Year-End Lists

Time Magazine: The Top 10 Podcasts of 2018

[see also 2019]

1. Serial
2. Slow Burn
3. In the Dark
4. Binge Mode: Harry Potter
5. The Habitat
6. The Dream
7. The Wilderness
8. Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness
9. Everything is Alive
10. Bikram

The New York Times Book Review: 100 Notable Books of 2018

[see also The 10 Best Books of 2023 • 100 Notable Books of 2023 • The 10 Best Books of 2022 • 100 Notable Books of 2022 • The 10 Best Books of 2021 • 100 Notable Books of 2021 • The 10 Best Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2019 • The 10 Best Books of 2019 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The 10 Best Books of 2014 • The 10 Best Books of 2013 • 100 Notable Books of 2012 • 10 Best Books of 2012 • 100 Notable Books of 2011 • Ten Best Books of 2011]

Fiction & Poetry

• An American Marriage
  Tayari Jones
• Asymmetry
  Lisa Halliday
• Brown
  Kevin Young
• Cherry
  Nico Walker
• Crudo
  Olivia Laing
• Early Work
  Andrew Martin
• Eternal Life
  Dara Horn
• Everything Under
  Daisy Johnson
• The Female Persuasion
  Meg Wolitzer
• Freshwater
  Akwaeke Emezi
• Friday Black
  Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
• The Friend
  Sigrid Nunez
• Go, Went, Gone
  Jenny Erpenbeck
• The Great Believers
  Rebecca Makkai
• The House of Broken Angels
  Luis Alberto Urrea
• Immigrant, Montana
  Amitava Kumar
• Improvement
  Joan Silber
• In Every Moment We Still Are Alive
  Tom Malmquist
• The Kites
  Romain Gary
• Kudos
  Rachel Cusk
• Lake Success
  Gary Shteyngart
• The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
  Denis Johnson
• Last Stories
  William Trevor
• Macbeth
  Jo Nesbø
• The Mars Room
  Rachel Kushner
• Mirror, Shoulder, Signal
  Dorthe Nors
• My Struggle

  Book 6
  Karl Ove Knausgaard
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation
  Ottessa Moshfegh
• The Neighborhood
  Mario Vargas Llosa
• The Odyssey
  Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
• Only to Sleep

  A Philip Marlowe Novel
  Lawrence Osborne
• The Overstory
  Richard Powers
• The Parking Lot Attendant
  Nafkote Tamirat
• The Perfect Nanny
  Leila Slimani
• A Princess in Theory
  Alyssa Cole
• Property
  Lionel Shriver
• Pure Hollywood
  Christine Schutt
• Sabrina
  Nick Drnaso
• Severance
  Ling Ma
• Slave Old Man
  Patrick Chamoiseau
• The Sparsholt Affair
  Alan Hollinghurst
• Spinning Silver
  Naomi Novik
• A State of Freedom
  Neel Mukherjee
• There There
  Tommy Orange
• A View of the Empire at Sunset
  Caryl Phillips
• Wade in the Water
  Tracy K. Smith
• Warlight
  Michael Ondaatje
• Washington Black
  Esi Edugyan
• The Witch Elm
  Tana French
• Your Duck Is My Duck
  Deborah Eisenberg

Nonfiction

• Ali

  A Life
  Jonathan Eig
• American Dialogue

  The Founders and Us
  Joseph J. Ellis
• American Eden

  David Hosack, Botany and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic
  Victoria Johnson
• American Prison

  A Reporter’s Undercover Journey Into the Business of Punishment
  Shane Bauer
• Amity and Prosperity

  One Family and the Fracturing of America
  Eliza Griswold
• Arthur Ashe

  A Life
  Raymond Arsenault
• Bad Blood

  Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
  John Carreyrou
• 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
• Brothers of the Gun

  A Memoir of the Syrian War
  Marwan Hisham and Molly Crabapple
• Calypso
  David Sedaris
• Churchill

  Walking With Destiny
  Andrew Roberts
• The Coddling of the American Mind

  How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
  Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
• The Cost of Living

  A Working Autobiography
  Deborah Levy
• Crashed

  How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World
  Adam Tooze
• The Darkening Age

  The Christian Destruction of the Classical World
  Catherine Nixey
• Dead Girls

  Essays on Surviving an American Obsession
  Alice Bolin
• The Dinosaur Artist

  Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth’s Ultimate Trophy
  Paige Williams
• Dopesick

  Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America
  Beth Macy
• Educated
  Tara Westover
• Enlightenment Now

  The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
  Steven Pinker
• Fatal Discord

