is known for his writings on science, the environment, and economics, and has been a regular contributor to ''The Tim ...

, '' Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters'' *

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tar ...

, ''

Gertrude and Claudius ''Gertrude and Claudius'' is a novel by John Updike. It uses the known sources of William Shakespeare's ''Hamlet'' to tell a story that draws on a rather straightforward revenge tale in medieval Denmark, as depicted by Saxo Grammaticus in his tw ...

'' *

Dave Eggers Dave Eggers (born March 12, 1970) is an American writer, editor, and publisher. His 2000 memoir, '' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'', became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is a ...

, '' A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius: A Memoir Based on a True Story'' *

Philip Roth Philip Milton Roth (; March 19, 1933 – May 22, 2018) was an American novelist and short-story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophical ...

, ''

The Human Stain ''The Human Stain'' is a novel by Philip Roth, published May 5, 2000. The book is set in Western Massachusetts in the late 1990s. Its narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, who appears in several earlier Roth novels, including two boo ...

'' *

Tom Segev Tom Segev (; born March 1, 1945) is an Israeli historian, author and journalist. He is associated with Israel's New Historians, a group critical of many of the country's traditional narratives. Biography Segev was born on March 1, 1945 in Jeru ...

, ''One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate'' * Graham Robb, ''Rimbaud: A Biography'' * Frances FitzGerald, ''Way Out There In the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War'' *

Zadie Smith Zadie Smith (born Sadie; 25 October 1975) is an English novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. Her debut novel, ''White Teeth'' (2000), immediately became a best-seller and won a number of awards. She became a tenured professor in the ...

, ''

White Teeth ''White Teeth'' is British author Zadie Smith's debut novel, published in 2000. It focuses on the later lives of two wartime friends—the Bangladeshi Samad Iqbal and the Englishman Archie Jones—and their families in London. The novel centres ...

'' 2001 The Notable Books were announced December 2, 2001. The 9 Editor's Choice books were announced December 2, 2001. * W.G. Sebald, '' Austerlitz'' * Paula Fox, ''Borrowed Finery: A Memoir'' *

Jonathan Franzen Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel ''The Corrections'' drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, earned a Jame ...

, '' The Corrections'' *

, '' Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage'' *

Colson Whitehead Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead (born November 6, 1969) is an American novelist. He is the author of nine novels, including his 1999 in literature, 1999 debut ''The Intuitionist''; ''The Underground Railroad (novel), The Underground Railroad'' (2016) ...

, '' John Henry Days'' *

Louis Menand Louis Menand (; born January 21, 1952) is an American critic, essayist, and professor who wrote the Pulitzer-winning book '' The Metaphysical Club'' (2001), an intellectual and cultural history of late 19th- and early 20th-century America. Life ...

, '' The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America'' * Peter Carey, ''

True History of the Kelly Gang ''True History of the Kelly Gang'' is a novel by Australian writer Peter Carey, based loosely on the history of the Kelly Gang. It was first published in Brisbane by the University of Queensland Press in 2000. It won the 2001 Booker Prize a ...

'' *

Oliver Sacks Oliver Wolf Sacks (9 July 1933 – 30 August 2015) was a British neurology, neurologist, Natural history, naturalist, historian of science, and writer. Born in London, Sacks received his medical degree in 1958 from The Queen's College, Oxford ...

, '' Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood'' 2002 The Notable Books were announced December 8, 2002. The 7 Editor's Choice books were announced December 8, 2002. * Miranda Carter, ''Anthony Blunt: His Lives'' *

Ian McEwan Ian Russell McEwan (born 21 June 1948) is a British novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, ''The Times'' featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and ''The Daily Telegraph'' ranked him number 19 in its list of the ...

, ''

Atonement Atonement, atoning, or making amends is the concept of a person taking action to correct previous wrongdoing on their part, either through direct action to undo the consequences of that act, equivalent action to do good for others, or some othe ...

'' * Lorna Sage, '' Bad Blood'' *

Jeffrey Eugenides Jeffrey Kent Eugenides (born March 8, 1960) is an American author. He has written numerous short stories and essays, as well as three novels: '' The Virgin Suicides'' (1993), ''Middlesex'' (2002), and '' The Marriage Plot'' (2011). ''The Virgin Su ...

, ''

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

'' *

Margaret MacMillan Margaret Olwen MacMillan (born 23 December 1943) is a Canadian historian and professor at the University of Oxford. She is former provost of Trinity College, Toronto, and professor of history at the University of Toronto and previously at Ryers ...

, '' Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World'' * William Kennedy, '' Roscoe'' *

Timothy Ferris Timothy Ferris (born August 29, 1944) is an American science writer and the best-selling author of twelve books, including ''The Science of Liberty'' (2010) and ''Coming of Age in the Milky Way'' (1988), for which he was awarded the American I ...

, ''Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril'' 2003 The Notable Books were announced December 7, 2003. The 9 Editor's Choice books were announced December 7, 2003. *

Caroline Alexander Caroline Sarah J. Alexander (born 3 March 1968) is a cross-country mountain biker and road cyclist born in Barrow-in-Furness. She was a swimmer as a child and did not cycle until she was 20. She first rode a bike in competition in a triathlon: ...

, ''The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty'' *

Monica Ali Monica Ali (; born 20 October 1967) is a British writer of Bangladeshi and English descent. In 2003, she was selected as one of the "Best of Young British Novelists" by ''Granta'' based on her unpublished manuscript; her debut novel, ''Brick L ...

, ''Brick Lane'' *

T. Coraghessan Boyle Thomas Coraghessan Boyle (born December 2, 1948) is an American novelist and short story writer. Since the mid-1970s, he has published nineteen novels and more than 150 short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1988, for his third novel, ' ...

, ''

Drop City Drop City was a counterculture artists' community that formed near the town of Trinidad in southern Colorado in 1960. Abandoned by 1979, Drop City became known as the first rural "hippie commune". Establishment In 1960, the four original foun ...

'' *

Jonathan Lethem Jonathan Allen Lethem (; born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His Debut novel, first novel, ''Gun, with Occasional Music'', a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, ...

, ''

The Fortress of Solitude The Fortress of Solitude is a fictional fortress appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly in association with Superman. It is the place where Superman first learned about his true identity, heritage, and purpose on Eart ...

'' *

William Taubman William Chase Taubman (born November 13, 1941, in New York City) is an American political scientist. His biography of Nikita Khrushchev won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2004 and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography in 2 ...

, '' Khrushchev: The Man and His Era'' * Edward P. Jones, '' The Known World'' *

Gabriel García Márquez Gabriel José García Márquez (; 6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian writer and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo () or Gabito () throughout Latin America. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th centur ...

, '' Living to Tell the Tale'' *

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc Adrian Nicole LeBlanc is an American journalist whose works focus on the marginalized members of society: adolescents living in poverty, prostitutes, women in prison, etc. She is best known for her 2003 non-fiction book '' Random Family''. She was ...

, ''Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx'' 2004 The 100 Notable Books were announced December 5, 2004. The 10 Best Books were announced December 12, 2004. *

, ''

Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 dur ...

'' *

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...

, '' Chronicles: Volume One'' *

David Hackett Fischer David Hackett Fischer (born December 2, 1935) is University Professor of History Emeritus at Brandeis University. Fischer's major works have covered topics ranging from large macroeconomic and cultural trends ('' Albion's Seed,'' '' The Great Wave ...

, ''

Washington's Crossing Washington's Crossing is the location of George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River on the night of December 25–26, 1776 in the American Revolutionary War. This maneuver led to victory in the Battle of Trenton. The site, a National Hi ...

'' *

Stephen Greenblatt Stephen Jay Greenblatt (born November 7, 1943) is an American literary historian and author. He has served as the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University since 2000. Greenblatt is the general editor of ''The Nort ...

, '' Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare'' *

Ha Jin Jin Xuefei (; born February 21, 1956) is a Chinese American poet and novelist who uses the pen name Ha Jin (). The name ''Ha'' comes from his favorite city, Harbin. His poetry is associated with the Misty Poetry movement. Early life, educatio ...

, ''

War Trash ''War Trash'' is a novel by the Chinese author Ha Jin, who has long lived in the United States and who writes in English. It takes the form of a memoir written by the fictional character Yu Yuan, a man who eventually becomes a soldier in the ...

