Year-End Lists

Harper’s Bazaar: The 13 Best Books of 2018

[see also 2020 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015]

1. Barracoon

   The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”
   Zora Neale Hurston
2. An American Marriage
   Tayari Jones
3. You Think It, I'll Say It
   Curtis Sittenfeld
4. The Pisces
   Melissa Broder
5. Florida
   Lauren Groff
6. Call Me Zebra
   Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
7. Heart Berries
   Terese Marie Mailhot
8. Bad Blood

   Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
   John Carreyrou
9. If They Come for Us
   Fatimah Asghar
10. Educated
    Tara Westover
11. Circe
    Madeline Miller
12. The Friend
    Sigrid Nunez
13. Becoming
    Michelle Obama

Ann Patchett: Best Books of 2018, as posted by PBS

• Baby, You're Gonna Be Mine
  Kevin Wilson
• The Overstory
  Richard Powers
• Circe
  Madeline Miller
• Early Work
  Andrew Martin
• The Baltimore Book of the Dead
  Marion Winik

Carlos Lozada: Best Books of 2018, as posted by PBS

• The Line Becomes a River

  Dispatches from the Border
  Francisco Cantú
• Good and Mad

  The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger
  Rebecca Traister
• Post-Truth
  Lee McIntyre
• The List

  A Week-by-Week Reckoning of Trump’s First Year
  Amy Siskind
• The Lies That Bind

  Rethinking Identity
  Kwame Anthony Appiah

Barack Obama: Favorite Books of 2018, as posted to Facebook

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2017]

Books that appeared on earlier lists

• Becoming
  Michelle Obama
• An American Marriage
  Tayari Jones
• Americanah
  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Broken Ladder

  How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die
  Keith Payne
• Educated
  Tara Westover
• Factfulness

  Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
  Hans Rosling
• A Grain of Wheat
  Ngugi wa Thiong'o
• A House for Mr. Biswas
  V.S. Naipaul
• How Democracies Die
  Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
• In the Shadow of Statues

  A White Southerner Confronts History
  Mitch Landrieu
• Long Walk to Freedom

  The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
  Nelson Mandela
• The New Geography of Jobs
  Enrico Moretti
• The Return

  Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
  Hisham Matar
• Things Fall Apart
  Chinua Achebe
• Warlight
  Michael Ondaatje
• Why Liberalism Failed
  Patrick J. Deneen
• The World as It Is

  A Memoir of the Obama White House
  Ben Rhodes

Other favorites books

• American Prison

  A Reporter’s Undercover Journey Into the Business of Punishment
  Shane Bauer
• Arthur Ashe

  A Life
  Raymond Arsenault
• Asymmetry
  Lisa Halliday
• Feel Free
  Zadie Smith
• Florida
  Lauren Groff
• Frederick Douglass

  Prophet of Freedom
  David W. Blight
• Immigrant, Montana
  Amitava Kumar
• The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
  Denis Johnson
• Life 3.0

  Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
  Max Tegmark
• There There
  Tommy Orange
• Washington Black
  Esi Edugyan

Maria Popova: Favorite Books of 2018, with a special entry at the end

[see also 2016 • 2015]

• So Far So Good
  Ursula K. Le Guin
• Feel Free
  Zadie Smith
• Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine
  Alan Lightman
• How to Be a Good Creature

  A Memoir in Thirteen Animals
  Sy Montgomery
• A Burst of Light
  Audre Lorde
• Call Them by Their True Names

  American Crises (and Essays)
  Rebecca Solnit
• Hiking with Nietzsche

  On Becoming Who You Are
  John Kaag
• How to Change Your Mind

  What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
  Michael Pollan
• Almost Everything

  Notes on Hope
  Anne Lamott
• Little Panic

  Dispatches from an Anxious Life
  Amanda Stern
• The Strange Order of Things

  Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures
  Antonio Damasio
• The Woman Who Smashed Codes

  A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies
  Jason Fagone
• Maker of Patterns

  An Autobiography Through Letters
  Freeman Dyson
• The Moth Snowstorm

  Nature and Joy
  Michael McCarthy
• A Velocity of Being

  Letters to A Young Reader
  Maria Popova and Claudia Bedrick (editors)

O, The Oprah Magazine: 15 Best Books of 2018

[see also 2020 • 2019 • 2017]