  Erasmus, Luther and the Fight for the Western Mind
  Michael Massing
• Feel Free
  Zadie Smith
• The Field of Blood

  Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War
  Joanne B. Freeman
• The Fifth Risk
  Michael Lewis
• Fly Girls

  How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History
  Keith O’Brien
• Frederick Douglass

  Prophet of Freedom
  David W. Blight
• Gandhi

  The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948
  Ramachandra Guha
• God Save Texas

  A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State
  Lawrence Wright
• Heavy

  An American Memoir
  Kiese Laymon
• How to Change Your Mind

  What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
  Michael Pollan
• In Pieces
  Sally Field
• Into the Raging Sea

  Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro
  Rachel Slade
• The Library Book
  Susan Orlean
• Looking for Lorraine

  The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry
  Imani Perry
• Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret
  Craig Brown
• No Ashes in the Fire

  Coming of Age Black and Free in America
  Darnell L. Moore
• No Turning Back

  Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria
  Rania Abouzeid
• Patriot Number One

  American Dreams in Chinatown
  Lauren Hilgers
• The Poison Squad

  One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
  Deborah Blum
• Rise and Kill First

  The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations
  Ronen Bergman
• She Has Her Mother’s Laugh

  The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity
  Carl Zimmer
• Small Fry
  Lisa Brennan-Jobs
• The Souls of Yellow Folk
  Wesley Yang
• The Tangled Tree

  A Radical New History of Life
  David Quammen
• There Will Be No Miracles Here
  Casey Gerald
• These Truths

  A History of the United States
  Jill Lepore
• We the Corporations

  How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights
  Adam Winkler
• What the Eyes Don’t See

  A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City
  Mona Hanna-Attisha
• Why Comics?

  From Underground to Everywhere
  Hillary Chute
• Winners Take All

  The Elite Charade of Changing the World
  Anand Giridharadas

Raisa Bruner: 10 Best Albums of 2018, as published by Time Magazine

[see also 2017]

1. Invasion of Privacy
   Cardi B
2. Dirty Computer
   Janelle Monáe
3. Be the Cowboy
   Mitski
4. Shawn Mendes
   Shawn Mendes
5. Vibras
   J Balvin
6. Honey
   Robyn
7. Bloom
   Troye Sivan
8. Golden Hour
   Kacey Musgraves
9. A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships
   The 1975
10. Camila
    Camila Cabello

Mojo Magazine: 75 Best Albums of 2018

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

1. Heaven and Earth
   Kamasi Washington
2. Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino
   Arctic Monkeys
3. Hope Downs
   Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
4. Dirty Computer
   Janelle Monáe
5. Chris
   Christine and the Queens
6. Joy as an Act of Resistance
   Idles
7. Deafman Glance
   Ryley Walker
8. Tell Me How You Really Feel
   Courtney Barnett
9. And Nothing Hurt
   Spiritualized
10. All Nerve
    The Breeders
11. Fenfo
    Fatoumata Diawara
12. Daytona
    Pusha T
13. Bottle It In
    Kurt Vile
14. True Meanings
    Paul Weller
15. Record
    Tracey Thorn
16. Elephants on Acid
    Cypress Hill
17. World’s Strongest Man
    Gaz Coombes
18. Cocoa Sugar
    Young Fathers
19. Double Negative
    Low
20. I’m All Ears
    Let’s Eat Grandma
21. Wide Awake!
    Parquet Courts
22. Open Here
    Field Music
23. Golden Hour
    Kacey Musgraves
24. Smote Reverser
    Oh Sees
25. Wanderer
    Cat Power
26. Look Now
    Elvis Costello & The Imposters
27. Egypt Station
    Paul McCartney
28. Rebound
    Eleanor Friedberger
29. Le Kov
    Gwenno
30. Con Todo El Mundo
    Khruangbin
31. Hunter
    Anna Calvi
32. Babelsberg
    Gruff Rhys
33. The Prodigal Son
    Ry Cooder
34. Insecure Men
    Insecure Men
35. The Blue Hour
    Suede
36. The Sciences
    Sleep
37. We’re Not Talking
    The Goon Sax
38. Freedom’s Goblin
    Ty Segall
39. Sparkle Hard
    Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
40. There Is a Place
    Maisha
41. 13 Rivers
    Richard Thompson
42. Piano & a Microphone 1983
    Prince
43. Chemistry Lessons, Vol. 1
    Chris Carter
44. There’s a Riot Going On
    Yo La Tengo
45. The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs
    Wye Oak
46. Alive in the East?
    Binker and Moses
47. Temet
    Imarhan
48. C’est La Vie
    Phosphorescent
49. The Art of Pretending to Swim
    Villagers
50. Microshift
    Hookworms
51. How to Solve Our Human Problems
    Belle and Sebastian
52. Confident Music For Confident People
    Confidence Man
53. May Your Kindness Remain
    Courtney Marie Andrews
54. Mozart’s Mini-Mart
    Go-Kart Mozart
55. Digital Garbage
    Mudhoney
56. Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune
    Swamp Dogg
57. Love is Magic
    John Grant
58. The Lookout
    Laura Veirs
59. Benton County Relic
    Cedric Burnside
60. Listening To Pictures (Pentimento, Vol. One)
    Jon Hassell
61. Singularity
    Jon Hopkins
62. Be the Cowboy
    Mitski
63. Your Queen Is a Reptile
    Sons of Kemet
64. Uniform Distortion
    Jim James
65. Utopia
    Björk
66. Lump
    Lump
67. Last Man Standing
    Willie Nelson
68. Call The Comet
    Johnny Marr
69. For Ever
    Jungle
70. The Visitor
    Neil Young & Promise of the Real
71. Songs of Praise
    Shame
72. Lala Belu
    Hailu Mergia
73. Boarding House Reach
    Jack White
74. Unstoppable
    Candi Staton
75. The Now Now
    Gorillaz