'' *

, ''

Runaway Runaway, Runaways or Run Away may refer to: Engineering * Runaway reaction, a chemical reaction releasing more heat than what can be removed and becoming uncontrollable * Thermal runaway, self-increase of the reaction rate of an exothermic proce ...

'' *

Orhan Pamuk Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born 7 June 1952; ) is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, he has sold over 13 million books in 63 languages, making him ...

, ''

Snow Snow consists of individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water througho ...

'' *

Marilynne Robinson Marilynne Summers Robinson (born November 26, 1943) is an American novelist and essayist. Across her writing career, Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and th ...

, ''

Gilead Gilead or Gilad (, ; ''Gilʿāḏ'', , ''Jalʻād'') is the ancient, historic, biblical name of the mountainous northern part of the region of Transjordan.''Easton's Bible Dictionary'Galeed''/ref> The region is bounded in the west by the J ...

'' *

, ''

The Plot Against America ''The Plot Against America'' is a novel by Philip Roth published in 2004. It is an alternative history in which Franklin D. Roosevelt is defeated in the presidential election of 1940 by Charles Lindbergh. The novel follows the fortunes of the R ...

'' *

Colm Tóibín Colm Tóibín ( , ; born 30 May 1955) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet. His first novel, ''The South (novel), The South'', was published in 1990. ''The Blackwater Lightship'' was short ...

, '' The Master'' 2005 The 100 Notable Books were announced December 4, 2005. The 10 Best Books were announced December 11, 2005. *

Joan Didion Joan Didion (; December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021) was an American writer and journalist. She is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism, along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe. Didio ...

, ''

The Year of Magical Thinking ''The Year of Magical Thinking'' is a memoir by Joan Didion, accounting of the year following the death of her husband John Gregory Dunne in 2003. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, Knopf in October 2005, ''The Year of Magical Thinking'' was immediat ...

'' *

Mary Gaitskill Mary Gaitskill (born November 11, 1954) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. Her work has appeared in ''The New Yorker'', ''Harper's Magazine'', ''Esquire (magazine), Esquire'', ''The Best American Short Stories'' (1993, 20 ...

, ''Veronica'' *

Jonathan Harr Jonathan Harr is an American writer, best known for the nonfiction work'' A Civil Action''. Early life and education Jonathan Ensor Harr was born 13 September 1948, in Beloit, Wisconsin, the son of John Ensor Harr (1 August 1926–14 November 200 ...

, ''The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece'' *

Tony Judt Tony Robert Judt ( ; 2 January 1948 – 6 August 2010) was an English historian, essayist and university professor who specialised in European history. Judt moved to New York and served as the Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies ...

, '' Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945'' *

, ''

Saturday Saturday is the day of the week between Friday and Sunday. No later than the 2nd century, the Romans named Saturday ("Saturn's Day") for the god Saturn. His planet, Saturn, controlled the first hour of that day, according to Vettius Valens. T ...

'' *

Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for hi ...

, ''

Kafka on the Shore is a 2002 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Its 2005 English translation was among "The 10 Best Books of 2005" from ''The New York Times'' and received the World Fantasy Award for 2006. The book tells the stories of the young Kafka Tamu ...

'' *

George Packer George Packer (born August 13, 1960) is an American journalist, novelist, and playwright. He is best known for his writings about U.S. foreign policy for ''The New Yorker'' and ''The Atlantic'' and for his book '' The Assassins' Gate: America in ...

, '' The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq'' *

Curtis Sittenfeld Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld (born August 23, 1975) is an American writer. She is the author of 2 collections of short stories, ''You Think it, I’ll Say It'' (2018) and ''Show don't tell'' (2025), as well as seven novels: ''Prep'' (2005), the s ...

, ''Prep'' *

, ''

On Beauty ''On Beauty'' is a 2005 novel by British author Zadie Smith, loosely based on ''Howards End'' by E. M. Forster. The story follows the lives of a mixed-race British/American family living in the United States, addresses ethnic and cultural diff ...

'' * Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, '' de Kooning: An American Master'' 2006 The 100 Notable Books were announced December 3, 2006. The 10 Best Books were announced December 10, 2006. *

Richard Ford Richard Ford (born February 16, 1944) is an American novelist and short story author, and writer of a series of novels featuring the character Frank Bascombe. Ford's first collection of short stories, ''Rock Springs (short stories), Rock Springs ...

, '' The Lay of the Land'' *

Amy Hempel Amy Hempel (born December 14, 1951) is an American short story writer and journalist. She teaches creative writing at the Michener Center for Writers. Life Hempel was born in Chicago, Illinois. She moved to California at age 16, which is wher ...

, '' The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel'' *

Claire Messud Claire Messud (born October 8, 1966) is an American/Canadian/French novelist and literature and creative writing professor. She is best known as the author of the novel '' The Emperor's Children'' (2006). Early life Born in Greenwich, Connecticut ...

, ''The Emperor's Children'' *

Marisha Pessl Marisha Pessl (born October 26, 1977) is an American writer known for her novels ''Special Topics in Calamity Physics'', '' Night Film'', ''Neverworld Wake'', and ''Darkly''. Early life Pessl was born 1977 in Clarkston, Michigan, to Klaus, an A ...

, ''

Special Topics in Calamity Physics ''Special Topics in Calamity Physics'' (2006) is the debut novel by American writer Marisha Pessl. Background Pessl wrote three drafts of the book, telling ''Kenyon Review'' that "each draft took about a year. It wasn’t so much that I was ...

'' *

Nathaniel Philbrick Nathaniel Philbrick (born June 11, 1956) is an American author of history, winner of the National Book Award, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His maritime history, ''In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex'', based on w ...

, '' Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War'' *

Michael Pollan Michael Kevin Pollan (; born February 6, 1955) is an American journalist who is a professor and the first Lewis K. Chan Arts Lecturer at Harvard University. Concurrently, he is the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism and the ...

, '' The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals'' *

Gary Shteyngart Gary Shteyngart ( ; born Igor Semyonovich Shteyngart on July 5, 1972)' is a Soviet-born American writer. He is the author of five novels (including ''Absurdistan'' and '' Super Sad True Love Story'') and a memoir. Much of his work is satirical ...

, ''

Absurdistan Absurdistan is a term sometimes used to satire, satirically describe a country in which absurdity is the norm due to the ubiquity and incompetence of its bureaucracy. The expression was originally used by Eastern bloc dissidents to refer to parts ...

'' *

Rory Stewart Roderick James Nugent Stewart (born 3 January 1973) is a British academic, broadcaster, writer, and former diplomat and politician. He has taught at Harvard University and at Yale University. He currently teaches and co-directs the Brady-Jo ...

, '' The Places In Between'' *

Danielle Trussoni Danielle Anne Trussoni is a ''New York Times'', ''USA Today'', and ''Sunday Times'' Top 10 bestselling novelist. She has been a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction jurist, and wrote the "Dark Matters" column for the ''New York Times Book Review'' for five ...

, ''Falling Through the Earth: A Memoir'' *

Lawrence Wright Lawrence Wright (born August 2, 1947) is an American writer and journalist, who is a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, and fellow at the Center for Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. Wright is best known as ...

, '' The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11'' 2007 The 100 Notable Books were announced December 2, 2007. The 10 Best Books were announced December 9, 2007. *

Roberto Bolaño Roberto is an Italian, Portuguese and Spanish variation of the male given name Robert. Notable people named Roberto include: * Roberto (footballer, born 1912) * Roberto (footballer, born 1977) * Roberto (footballer, born 1978) * Roberto (footb ...

, ''

The Savage Detectives ''The Savage Detectives'' (Spanish: ''Los detectives salvajes'') is a novel by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño published in 1998. Natasha Wimmer's English translation was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2007. The novel tells the sto ...

'' *

Rajiv Chandrasekaran Rajiv Chandrasekaran is an American journalist. He is a senior correspondent and associate editor at ''The Washington Post'', where he has worked since 1994. Life He grew up mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area. He attended Stanford University, w ...

, '' Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone'' *

Linda Colley Dame Linda Jane Colley (born 13 September 1949 in Chester, England) is an expert on British, imperial and global history from 1700. She is Shelby M. C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University and a long-term fellow in history at ...

