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 2019]

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)

Christopher Borrelli: 10 Best Books of 2018, as published by The Chicago Tribune

[see also 2019]

Nonfiction

• 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
• This Land: America, Lost and Found
  Dan Barry
• Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
  David W. Blight
• Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore
  Elizabeth Rush
• Feel Free
  Zadie Smith

Fiction

• Motherhood
  Sheila Heti
• The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
  Denis Johnson
• X-Men: Grand Design
  Ed Piskor
• The Overstory
  Richard Powers
• Heads of the Colored People
  Nafissa Thompson-Spires

O, The Oprah Magazine: 15 Best Books of 2018

[see also 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

Paste Magazine: Best Books of 2018, Novels and Nonfiction

[see also 2010s, 2017]

Novels

1. Circe
   Madeline Miller
2. The Incendiaries
   R.O. Kwon
3. The Poppy War
   R.F. Kuang
4. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
   Hank Green
5. Warlight
   Michael Ondaatje
6. Crudo
   Olivia Laing
7. All the Ever Afters: The Untold Story of Cinderella’s Stepmother
   Danielle Teller
8. Girls Burn Brighter
   Shobha Rao
9. The Friend
   Sigrid Nunez
10. Melmoth
    Sarah Perry
11. Southernmost
    Silas House
12. The Calculating Stars
    Mary Robinette Kowal

Nonfiction

1. Educated
   Tara Westover
2. Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro
   Rachel Slade
3. Fisherman's Blues: A West African Community at Sea
   Anna Badkhen
4. So You Want to Talk About Race
   Ijeoma Oluo
5. Beastie Boys Book
   Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz
6. Feel Free
   Zadie Smith
7. All You Can Ever Know
   Nicole Chung
8. When They Go Low, We Go High: Speeches That Shape the World - and Why We Need Them
   Philip Collins
9. The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump
   Michiko Kakutani
10. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
    John Carreyrou
11. Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”
    Zora Neale Hurston
12. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
    Alexander Chee
13. Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture
    Roxane Gay (editor)
14. Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey
    Mark Dery
15. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
    Michelle McNamara
16. How Democracies Die
    Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

Chicago Public Library: 10 Best Books of 2018

[see also 2017]

• 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 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 Top 10 Books of 2018, Top 10 Books of 2016, 100 Recommended Books of 2016, Top 10 Books of 2015]

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

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