Uncut Magazine: 75 Best Albums of 2018

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012]

1. Double Negative
   Low
2. Hope Downs
   Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
3. Freedom’s Goblin
   Ty Segall
4. And Nothing Hurt
   Spiritualized
5. There’s a Riot Going On
   Yo La Tengo
6. Dirty Computer
   Janelle Monáe
7. Babelsberg
   Gruff Rhys
8. >>>
   Beak>
9. Chris
   Christine and the Queens
10. Your Queen Is a Reptile
    Sons of Kemet
11. 13 Rivers
    Richard Thompson
12. Hell-On
    Neko Case
13. Cocoa Sugar
    Young Fathers
14. The Prodigal Son
    Ry Cooder
15. Look Now
    Elvis Costello & The Imposters
16. Transangelic Exodus
    Ezra Furman
17. Tell Me How You Really Feel
    Courtney Barnett
18. All Nerve
    The Breeders
19. All That Reckoning
    Cowboy Junkies
20. Boarding House Reach
    Jack White
21. Heaven and Earth
    Kamasi Washington
22. God’s Favorite Customer
    Father John Misty
23. Bottle It In
    Kurt Vile
24. True Meanings
    Paul Weller
25. May Your Kindness Remain
    Courtney Marie Andrews
26. The Tree of Forgiveness
    John Prine
27. Joy as an Act of Resistance
    Idles
28. Lamp Lit Prose
    Dirty Projectors
29. I’m All Ears
    Let’s Eat Grandma
30. Radyo siwèl
    Mélissa Laveaux
31. Pastoral
    Gazelle Twin
32. Le Kov
    Gwenno
33. Jassbusters
    Connan Mockasin
34. Microshift
    Hookworms
35. Mozart’s Mini-Mart
    Go-Kart Mozart
36. Go to School
    The Lemon Twigs
37. Sparkle Hard
    Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
38. The Thread That Keeps Us
    Calexico
39. Rebound
    Eleanor Friedberger
40. Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino
    Arctic Monkeys
41. Wanderer
    Cat Power
42. Bon Voyage
    Melody’s Echo Chamber
43. Record
    Tracey Thorn
44. Deafman Glance
    Ryley Walker
45. Hunter
    Anna Calvi
46. From When I Wake the Want Is
    Kathryn Joseph
47. Aviary
    Julia Holter
48. The Lookout
    Laura Veirs
49. Hundreds of Days
    Mary Lattimore
50. Body
    The Necks
51. You Never Were Much of a Dancer
    Gwenifer Raymond
52. Last Man Standing
    Willie Nelson
53. American Utopia
    David Byrne
54. I can feel you creep into my private life
    Tune-Yards
55. Cosmic Wink
    Jess Williamson
56. Meet Me at the River
    Dawn Landes
57. Genericana
    Elephant Micah
58. Rifles and Rosary Beads
    Mary Gauthier
59. Follow Them True
    Stick in the Wheel
60. In a Poem Unlimited
    U.S. Girls
61. Landfall
    Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet
62. Remain in Light
    Angélique Kidjo
63. Lifted
    Israel Nash
64. The Blue Hour
    Suede
65. Negro Swan
    Blood Orange
66. The Heights of the Reeds
    Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset & Jan Bang
67. C’est La Vie
    Phosphorescent
68. The Hex
    Richard Swift
69. The Future and the Past
    Natalie Prass
70. Lachesis / Clotho / Atropos
    Harmony Rockets
71. Singularity
    Jon Hopkins
72. Shelter
    Olivia Chaney
73. Golden Hour
    Kacey Musgraves
74. 7
    Beach House
75. Fenfo
    Fatoumata Diawara