, ''The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History'' *

Joshua Ferris Joshua Ferris (born November 8, 1974) is an American author best known for his debut novel '' Then We Came to the End'' (2007). The novel is a comedy about the American workplace, is narrated in the first-person plural, and is set in a fictitiou ...

, '' Then We Came to the End'' *

Denis Johnson Denis Hale Johnson (July 1, 1949 – May 24, 2017) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. He is perhaps best known for his debut short story collection, ''Jesus' Son (short story collection), Jesus' Son'' (1992). His most succes ...

, '' Tree of Smoke: A Novel'' * Mildred Armstrong Kalish, ''Little Heathens'' *

Per Petterson Per Petterson (born 18 July 1952 in Oslo) is a Norwegian novelist. His debut book was ''Aske i munnen, sand i skoa'' (1987), a collection of short stories. He has since published a number of novels with good reviews. ''To Siberia'' (1996), set i ...

, '' Out Stealing Horses'' *

Alex Ross Nelson Alexander Ross (born January 22, 1970) is an American comic book creator, comic book writer and artist known primarily for his painted interiors, covers, and design work. He first became known with the 1994 miniseries ''Marvels'', on which ...

, '' The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century'' *

Michael Thomas Michael or Mike Thomas may refer to: Entertainment * Michael M. Thomas (1936–2021), American novelist of financial thrillers * Michael Tilson Thomas (born 1944), American conductor, pianist, and composer * Michael Thomas (actor) (1952–2019), B ...

, '' Man Gone Down: A Novel'' *

Jeffrey Toobin Jeffrey Ross Toobin (; born May 21, 1960) is an American lawyer, author, blogger, and legal analyst for CNN. During the Iran–Contra affair, Toobin served as an associate counsel on its investigation at the Department of Justice. He moved from ...

, '' The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court'' 2008 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 26, 2008. The 10 Best Books were announced December 14, 2008. *

Julian Barnes Julian Patrick Barnes (born 19 January 1946) is an English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 with ''The Sense of an Ending'', having been shortlisted three times previously with ''Flaubert's Parrot'', ''England, England'', and ''Arthu ...

, ''Nothing to Be Frightened Of'' *

, ''2666'' *

Drew Gilpin Faust Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust (born September 18, 1947) is an American historian who served as the 28th president of Harvard University, the first woman in that role. She was Harvard's first president since 1672 without an undergraduate or graduat ...

, ''This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War'' *

Dexter Filkins Dexter Price Filkins (born May 24, 1961) is an American journalist known primarily for his coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for ''The New York Times''. He was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for his dispatches from Afghanistan ...

, ''

The Forever War ''The Forever War'' (1974) is a military science fiction novel by American author Joe Haldeman, telling the contemplative story about human soldiers fighting an interstellar war against an alien civilization known as the Taurans. It won the N ...

'' *

Patrick French Patrick Rollo Basil French (28 May 1966 – 16 March 2023) was a British writer, historian and academician. He was the author of several books including: ''Younghusband: the Last Great Imperial Adventurer'' (1994), a biography of Francis Young ...

, '' The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul'' *

Jhumpa Lahiri Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" LahiriMinzesheimer, Bob, ''USA Today'', August 19, 2003. Retrieved on 2008-04-13. (born July 11, 1967) is a British-American author known for her short stories, novels, and essays in English and, more recently, in I ...

, ''

Unaccustomed Earth ''Unaccustomed Earth'' is a collection of short stories from American author Jhumpa Lahiri. It is her second collection of stories, following ''Interpreter of Maladies'' (which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction). As with much of Lahiri's work, ...

'' *

Jane Mayer Jane Meredith Mayer (born 1955) is an American investigative journalist who has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1995. She has written for the publication about money in politics; government prosecution of whistleblowers; the Un ...

, '' The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals'' *

Steven Millhauser Steven Millhauser (born August 3, 1943) is an American novelist and short story writer. He won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel '' Martin Dressler''. Life and career Millhauser was born in New York City, grew up in Connecticut, ...

, ''Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories'' *

Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically accl ...

, ''

A Mercy ''A Mercy'' is Toni Morrison's ninth novel. It was published in 2008 in literature, 2008. Set in colonial America in the late 17th century, it is the story of a European farmer, his purchased wife, and his growing household of indentured or ensl ...

'' * Joseph O'Neill, ''

Netherland , informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands consists of twelve provinces; i ...

'' 2009 The 100 Notable Books were announced December 6, 2009. The 10 Best Books were announced December 13, 2009. *

Liaquat Ahamed Liaquat Ahamed (born 14 November 1952 in Kenya) is an American author. Life and work Liaquat Ahamed was born in Kenya, where his grandfather had emigrated to from Gujarat, India, by way of Zanzibar in the late 19th century.Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World'' *

David Finkel David Louis Finkel (born October 28, 1955) is an American journalist. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 as a staff writer at ''The Washington Post''. As of January 2017, he was national enterprise editor at the ''Post''. He has also worked for the ...

, ''

The Good Soldiers ''The Good Soldiers'' (2009) is a non-fiction book about the 2007 troop surge in Iraq written by David Finkel, chronicling the deployment of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, nicknamed " ...

'' * Richard Holmes, '' The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science'' *

Mary Karr Mary Karr (born January 16, 1955) is an American poet, essayist and memoirist from East Texas. She is widely noted for her 1995 bestselling memoir '' The Liars' Club''. Karr is the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracu ...

, ''Lit: A Memoir'' *

, '' Chronic City'' *

Maile Meloy Maile Meloy (born January 1, 1972) is an American novelist and short story writer. Early life and education Born and raised in Helena, Montana, Meloy received a bachelor's degree from Harvard College in 1994 and an MFA from the University of ...

, ''Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It'' *

, '' A Gate at the Stairs'' *

Carol Sklenicka Carol Sklenicka (December 11, 1948) is an American biographer and literary scholar known for her authoritative, full-scale biographies of two important figures in late twentieth-century American literature: acclaimed short story masters Raymond Ca ...

, ''Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life'' * Kate Walbert, ''A Short History of Women'' *

Jeannette Walls Jeannette Walls (born April 21, 1960) is an American author and journalist widely known as former gossip columnist for MSNBC.com and author of '' The Glass Castle'', a memoir of the nomadic family life of her childhood. Published in 2005, it ha ...

, '' Half Broke Horses''

2010s

2010 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 24, 2010. The 10 Best Books were announced December 1, 2010. *

Ann Beattie Ann Beattie (born September 8, 1947) is an American novelist and short story writer. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the short story ...

, ''The New Yorker Stories'' *

Emma Donoghue Emma Donoghue (born October 1969) is an Irish Canadians, Irish Canadian novelist, screenwriter, playwright and literary historian. Her 2010 novel ''Room (novel), Room'' was a finalist for the Booker Prize and an international best-seller. Donog ...

, ''

Room In a building or a ship, a room is any enclosed space within a number of walls to which entry is possible only via a door or other dividing structure. The entrance connects it to either a passageway, another room, or the outdoors. The space is ...

'' *

Jennifer Egan Jennifer Egan (born September 7, 1962) is an American novelist and short-story writer. Her novel, ''A Visit from the Goon Squad,'' won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. From 2018 to 2020, she ...

, ''

A Visit from the Goon Squad ''A Visit from the Goon Squad'' is a 2010 novel by American author Jennifer Egan. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2011. The book is a set of thirteen interrelated stories with a large set of characters all connected to Bennie Salazar, a ...

'' *

, ''

Freedom Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws". In one definition, something is "free" i ...

'' * Jennifer Homans, ''Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet'' *

Siddhartha Mukherjee Siddhartha Mukherjee ( Bengali: সিদ্ধার্থ মুখার্জী; born 21 July 1970) is an Indian-American physician, biologist, and author. He is best known for his 2010 book, '' The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of ...

, '' The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer'' *

Stacy Schiff Stacy Madeleine Schiff (born October 26, 1961) is an American essayist. Her biography of Véra Nabokov won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in biography. Schiff has also written biographies of French aviator and author of '' The Little Prince'', Antoine ...