1. Asymmetry
   Lisa Halliday
2. An American Marriage
   Tayari Jones
3. Clock Dance
   Anne Tyler
4. How to Love a Jamaican
   Alexia Arthurs
5. The Overstory
   Richard Powers
6. Those Who Knew
   Idra Novey
7. The Feral Detective
   Jonathan Lethem
8. Everything Here Is Beautiful
   Mira T. Lee
9. Lake Success
   Gary Shteyngart
10. Educated
    Tara Westover
11. Pretend I'm Dead
    Jen Beagin
12. Unsheltered
    Barbara Kingsolver
13. There There
    Tommy Orange
14. Heads of the Colored People
    Nafissa Thompson-Spires
15. The Labyrinth of the Spirits
    Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Chicago Public Library: 10 Best Books of 2018

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014]

• An American Marriage
  Tayari Jones
• Circe
  Madeline Miller
• Educated
  Tara Westover
• The Great Believers
  Rebecca Makkai
• Heavy

  An American Memoir
  Kiese Laymon
• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark

  One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
  Michelle McNamara
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation
  Ottessa Moshfegh
• Severance
  Ling Ma
• There There
  Tommy Orange
• Washington Black
  Esi Edugyan

Maureen Corrigan: Best Books of 2018, as aired on NPR’s Fresh Air

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2011]

• The Great Believers
  Rebecca Makkai
• Lake Success
  Gary Shteyngart
• There There
  Tommy Orange
• Warlight
  Michael Ondaatje
• Washington Black
  Esi Edugyan
• Barracoon

  The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”
  Zora Neale Hurston
• The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
  Denis Johnson
• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark

  One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
  Michelle McNamara
• Sharp
  Michelle Dean
• Heartland

  A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
  Sarah Smarsh

The San Francisco Chronicle: 100 Recommended Books of 2018

[see also Favorite Books of 2022 • Top 10 Books of 2018 • 100 Recommended Books of 2016 • Top 10 Books of 2016 • Top 10 Books of 2015]

Nonfiction

• Anne Frank's Diary

  The Graphic Adaptation
  Ari Folman (adapter)
• Arthur Ashe

  A Life
  Raymond Arsenault
• Bad Blood

  Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
  John Carreyrou
• Becoming
  Michelle Obama
• Belonging

  A German Reckons with History and Home
  Nora Krug
• The Billionaire Raj

  A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age
  James Crabtree
• Boom Town

  The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-Class Metropolis
  Sam Anderson
• Born to Be Posthumous

  The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey
  Mark Dery
• Broad Band

  The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet
  Claire L. Evans
• The Browns of California

  The Family Dynasty that Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation
  Miriam Pawel
• Bruce Lee

  A Life
  Matthew Polly
• Call Them by Their True Names

  American Crises (and Essays)
  Rebecca Solnit
• Calypso
  David Sedaris
• No Immediate Danger

  Volume One of Carbon Ideologies
  William T. Vollmann
• No Good Alternative

  Volume Two of Carbon Ideologies
  William T. Vollmann
• Carleton Watkins

  Making the West American
  Tyler Green
• The Death of Truth

  Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump
  Michiko Kakutani
• Educated
  Tara Westover
• Empire of Guns

  The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution
  Priya Satia
• The End of the End of the Earth
  Jonathan Franzen
• Essential Essays

  Culture, Politics, and the Art of Poetry
  Adrienne Rich
• Evolution of Desire

  A Life of René Girard
  Cynthia L Haven
• Fear

  Trump in the White House
  Bob Woodward
• Feel Free
  Zadie Smith
• The Fifth Risk
  Michael Lewis
• The Good Neighbor

  The Life and Work of Fred Rogers
  Maxwell King
• Harvey Milk

  His Lives and Death
  Lillian Faderman
• Heartland

  A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
  Sarah Smarsh
• Hippie Food

  How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat
  Jonathan Kauffman
• How to Change Your Mind

  What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
  Michael Pollan
• Hunting the Truth

  Memoirs of Beate and Serge Klarsfeld
  Beate Klarsfeld and Serge Klarsfeld
• I Will Be Complete
  Glen David Gold
• Inseparable

  The Original Siamese Twins and Their Rendezvous with American History
  Yunte Huang
• The Last Cowboys

  A Pioneer Family in the New West
  John Branch
• The Last Englishmen

  Love, War, and the End of Empire
  Deborah Baker
• Lessons from a Dark Time and Other Essays
  Adam Hochschild
• The Library Book
  Susan Orlean
• The Line Becomes a River