Time Magazine: Best Fiction and Nonfiction Books of 2018

[see also The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2020 • The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2020 • The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 • The 10 Best Fiction Books of the 2010s • The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the 2010s • The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019 • The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2019 • Top 20 Books of 2017]

Fiction

1. The Mars Room
   Rachel Kushner
2. Asymmetry
   Lisa Halliday
3. An American Marriage
   Tayari Jones
4. My Year of Rest and Relaxation
   Ottessa Moshfegh
5. Circe
   Madeline Miller
6. Washington Black
   Esi Edugyan
7. There There
   Tommy Orange
8. Gun Love
   Jennifer Clement
9. Florida
   Lauren Groff
10. The Overstory
    Richard Powers

Nonfiction

1. Bad Blood

   Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
   John Carreyrou
2. Barracoon

   The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”
   Zora Neale Hurston
3. Educated
   Tara Westover
4. The Order of Time
   Carlo Rovelli
5. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
   Alexander Chee
6. These Truths

   A History of the United States
   Jill Lepore
7. Frederick Douglass

   Prophet of Freedom
   David W. Blight
8. All You Can Ever Know
   Nicole Chung
9. Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art
   Mary Gabriel
10. How Democracies Die
    Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

Judy Berman: 10 Best TV Shows of 2018, as published by Time Magazine

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2010s]

1. Killing Eve
2. Sharp Objects
3. Atlanta
4. Patrick Melrose
5. The Good Place
6. Terrace House: Opening New Doors
7. Claws
8. My Brilliant Friend
9. Homecoming
10. Pose

Stephanie Zacharek: Ten Best Movies of 2018, as published by Time Magazine

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013]

1. Roma
   Alfonso Cuaron
2. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
   Morgan Neville
3. First Reformed
   Paul Schrader
4. Eighth Grade
   Bo Burnham
5. The Favourite
   Yorgos Lanthimos
6. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
   Marielle Heller
7. A Star Is Born
   Bradley Cooper
8. If Beale Street Could Talk
   Barry Jenkins
9. Bohemian Rhapsody
   Bryan Singer
10. Paddington 2
    Paul King

Honorable Mentions

• At Eternity’s Gate
  Julian Schnabel
• McQueen
  Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui
• Blindspotting
  Carlos López Estrada
• The Hate U Give
  George Tillman Jr.
• Christopher Robin
  Marc Forster
• Shoplifters
  Hirokazu Kore-eda
• BlacKkKlansman
  Spike Lee
• Hearts Beat Loud
  Brett Haley
• The Sisters Brothers
  Jacques Audiard
• Widows
  Steve McQueen
• The Old Man & the Gun
  David Lowery

Elizabeth Lund: 5 Best Poetry Collections of 2018, as published by The Washington Post

[see also 2017 • 2016 • 2015]

• American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
  Terrance Hayes
• The Carrying
  Ada Limón
• New Poets of Native Nations
  Heid E. Erdrich
• So Far So Good
  Ursula K. Le Guin
• Wade in the Water
  Tracy K. Smith

The Washington Post: 10 Best Books of 2018

[see also The 10 Best Books of 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2022 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2022 • The 10 Best Books of 2022 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2021 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2021 • The 10 Best Books of 2021 • 10 Best Books of 2020 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2020 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2020 • Best Books of 2019 • 100 Notable Books of 2018 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • The 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The Ten Best Books of 2014 • Top 10 Books of 2013 • The 10 Best Books of 2012]

• Good and Mad

  The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger
  Rebecca Traister
• The Library Book
  Susan Orlean
• The Line Becomes a River

  Dispatches from the Border
  Francisco Cantú
• The Maze at Windermere
  Gregory Blake Smith
• On Desperate Ground

  The Marines at The Reservoir, the Korean War’s Greatest Battle
  Hampton Sides
• One Person, No Vote

  How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
  Carol Anderson
• The Overstory
  Richard Powers
• A Place for Us
  Fatima Farheen Mirza
• There There
  Tommy Orange
• Washington Black
  Esi Edugyan