, ''Cleopatra: A Life'' *

Stephen Sondheim Stephen Joshua Sondheim (; March22, 1930November26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. Regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, he is credited with reinventing the American musical. He received Lis ...

, '' Finishing the Hat'' *

William Trevor William Trevor Cox (24 May 1928 – 20 November 2016) was an Irish novelist, playwright, and short story writer. One of the elder statesmen of the Irish literary world, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest contemporary writers of sho ...

, ''Selected Stories'' *

Isabel Wilkerson Isabel Wilkerson (born 1961) is an American journalist and the author of '' The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration'' (2010) and '' Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents'' (2020). She is the first woman of African-A ...

, '' The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration'' 2011 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 21, 2011. The 10 Best Books were announced November 30, 2011. *

Ian Brown Ian George Brown (born 20 February 1963) is an English musician. He was the lead singer and the only continuous member of the alternative rock band the Stone Roses from their formation in 1983. Following the band's initial split in 1996, he be ...

, ''The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Journey to Understand His Extraordinary Son'' * Amanda Foreman, ''A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War'' *

Chad Harbach Chad Harbach (born 1975) is an American writer. An editor at the journal ''n+1'', he is the author of the 2011 novel '' The Art of Fielding''. Early life and education Harbach grew up in Racine, Wisconsin. His father was an accountant and his mot ...

, '' The Art of Fielding'' *

Eleanor Henderson Eleanor () is a feminine given name, originally from an Old French adaptation of the Old Provençal dialect">Provençal name ''Aliénor''. It was the name of a number of women of royalty and nobility in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. ...

, ''Ten Thousand Saints'' *

Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British and American author and journalist. He was the author of Christopher Hitchens bibliography, 18 books on faith, religion, culture, politics, and literature. He was born ...

, '' Arguably: Essays'' *

Daniel Kahneman Daniel Kahneman (; ; March 5, 1934 – March 27, 2024) was an Israeli-American psychologist best known for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making as well as behavioral economics, for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memor ...

, ''

Thinking, Fast and Slow ''Thinking, Fast and Slow'' is a 2011 popular science book by psychologist Daniel Kahneman. The book's main thesis is a differentiation between two modes of thought: "System 1" is fast, instinctive and emotional; "System 2" is slower, more delib ...

'' *

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Dubbed the "King of Horror", he is widely known for his horror novels and has also explored other genres, among them Thriller (genre), suspense, crime fiction, crime, scienc ...

, ''

11/22/63 ''11/22/63'' is a novel by American author Stephen King about a time traveler who attempts to prevent the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on November 22, 1963 (the novel's titular date). It is the 60th b ...

'' *

Manning Marable William Manning Marable (May 13, 1950 – April 1, 2011) was an American professor of public affairs, history and African-American Studies at Columbia University. Marable founded and directed the Institute for Research in African-American Studi ...

, '' Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention'' *

Téa Obreht Téa Obreht (born Tea Bajraktarević; 30 September 1985) is an American novelist. She won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2011 for ''The Tiger's Wife'', her debut novel.Hamilton, Ted (25 March 2009)"Student Artist Spotlight: Tea Bajraktarevic"(in ...

, ''

The Tiger's Wife ''The Tiger's Wife'' is the debut novel of American writer Téa Obreht. It was published in 2011 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, a British imprint of Orion Books, in the United Kingdom and by Random House in the United States.

'' *

Karen Russell Karen Russell (born July 10, 1981) is an American novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, '' Swamplandia!'', was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 2009 the National Book Foundation named Russell a 5 Under 35 honor ...

, '' Swamplandia!'' 2012 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 27, 2012. The 10 Best Books were announced November 30, 2012. *

Katherine Boo Katherine J. "Kate" Boo (born August 12, 1964) is an American investigative journalist who has documented the lives of people in poverty. She has received the MacArthur Fellowship (2002), the National Book Award for Nonfiction (2012), and her wor ...

, '' Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity'' *

Robert Caro Robert Allan Caro (born October 30, 1935) is an American journalist and author known for his biographies of United States political figures Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson. After working for many years as a reporter, Caro wrote '' The Power Bro ...

, '' The Passage of Power'' *

, '' A Hologram for the King'' * Jim Holt, '' Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story'' *

Hilary Mantel Dame Hilary Mary Mantel ( ; born Thompson; 6 July 1952 – 22 September 2022) was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, ''Every Day Is Mother's Day'', was releas ...

, ''

Bring Up the Bodies ''Bring Up the Bodies'' is an historical novel by Hilary Mantel, sequel to the award-winning ''Wolf Hall'' (2009), and part of a trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, the powerful minister in the court of King Henry VIII. It won ...

'' *

David Nasaw David Nasaw (born July 18, 1945) is an American author, biographer and historian who specializes in the cultural, social and business history of early 20th Century America. Nasaw is on the faculty of the Graduate Center of the City University of ...

, ''The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy'' *

Kevin Powers Kevin Powers (born 1980) is an American fiction writer, poet, and Iraq War veteran. Early life, tour, and education Powers was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, the son of a factory worker and a postman. He attended James River High Schoo ...

, ''

The Yellow Birds ''The Yellow Birds'' is the debut novel from American writer, poet, and Iraq War veteran Kevin Powers. It was one of ''The New York Timess 100 Most Notable Books of 2012 and a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award. It was awarded the 2012 ...

'' *

Andrew Solomon Andrew Solomon (born October 30, 1963) is an American writer on politics, culture and psychology, who lives in New York City and London. He has written for ''The New York Times'', ''The New Yorker'', ''Artforum'', '' Travel and Leisure'', and oth ...

, '' Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity'' *

, '' NW'' *

Chris Ware Franklin Christenson "Chris" Ware (born December 28, 1967) is an American cartoonist known for his ''Acme Novelty Library'' series (begun 1994) and the graphic novels ''Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth'' (2000), ''Building Stories'' (2012 ...

, ''

Building Stories ''Building Stories'' is a 2012 graphic novel by American cartoonist Chris Ware. The unconventional work is made up of fourteen printed works—cloth-bound books, newspapers, broadsheets and flip books—packaged in a boxed set. The work took a d ...

'' 2013 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 27, 2013. The 10 Best Books were announced December 4, 2013. *

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born Grace Ngozi Adichie; 15 September 1977) is a Nigerians, Nigerian writer of novels, short stories, poem, and children's books; she is also a book reviewer and literary critic. Her most famous works include ''Purple ...

, ''

Americanah ''Americanah'' is the third novel by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It was published on May 14, 2013, by Alfred A. Knopf. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 2013. ''Americanah'' recounts the story of a youn ...

'' * Kate Atkinson, '' Life After Life'' * Peter Baker, ''Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House'' * Alan S. Blinder, ''After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead'' *

Christopher Clark Education and academic positions Clark was educated at Sydney Grammar School from 1972 to 1978, the University of Sydney (where he studied history) and the Freie Universität Berlin from 1985 to 1987. Clark received his PhD at the Universi ...

, '' The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914'' * Sonali Deraniyagala, ''

Wave In physics, mathematics, engineering, and related fields, a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from List of types of equilibrium, equilibrium) of one or more quantities. ''Periodic waves'' oscillate repeatedly about an equilibrium ...

'' *

Sheri Fink Sheri Fink is an American journalist who writes about health, medicine and science. She received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting "for a story that chronicles the urgent life-and-death decisions made by one hospital’s exhaus ...

, '' Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital'' *

Rachel Kushner Rachel Kushner (born October 7, 1968) is an American writer, known for her novels '' Telex from Cuba'' (2008), '' The Flamethrowers'' (2013), '' The Mars Room'' (2018), and ''Creation Lake'' (2024). Early life Kushner was born in Eugene, Oregon, ...

, ''

The Flamethrowers ''The Flamethrowers'' is a 2013 novel by American author Rachel Kushner, released on April 2, 2013 by Scribner. ''The Flamethrowers'' follows a female artist in the 1970s. While writing the book, Kushner drew on personal experiences during and ...

'' *

Donna Tartt Donna Louise Tartt (born December 23, 1963) is an American novelist. She wrote the novels '' The Secret History'' (1992), '' The Little Friend'' (2002), and ''The Goldfinch'' (2013), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was adapted into ...