  Dispatches from the Border
  Francisco Cantú
• Loaded

  A Disarming History of the Second Amendment
  Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
• The Monarchy of Fear

  A Philosopher Looks at Our Political Crisis
  Martha C. Nussbaum
• The Monk of Mokha
  Dave Eggers
• Old In Art School

  A Memoir of Starting Over
  Nell Painter
• Our Story

  A Memoir of Love and Life in China
  Rao Pingru
• Patriot Number One

  American Dreams in Chinatown
  Lauren Hilgers
• Pogrom

  Kishinev and the Tilt of History
  Steven J. Zipperstein
• The Poisoned City

  Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy
  Anna Clark
• Reader, Come Home

  The Reading Brain in a Digital World
  Maryanne Wolf
• The Real Lolita

  The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World
  Sarah Weinman
• Retablos

  Stories From a Life Lived Along the Border
  Octavio Solis
• Robin
  Dave Itzkoff
• Sharp
  Michelle Dean
• Trumpocracy

  The Corruption of the American Republic
  David Frum
• Valley of Genius

  The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley
  Adam Fisher
• We the Corporations

  How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights
  Adam Winkler
• What Are We Doing Here?
  Marilynne Robinson
• The White Darkness
  David Grann

Fiction and Poetry

• America Is Not the Heart
  Elaine Castillo
• An American Marriage
  Tayari Jones
• Awayland
  Ramona Ausubel
• Be With
  Forrest Gander
• Belly Up
  Rita Bullwinkel
• Brass
  Xhenet Aliu
• Come with Me
  Helen Schulman
• The Ensemble
  Aja Gabel
• Evening in Paradise
  Lucia Berlin
• Extra Hidden Life, among the Days
  Brenda Hillman
• The Female Persuasion
  Meg Wolitzer
• Fire Sermon
  Jamie Quatro
• Florida
  Lauren Groff
• French Exit
  Patrick deWitt
• Friday Black
  Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
• Fruit of the Drunken Tree
  Ingrid Rojas Contreras
• Godsend
  John Wray
• The Golden State
  Lydia Kiesling
• The Great Believers
  Rebecca Makkai
• Gun Love
  Jennifer Clement
• History of Violence
  Édouard Louis
• The House of Broken Angels
  Luis Alberto Urrea
• The Incendiaries
  R.O. Kwon
• Killing Commendatore
  Haruki Murakami
• Kudos
  Rachel Cusk
• Last Stories
  William Trevor
• Motherhood
  Sheila Heti
• My Ex-Life
  Stephen McCauley
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation
  Ottessa Moshfegh
• Oceanic
  Aimee Nezhukumatathil
• The Only Story
  Julian Barnes
• The Overstory
  Richard Powers
• The Sadness of Beautiful Things
  Simon Van Booy
• semiautomatic
  Evie Shockley
• The Shape of the Ruins
  Juan Gabriel Vásquez
• A Shout in the Ruins
  Kevin Powers
• Some Trick

  Thirteen Stories
  Helen DeWitt
• The Sparsholt Affair
  Alan Hollinghurst
• Transcription
  Kate Atkinson
• The Travelling Cat Chronicles
  Hiro Arikawa
• Unsheltered
  Barbara Kingsolver
• Wade in the Water
  Tracy K. Smith
• Washington Black
  Esi Edugyan
• White Houses
  Amy Bloom
• You Think It, I'll Say It
  Curtis Sittenfeld

The San Francisco Chronicle: Top 10 Books of 2018

[see also Favorite Books of 2022 • 100 Recommended Books of 2018 • 100 Recommended Books of 2016 • Top 10 Books of 2016 • Top 10 Books of 2015]

Fiction

• Lake Success
  Gary Shteyngart
• The Mars Room
  Rachel Kushner
• There There
  Tommy Orange
• The Winter Soldier
  Daniel Mason
• Your Duck Is My Duck
  Deborah Eisenberg

Nonfiction

• American Prison

  A Reporter’s Undercover Journey Into the Business of Punishment
  Shane Bauer
• Dopesick

  Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America
  Beth Macy
• Frederick Douglass

  Prophet of Freedom
  David W. Blight
• Heavy

  An American Memoir
  Kiese Laymon
• Small Fry
  Lisa Brennan-Jobs