, '' The Goldfinch'' *

George Saunders George Saunders (born December 2, 1958) is an American writer of short stories, essays, novellas, children's books, and novels. His writing has appeared in ''The New Yorker'', ''Harper's'', ''McSweeney's'', and '' GQ''. He also contributed a we ...

, '' Tenth of December: Stories'' 2014 The 100 Notable Books were announced. The 10 Best Books were announced December 14, 2014. *

Eula Biss Eula Biss (born 1977) is an American non-fiction writer who is the author of four books. Biss has won the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the ...

, '' On Immunity: An Inoculation'' *

Roz Chast Roz Chast (born November 26, 1954) is an American cartoonist and a staff cartoonist for ''The New Yorker''. Since 1978, she has published more than 1000 cartoons in ''The New Yorker''. She also publishes cartoons in ''Scientific American'' and the ...

, '' Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir'' *

Anthony Doerr Anthony Doerr is an American author of novels and short stories. He gained widespread recognition for his 2014 novel '' All the Light We Cannot See'', which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Early life and education Doerr grew up in Cleveland ...

, ''

All the Light We Cannot See ''All the Light We Cannot See'' is a 2014 war novel by American author Anthony Doerr. The novel is set during World War II. It revolves around the characters Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind French girl who takes refuge in her great-uncle's hous ...

'' * Lily King, ''Euphoria'' *

Phil Klay Phil Klay ( ; born 1983) is an American writer. He won the National Book Award for fiction in 2014 for his first book-length publication, a collection of short stories, '' Redeployment''. In 2014 the National Book Foundation named him a 5 under ...

, ''

Redeployment Military deployment is the movement of armed forces and their logistical support infrastructure around the world. United States There are numerous groups within the military, these groups include (1) Army, (2) Navy, (3) Air Force, (4) Marine ...

'' *

Elizabeth Kolbert Elizabeth Kolbert (born July 6, 1961) is an American journalist, author, and visiting fellow at Williams College. She is best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning book '' The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History'', and as an observer and com ...

, '' The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History'' *

Hermione Lee Dame Hermione Lee (born 29 February 1948) is a British biographer, literary critic and academic. She is a former President of Wolfson College, Oxford, and a former Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature in the University of Oxford and Pr ...

, ''Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life'' *

Jenny Offill Jenny Offill (born November 14, 1968) is an American novelist and editor. Her novel '' Dept. of Speculation'' was named one of "The 10 Best Books of 2014" by ''The New York Times Book Review''. Early life Jenny Offill is the only child of two ...

, ''Dept. of Speculation'' *

Akhil Sharma Akhil Sharma (born July 22, 1971) is an Indian-American author and professor of creative writing. His first published novel ''An Obedient Father'' won the 2001 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, PEN/Hemingway Award. His second, ''Family Life ( ...

, ''

Family Life Family (from ) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as m ...

'' *

, ''Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp'' 2015 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 27, 2015. The 10 Best Books were announced December 3, 2015. *

Paul Beatty Paul Beatty (born June 9, 1962) is an American author and professor of writing at Columbia University.The Sellout'' *

Sven Beckert Sven Beckert is Laird Bell Professor of History at Harvard University, where he teaches the history of the United States in the nineteenth century, and global history. With Christine A. Desan, he is the co-director of the Program on the Study o ...

, ''Empire of Cotton: A Global History'' *

Lucia Berlin Lucia Brown Berlin (November 12, 1936 – November 12, 2004) was an American short story writer. She had a small, devoted following, but did not reach a mass audience during her lifetime. She rose to sudden literary fame in 2015, eleven years aft ...

, ''A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories'' *

Ta-Nehisi Coates Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates ( ; born September 30, 1975) is an American author, journalist, and activist. He gained a wide readership during his time as national correspondent at ''The Atlantic'', where he wrote about cultural, social, and political is ...

, ''

Between the World and Me ''Between the World and Me'' is a 2015 nonfiction book written by American author Ta-Nehisi Coates and published by Spiegel & Grau. It was written by Coates as a letter to his then-teenage son about his perception of what the feelings, symbolism ...

'' *

Rachel Cusk Rachel Cusk FRSL (born 8 February 1967) is a British novelist and writer. Childhood and education Cusk was born in Saskatoon to British parents in 1967, the second of four children with an older sister and two younger brothers, and spent muc ...

, ''

Outline Outline or outlining may refer to: * Outline (list), a document summary, in hierarchical list format * Code folding, a method of hiding or collapsing code or text to see content in outline form * Outline drawing, a sketch depicting the outer edge ...

'' *

Elena Ferrante Elena Ferrante () is a pseudonymous Italian novelist. Ferrante's books, originally published in Italian, have been translated into many languages. Her four-book series of '' Neapolitan Novels'' are her most widely known works. ''Time'' magazine ...

, '' The Story of the Lost Child: Book 4, The Neapolitan Novels: "Maturity, Old Age"'' * Helen Macdonald, ''

H Is for Hawk ''H is for Hawk'' is a 2014 memoir by British author Helen Macdonald. It won the Samuel Johnson Prize and Costa Book of the Year award, among other honours. Content ''H is for Hawk'' tells Macdonald's story of the year they spent training a E ...

'' *

Åsne Seierstad Åsne Seierstad (born 10 February 1970) is a Norwegian freelance journalist and writer, best known for her accounts of everyday life in war zones – most notably Kabul after 2001, Baghdad in 2002 and the ruined Grozny in 2006. Personal and pro ...

, '' One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway'' *

Magda Szabó Magda Szabó (5 October 1917 – 19 November 2007) was a Hungarians, Hungarian novelist. Doctor of philology, she also wrote dramas, essays, studies, memoirs, poetry and children's literature. She was a founding member of the , an online dig ...

, '' The Door'' * Andrea Wulf, '' The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World'' 2016 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 23, 2016. The 10 Best Books were announced December 1, 2016. * Sarah Bakewell, '' At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails'' *

Matthew Desmond Matthew Desmond is a sociologist and the Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, where he is also the principal investigator of the Eviction Lab. Desmond was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2022. He was ...

, '' Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City'' *

Susan Faludi Susan Charlotte Faludi (; born April 18, 1959) is an American feminism, feminist, journalist, and author. She won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1991, for a report on the leveraged buyout of Safeway Stores, Inc., a report that the ...

, ''

In the Darkroom ''In the Darkroom'' is a memoir by Susan Faludi that was first published on June 14, 2016. The memoir centers on the life of Faludi's father, who came out as transgender and underwent sex reassignment surgery at the age of 76. It won the 2016 ...

'' *

Stefan Hertmans Stefan Hertmans (born 1951 in Ghent, Belgium) is a Flemish Belgian writer. He was head of a study centre at University College Ghent and affiliated researcher of the Ghent University. He won the Ferdinand Bordewijk Prijs in 2002 for the novel '' ...

, '' War and Turpentine'' *

Han Kang Han Kang (; born 27 November 1970) is a South Korean writer. From 2007 to 2018, she taught creative writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts. Han rose to international prominence for her novel ''The Vegetarian'', which became the first Kore ...

, ''

The Vegetarian ''The Vegetarian'' () is a 2007 novel by South Korean author Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. Based on Han's 1997 short story "The Fruit of My Woman", ''The Vegetarian'' is a three-part novel set in modern-day Seoul and ...

'' *

Karan Mahajan Karan Mahajan (born April 24, 1984) is an Indian-American novelist, essayist, and critic. His second novel, '' The Association of Small Bombs,'' was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. He has contributed writing to '' The Be ...

, '' The Association of Small Bombs'' *

Hisham Matar Hisham Matar (; born 1970) is an American-born British-Libyan novelist, essayist, and memoirist. His debut novel '' In the Country of Men'' was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize, and his memoir of the search for his father, '' The Retur ...

, '' The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between'' *

, '' Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right'' * Ian McGuire, '' The North Water'' *

, '' The Underground Railroad'' 2017 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 22, 2017. The 10 Best Books were announced November 30, 2017. *

Naomi Alderman Naomi Alderman (born 1974) is an English novelist, Game design, game writer, and television executive producer. She is best known for her speculative science fiction novel ''The Power (Alderman novel), The Power'', which won the Women's Prize f ...

, '' The Power'' *

, ''

Grant Grant or Grants may refer to: People * Grant (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Grant (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters ** Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885), the 18th president of the Un ...

'' *

James Forman Jr. James Forman Jr. (born James Robert Lumumba Forman; June 22, 1967) is an American legal scholar currently on leave from serving as the J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He is the author of '' Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punis ...

, '' Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America'' * Caroline Fraser, '' Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder'' *

Mohsin Hamid Mohsin Hamid (; born 23 July 1971) is a British Pakistani novelist, writer and brand consultant. His novels are '' Moth Smoke'' (2000), ''The Reluctant Fundamentalist'' (2007), '' How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia'' (2013), '' Exit West'' ( ...

, ''

Exit West ''Exit West'' is a 2017 novel by Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid. It is Hamid's fourth novel. The main themes of the novel are emigration and refugee problems. The novel, which can be considered fantasy or speculative fiction, is about a young cou ...

'' *

Min Jin Lee Min Jin Lee (; born November 11, 1968) is a Korean American author and journalist based in Harlem, New York City; her work frequently deals with the Korean diaspora. She is best known for writing '' Free Food for Millionaires'' (2007) and ''Pac ...

, ''

Pachinko is a mechanical game originating in Japan that is used as an arcade game, and much more frequently for gambling. Pachinko fills a niche in Gambling in Japan, Japanese gambling comparable to that of the slot machine in the West as a form of l ...

'' *

Patricia Lockwood Patricia Lockwood (born April 27, 1982) is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Beginning a career in poetry, her collections include ''Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals'', a 2014 ''New York Times'' Notable Book. Later prose works ...

, '' Priestdaddy: A Memoir'' *

Richard Prum Richard O. Prum (born 1961) is an evolutionary biologist and ornithologist. He is the William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, as well as the head curator of vertebrate zoology at th ...

, '' The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World — and Us'' *

Ali Smith Ali Smith CBE FRSL (born 24 August 1962) is a Scottish author, playwright, academic and journalist. Sebastian Barry described her in 2016 as "Scotland's Nobel laureate-in-waiting". Early life and education Smith was born in Inverness on 24 A ...

, ''

Autumn Autumn, also known as fall (especially in US & Canada), is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March ( Southern Hemisphe ...

'' *

Jesmyn Ward Jesmyn Ward (born April 1, 1977) is an American novelist and a professor of English at Tulane University, where she holds the Andrew W. Mellon Professorship in the Humanities. She won the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction for her second novel ...

, ''

Sing, Unburied, Sing ''Sing, Unburied, Sing'' is the third novel by the American author Jesmyn Ward and published by Scribner in 2017. It focuses on a family in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. The novel received overwhelmingly positive reviews, an ...

'' 2018 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 18, 2018. The 10 Best Books were announced November 29, 2018. *

Shane Bauer Shane Bauer is an American journalist, best known for his undercover reporting for ''Mother Jones'' magazine. He has won several awards including the Harvard's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and the National Magazine Award for Best ...

, '' American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment'' *

Lisa Brennan-Jobs Lisa Nicole Brennan-Jobs ( Brennan; born May 17, 1978) is an American writer. She is the daughter of Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs and Chrisann Brennan. Jobs initially denied paternity for several years, which led to a legal case and various ...

, ''

Small Fry Small Fry may refer to: *Small fry (fish), a recently hatched fish * "Small Fry" (short story), 1885 Anton Chekhov story * "Small Fry" (song), a song written in 1938 by Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser * ''Small Fry'' (album), 1941 Bing Crosby a ...

'' *

David W. Blight David William Blight (born 1949) is the Sterling Professor of History, of African American Studies, and of American Studies and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. Previous ...

, '' Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom'' *

Esi Edugyan Esi Edugyan (born 1978) is a Canadian novelist.Donna Bailey Nurse"Writing the blues". ''Quill & Quire'', July 2011. She has twice won the Giller Prize, for her novels '' Half-Blood Blues'' (2011) and '' Washington Black'' (2018). Biography Esi Ed ...

, '' Washington Black'' *

Lisa Halliday Lisa Halliday (born July 12, 1976) is an Americans, American author and novelist. She is most known for her novel ''Asymmetry (novel), Asymmetry'', for which she received a Whiting Awards, Whiting Award in 2017. Life Halliday was born and grew ...

, ''

Asymmetry Asymmetry is the absence of, or a violation of, symmetry (the property of an object being invariant to a transformation, such as reflection). Symmetry is an important property of both physical and abstract systems and it may be displayed in pre ...

'' *

Rebecca Makkai Rebecca Makkai (born April 20, 1978) is an American novelist and short story writer. She is best known for writing '' The Great Believers'' (2018) and '' I Have Some Questions for You'' (2023), which have been positively received by critics and ...

, ''

The Great Believers ''The Great Believers'' is a historical fiction novel by American writer Rebecca Makkai published June 4, 2018, by Penguin Books. The novel follows two storylines in alternating chapters. The first, set in 1980s and '90s Chicago, centers on Yal ...

'' *

Tommy Orange Tommy Orange (born January 19, 1982) is an American novelist and writer from Oakland, California. His first book, '' There There'' (2018), was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and received the 2019 American Book Award. Orange ...

, '' There There'' *

, '' How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence'' *

Leïla Slimani Leïla Slimani (born 3 October 1981) is a French-Moroccan writer and journalist. She is also a French diplomat in her capacity as the personal representative of the French president Emmanuel Macron to the ''Organisation internationale de la Fran ...

, ''

Lullaby A lullaby (), or a cradle song, is a soothing song or piece of music that is usually played for (or sung to) children (for adults see music and sleep). The purposes of lullabies vary. In some societies, they are used to pass down cultural knowl ...

'' *

Tara Westover Tara Westover (born September 27, 1986) is an American memoirist, essayist and historian. Her memoir '' Educated'' (2018) debuted at No. 1 on ''The New York Times'' bestseller list and was a finalist for a number of national awards, including the ...

, ''

Educated Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education also fol ...

'' 2019 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 25, 2019. The 10 Best Books were announced November 22, 2019. In 2019 for the first time, the 10 Best Books were announced prior to the 100 Notable Books. *

Kevin Barry Kevin Gerard Barry (20 January 1902 – 1 November 1920) was an Irish Republican Army (IRA) soldier and medical student who was executed by the British Government during the Irish War of Independence. He was sentenced to death for his part in a ...

, '' Night Boat to Tangier'' * Sarah M. Broom, '' The Yellow House'' *

Leo Damrosch Leopold Damrosch Jr. (born 1941) is an American author and professor. In 2001, he was named the Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature at Harvard University. He received a B.A. from Yale University, a M.A. from Cambridge University, where he was ...

, '' The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age'' *

Ted Chiang Ted Chiang (; pinyin: ''Jiāng Fēngnán''; born 1967) is an American science fiction writer. His work has won four Nebula Award, Nebula awards, four Hugo Award, Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and six Locus Award, ...

, '' Exhalation: Stories'' *

Adam Higginbotham Adam Higginbotham (born 1968) is a British journalist who is the former U.S. correspondent for The Sunday Telegraph Magazine and former editor-in-chief of '' The Face''. He has also served as a contributing writer for'' The New Yorker'', ''Wired ...

, '' Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster'' *

Patrick Radden Keefe Patrick Radden Keefe (born 1976) is an American writer and investigative journalist. He is the author of five books—''Chatter,'' ''The Snakehead,'' '' Say Nothing,'' '' Empire of Pain,'' and ''Rogues''—and has written extensively for many pu ...

, '' Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland'' *

Ben Lerner Benjamin S. Lerner (born February 4, 1979) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and critic. The recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Foundations, Lerner has been a finalist for the National Book Award for P ...

, '' The Topeka School'' *

Valeria Luiselli Valeria Luiselli (born August 16, 1983) is a Mexican-American author. She is the author of the book of essays ''Sidewalks'' and the novel '' Faces in the Crowd'', which won the ''Los Angeles Times'' Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Luisel ...

, '' Lost Children Archive'' *

Julia Phillips Julia Phillips (née Miller; April 7, 1944 – January 1, 2002) was an American film producer and author. She co-produced with her husband Michael (and others) three prominent films of the 1970s—''The Sting'', ''Taxi Driver'', and ''Close En ...

, '' Disappearing Earth'' * Rachel Louise Snyder, ''No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us''

2020s

2020 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 20, 2020. The 10 Best Books were announced November 23, 2020. Fiction * Lydia Millet, '' A Children's Bible'' * James McBride, ''

Deacon King Kong ''Deacon King Kong'' is a novel by James McBride. It notably won the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence for Fiction, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction, and Thurber Prize for American Humor. Narrative The story unfolds in September 1 ...

'' *

Maggie O'Farrell Maggie O'Farrell, RSL (born 27 May 1972), is a novelist from Northern Ireland. Her acclaimed first novel, ''After You'd Gone'', won the Betty Trask Award, and a later one, '' The Hand That First Held Mine'', the 2010 Costa Novel Award. She has ...

, '' Hamnet'' *

Ayad Akhtar Ayad Akhtar (born October 28, 1970) is an American playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. He has received numerous accolades including the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as nominations for two Tony Awards. Akhtar is known as a playwrig ...

, '' Homeland Elegies'' *

Brit Bennett Brit Bennett is an American writer based in Los Angeles. Her debut novel '' The Mothers'' (2016) was a ''New York Times'' best-seller. Her second novel, ''The Vanishing Half'' (2020), was also a ''New York Times'' best-seller, and was chosen as a ...

, ''

The Vanishing Half ''The Vanishing Half'' is a historical fiction novel by American author Brit Bennett. It is her second novel and was published by Riverhead Books in 2020. The novel debuted at number one on ''The New York Times'' fiction best-seller list. HBO ...

'' *

Victoria Chang Victoria Chang is an American poet, writer, editor, and critic. She has experimented with different styles of writing, including writing poems shaped in obituaries, for parts of her life, including her parents and herself, in ''OBIT'', letters in ...

, "

Obit An obituary ( obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Ac ...

" Nonfiction *

Robert Kolker Robert Kolker is an American journalist and contributor to ''The New York Times Magazine'' who previously worked as a contributing editor at ''New York Magazine'' and projects and investigations reporter for Bloomberg News and ''Bloomberg Busines ...

, '' Hidden Valley Road'' *

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

, ''

A Promised Land ''A Promised Land'' is a memoir by Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Published on November 17, 2020, it is the first of a planned two-volume series. Remaining focused on his political career, the preside ...

'' * James Shapiro, ''Shakespeare in a Divided America'' *

Anna Wiener Anna Wiener is an American writer, best known for her 2020 memoir ''Uncanny Valley''. Wiener currently writes for ''The New Yorker'' as a tech correspondent. Life Wiener grew up in Brooklyn and attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. She ...

, ''

Uncanny Valley The effect is a hypothesized psychological and aesthetic relation between an object's degree of resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to the object. The uncanny valley hypothesis predicts that an entity appearing almost huma ...

'' *

, ''War: How Conflict Shaped Us'' 2021 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 22, 2021. The 10 Best Books were announced November 30, 2021. Fiction *

Imbolo Mbue Imbolo Mbue (born 1981) is a Cameroonian American novelist and short story writer based in New York City. She is known for her debut novel '' Behold the Dreamers'' (2016), which garnered her the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Blue Me ...

, '' How Beautiful We Were'' *

Katie Kitamura Katie Kitamura (born 1979) is an American novelist, journalist, and art critic. As of April 2025, she was teaching creative writing at New York University. Early life and education Katie Kitamura was born in Sacramento, California in 1979 to a fa ...

, '' Intimacies'' *

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (born 1967) is an American poet and novelist, and a professor of English at the University of Oklahoma. She has published five collections of poetry and a novel. Her 2020 collection ''The Age of Phillis'' reexamines the l ...

, ''

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois ''The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois'' is the 2021 debut novel by American poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. It explores the history of an African-American family in the American South, from the time before the American Civil War and slavery, through ...

'' *

, '' No One Is Talking About This'' *

Benjamín Labatut Benjamín Labatut (born 1980) is a Chilean writer. Early life Labatut was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He spent his childhood in The Hague, Buenos Aires, and Lima. He moved to Santiago at the age of 14. Writing Labatut's first book of stor ...

, ''When We Cease to Understand the World'' Nonfiction *

Tove Ditlevsen Tove Irma Margit Ditlevsen (; 14 December 1917 – 7 March 1976) was a Danish poet and author. With published works in a variety of genres, she was one of Denmark's best-known authors by the time of her death. Early life and career Tove ...

, '' The Copenhagen Trilogy'' *

Clint Smith Clinton James "Snuffy" Smith (December 12, 1913 – May 19, 2009) was a Canadian professional ice hockey centre and head coach best known for his time spent in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a player with the New York Rangers and the Chica ...

, ''How the Word is Passed'' * Andrea Elliott, '' Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City'' *

Annette Gordon-Reed Annette Gordon-Reed (born November 19, 1958) is an American historian and law professor. She is currently the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University and a professor of history in the university's Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She ...

, ''On Juneteenth'' * Heather Clark, '' Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath'' 2022 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 22, 2022. The 10 Best Books were announced November 29, 2022. Fiction *

, '' The Candy House'' *

Claire-Louise Bennett Claire-Louise Bennett is a British writer, living in Galway in Ireland. She is the author of the books ''Pond'' (2015), which was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, and '' Checkout 19'' (2021), which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. ...

, ''

Checkout 19 ''Checkout 19'' is a novel by British writer Claire-Louise Bennett. It is Bennet's second book, after ''Pond''. It was selected for ''The New York Times''s "10 Best Books of 2022" list. The book was also shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, wh ...

'' *

, ''

Demon Copperhead ''Demon Copperhead'' is a 2022 novel by Barbara Kingsolver. It was a co-recipient of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and won the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction. Kingsolver was inspired by the Charles Dickens novel ''David Copperfield''. Whil ...

'' *

Namwali Serpell Namwali Serpell (born 1980) is an American and Zambian writer who teaches in the United States. In April 2014, she was named on Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with the potential and talent to define t ...

, ''

The Furrows ''The Furrows'' is a 2022 novel by Namwali Serpell, an American and Zambian author. Plot ''The Furrows'' follows the story of Cassandra Williams, also known as Cee, whose mother is a white painter, and her father is a Black academic. When Ce ...

'' * Hernan Diaz, ''Trust'' Nonfiction *

Ed Yong Edmund Soon-Weng Yong (born 17 December 1981) is a British Americans, British-American science journalist and author. In 2021, he received a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for a series on the COVID-19 pandemic. He is the author of two ...

, '' An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us'' *

Hua Hsu Hua Hsu (born 1977) is an American writer and academic, based in New York City. He is a professor of English at Bard College and a staff writer at ''The New Yorker''. His work includes investigations of immigrant culture in the United States, as ...

, '' Stay True: A Memoir'' *

Rachel Aviv Rachel Aviv is an American writer. A staff writer at ''The New Yorker'', she wrote the book '' Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us'' in 2022. Aviv frequently writes about psychiatry; ''Tablet'' has referred to Av ...

, ''Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us'' *

Linda Villarosa Linda Villarosa (born January 9, 1959) is an American author and journalist who is a former executive editor of ''Essence'' magazine. She has worked on health coverage for ''Science Times''. She is also author of several books, and her first novel ...

, ''Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation'' *

Fintan O'Toole Fintan O'Toole (born 16 February 1958) is an Irish journalist, literary editor, and drama critic for ''The Irish Times'', for which he has written since 1988. He was drama critic for the ''New York Daily News'' from 1997 to 2001 and is Advisin ...

, '' We Don't Know Ourselves: a Personal History of Modern Ireland'' 2023 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 21, 2023. The 10 Best Books were announced on November 28. Fiction * Paul Murray, '' The Bee Sting'' *

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is an American speculative fiction author who wrote the short-story collection '' Friday Black'' (2018) and his debut novel '' Chain-Gang All-Stars'' (2023). He was named one of "5 under 35 Authors" by the National Book ...

, '' Chain-Gang All-Stars'' *

Maylis de Kerangal Maylis de Kerangal (born 16 June 1967) is a French author. Her novels deeply explore people in their work lives. She has won many awards for her work (including the Prix Médicis, the Premio Gregor von Rezzori, the Grand prix RTL-Lire, and the ...

, '' Eastbound'' *

, '' The Fraud'' * Daniel Mason, ''

North Woods North Woods or Northwoods may refer to: * Laurentian Mixed Forest Province, a forested ecoregion in the United States and Canada also known as the North Woods. * Operation Northwoods, a proposed operation against the Cuban government that originate ...

'' Nonfiction *

Jonathan Rosen Jonathan Rosen is an American author and editor. Education Rosen graduated from Yale and began graduate studies working towards a PhD in English at the University of California, Berkeley. He dropped out of graduate school to become a writer. Car ...

, ''The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions'' * Kerry Howley, ''Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs'' *

John Vaillant John Vaillant (born 1962) is an American Canadians, American Canadian writer and journalist whose work has appeared in ''The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic'', and ''Outside (magazine), Outside''. He has written both non-fiction an ...

, '' Fire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter World'' *

Ilyon Woo Ilyon Woo is a Korean American author. She won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Education Woo attended the public elementary school King Open School in Cambridge, Massachusetts alongside Imani Perry. She graduated with a BA in the Huma ...

, '' Master Slave Husband Wife'' *

Patricia Evangelista Patricia Chanco Evangelista is a Filipina trauma journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Manila, whose coverage focuses mostly on conflict, disaster and human rights. She is a multimedia reporter for online news agency Rappler and is a writ ...

, '' Some People Need Killing'' 2024 The 100 Notable Books were announced November 26, 2024. The 10 Best Books were announced on December 3. Fiction *

Miranda July Miranda July (born Miranda Jennifer Grossinger; February 15, 1974) is an American film director, screenwriter, actress and author. Her body of work includes film, fiction, monologue, digital presentations and live performance art. She wrote, di ...

, ''

All Fours All four or All fours may refer to: * All fours (human position) * All fours (card game) All fours is a traditional English card game, once popular in pubs and taverns as well as among the gentry, that flourished as a gambling game until the e ...

'' *

Dolly Alderton Dolly Alderton (born 31 August 1988) is a British author and screenwriter. She is also columnist for ''The Sunday Times''. Her memoir '' Everything I Know About Love'' won a 2018 National Book Award for autobiography and was shortlisted for the ...

, ''

Good Material ''Good Material'' is a 2023 romantic comedy novel by British author Dolly Alderton. The novel follows Andy, a 35-year-old struggling comedian who is blindsided when his girlfriend of almost four years, Jen, unexpectedly ends their relationship. T ...

'' *

Percival Everett Percival Leonard Everett II (born December 22, 1956) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Distinguished professor, Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. He has described himself as "pathologicall ...

, ''

James James may refer to: People * James (given name) * James (surname) * James (musician), aka Faruq Mahfuz Anam James, (born 1964), Bollywood musician * James, brother of Jesus * King James (disambiguation), various kings named James * Prince Ja ...

'' *

Kaveh Akbar Kaveh Akbar (b. 15 January 1989; Persian language, Persian: کاوه اکبر) is an Iranian American poet, novelist, and editor. He is the author of the poetry collections ''Calling a Wolf a Wolf'' and ''Pilgrim Bell'' and of the novel ''Martyr ...

, ''

Martyr! ''Martyr!'' is the 2024 debut novel by the Iranian-American poet Kaveh Akbar. A ''New York Times'' bestseller and one of the paper's Best Books of the Year So Far, it was a finalist for the 2024 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. The novel follow ...

'' *

Álvaro Enrigue Álvaro Enrigue (born 6 August 1969) is a Mexican novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and academic. He is the author of six novels, three books of short stories, and one book of essays. Early life The son of a Jalisco lawyer and a chemist ...

, ''You Dreamed of Empires'' Nonfiction *

József Debreczeni József Debreczeni (13 October 1905 – 26 April 1978) was a writer and translator, and a survivor and memoirist of the The Holocaust in Hungary, Hungarian Holocaust, with his book ''Cold Crematorium: Reporting From the Land of Auschwitz'', first ...

, '' Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz'' *

Jonathan Blitzer Jonathan Blitzer is an American journalist and writer. He is a staff writer at ''The New Yorker''. He has received a National Award for Education Reporting, an Edward R. Murrow Award, and the 2018 Immigration Journalism Prize from the French-Amer ...

, ''Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis'' *

Lucy Sante Lucy Sante (pronounced ''Sahnt''; formerly Luc Sante; born May 25, 1954) is a Belgian-born American writer, critic, and artist. She is a frequent contributor to '' The New York Review of Books''. Her books include ''Low Life: Lures and Snares of ...

, '' I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition'' *

Max Boot Max A. Boot (born September 12, 1969) is a Russian-born naturalized American author, editorialist, lecturer, and military historian. He worked as a writer and editor for ''The Christian Science Monitor'' and then for ''The Wall Street Journal ...

, ''Reagan: His Life and Legend'' *

Hampton Sides Wade Hampton Sides (born 1962) is an American historian, author and journalist. He is the author of '' Hellhound on His Trail,'' '' Ghost Soldiers,'' '' Blood and Thunder'', ''On Desperate Ground'', and other bestselling works of narrative hist ...

, ''The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook''

Studies

In 2010,

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

professors Alan Sorenson and

Jonah Berger Jonah Berger (born c. 1981) is an American professor and author. He serves as a Marketing Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Biography Born in Washington, D.C., Berger was raised in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and at ...

published a study examining the effect on book sales from positive or negative reviews in the ''New York Times Book Review''.Alan Sorenson, Jonah Berger
"Positive Effects of Negative Publicity: When Negative Reviews Increase Sales"
''

Marketing Science Marketing science is a field that approaches marketing''—''the understanding of customer needs, and the development of approaches by which they might be fulfilled''—''predominantly through scientific methods, rather than through tools and te ...

'', Vol. 29, No. 5, September–October 2010, pp. 815–827. They found all books benefited from positive reviews, while only popular or well-known authors were negatively impacted by negative reviews. Lesser-known authors benefited from negative reviews (i.e., bad publicity boosted book sales).Jenny Thai
"Bad publicity may boost book sales"
the ''

Stanford Daily ''The Stanford Daily'' is the student-run, independent daily newspaper serving Stanford University. ''The Daily'' is distributed throughout campus and the surrounding community of Palo Alto, California, United States. It has published since the ...

'', February 23, 2011. A 2012 study by writer

Roxane Gay Roxane Gay (born October 15, 1974) is an American writer, professor, editor, and social commentator. Gay is the author of ''The New York Times'' best-selling essay collection ''Bad Feminist'' (2014), as well as the short story collection ''Ayiti ...

found that 90% of ''New York Times'' book reviews published in 2011 were on books by white authors, whereas 2010 United States census found that only 72% of the population was White, defined as including

Hispanic and Latino Americans Hispanic and Latino Americans are Americans who have a Spaniards, Spanish or Latin Americans, Latin American background, culture, or family origin. This demographic group includes all Americans who identify as Hispanic or Latino (demonym), ...

who identify as white.

References

External links

*, home page.
''The New York Times''
October 10, 1896. Inaugural book review issue (announced on page 4, column 1) *Interviews with senior editors and writers at the ''NYTBR'', by Michael Orbach, ''The Knight News'', Issue date: 2/8/07 Section: Knight Life
The Man Behind the Criticism: Sam Tanenhaus
(via

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Launched for public access in 2001, the service allows users to go "back in ...

)
Question and Answer: Dwight Garner
(via

)
Question and Answer: Liesl Schillinger
(via Wayback Machine)
Question and Answer: Rachel Donadio
(via Wayback Machine)
"Are ''The New York Times'' Book Reviews Fair?"
''

Tell Me More ''Tell Me More'' is a National Public Radio (NPR) interview show that was hosted by journalist Michel Martin. ''Tell Me More'' was first introduced online in December 2006 through an "open piloting" program called "Rough Cuts". Martin and the ...

'',

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

, August 20, 2010 * * *
Answering the Most Frequent Questions About the Book Review
{{DEFAULTSORT:New York Times Book Review Book review magazines published in the United States Weekly magazines published in the United States Magazines published in New York City Newspaper supplements The New York Times publications Magazines established in 1896

Overview

Editors

1983 ''Legion'' court case

Best Books of the Year and Notable Books

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

Studies

See also

References

External links