Year-End Lists

Katy Waldman: The Best Books of 2019, as published by The New Yorker

[see also 2020 • 2018 • 2017]

• Mostly Dead Things
  Kristen Arnett
• The Divers' Game
  Jesse Ball
• Trust Exercise
  Susan Choi
• Ducks, Newburyport
  Lucy Ellmann
• Girl, Woman, Other
  Bernardine Evaristo
• How We Fight for Our Lives
  Saeed Jones
• In the Dream House
  Carmen Maria Machado
• Valerie

  or, The Faculty of Dreams
  Sara Stridsberg
• Axiomatic
  Maria Tumarkin
• On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
  Ocean Vuong

Esquire: The Best Books of the 2010s

[see also The 20 Best Books of 2023 • The Best Books of 2022 • The Best Nonfiction Books of 2022 • The 50 Best Books of 2021 • The Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

1. Between the World and Me
   Ta-Nehisi Coates
2. My Brilliant Friend
   Elena Ferrante
2. The Story of a New Name
   Elena Ferrante
2. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
   Elena Ferrante
2. The Story of the Lost Child
   Elena Ferrante
3. Less
   Andrew Sean Greer
4. Lincoln in the Bardo
   George Saunders
5. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
   Rebecca Skloot
6. There There
   Tommy Orange
7. These Truths

   A History of the United States
   Jill Lepore
8. Swamplandia!
   Karen Russell
9. Concussion
   Jeanne Marie Laskas
10. The Sympathizer
    Viet Thanh Nguyen
11. Just Kids
    Patti Smith

Chicago Public Library: Top Ten Books of 2019

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014]

• An American Summer

  Love and Death in Chicago
  Alex Kotlowitz
• The Dutch House
  Ann Patchett
• The Nickel Boys
  Colson Whitehead
• Normal People
  Sally Rooney
• Olive, Again
  Elizabeth Strout
• On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
  Ocean Vuong
• Say Nothing

  A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• The Starless Sea
  Erin Morgenstern
• The Water Dancer
  Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Yellow House
  Sarah M. Broom

For Reading Addicts: The 20 Best Books of the Decade 2010-2019

• All the Light We Cannot See
  Anthony Doerr
• Ready Player One
  Ernest Cline
• The Underground Railroad
  Colson Whitehead
• Americanah
  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• My Brilliant Friend
  Elena Ferrante
• Killers of the Flower Moon

  The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
  David Grann
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
  Rebecca Skloot
• The Light Between Oceans
  M.L. Stedman
• A Man Called Ove
  Fredrik Backman
• Citizen

  An American Lyric
  Claudia Rankine
• Between the World and Me
  Ta-Nehisi Coates
• There There
  Tommy Orange
• The Martian
  Andy Weir
• The Overstory
  Richard Powers
• The Nightingale
  Kristin Hannah
• The Invention of Wings
  Sue Monk Kidd
• A Monster Calls
  Patrick Ness
• Vox
  Christina Dalcher
• The Circle
  Dave Eggers
• Salt to the Sea
  Ruta Sepetys

Smithsonian: Favorite Books of 2019, as selected individually by Smithsonian scholars

[see also 2018]

• Searching for Black Confederates

  The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth
  Kevin M. Levin
• The Greatest Beach

  A History of the Cape Cod National Seashore
  Ethan Carr
• Peary's Arctic Quest

  Untold Stories from Robert E. Peary’s North Pole Expeditions
  Susan Kaplan and Genevieve LeMoine
• Solitary

  Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement. My Story of Transformation and Hope
  Albert Woodfox
• Sea People

  The Puzzle of Polynesia
  Christina Thompson
• With the Fire on High
  Elizabeth Acevedo
• Illusions of Emancipation

  The Pursuit of Freedom and Equality in the Twilight of Slavery
  Joseph P. Reidy
• Extinct Monsters to Deep Time

  Conflict, Compromise, and the Making of Smithsonian's Fossil Halls
  Diana E. Marsh
• We Return Fighting

  World War I and the Shaping of Modern Black Identity
  Kinshasha Holman Conwill (editor)
• Gods of the Upper Air

  How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century
  Charles King
• The Collected Schizophrenias
  Esmé Weijun Wang
• Zora and Langston

  A Story of Friendship and Betrayal
  Yuval Taylor
• The Only Woman in the Room
  Marie Benedict
• The Uninhabitable Earth

  Life After Warming
  David Wallace-Wells
• Empire's Tracks

  Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad
  Manu Karuka

Entertainment Weekly: Top 10 Fiction Books of the 2010s

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015]

1. A Visit from the Goon Squad
   Jennifer Egan
2. Life After Life
   Kate Atkinson
3. Exit West
   Mohsin Hamid
4. The Flamethrowers
   Rachel Kushner
5. Sing, Unburied, Sing
   Jesmyn Ward
6. Commonwealth
   Ann Patchett
7. Station Eleven
   Emily St. John Mandel
8. Fates and Furies
   Lauren Groff
9. A Brief History of Seven Killings
   Marlon James
10. Normal People
    Sally Rooney

The Next 10

• All the Light We Cannot See
  Anthony Doerr
• Americanah
  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Anything Is Possible
  Elizabeth Strout
• The Goldfinch
  Donna Tartt
• Gone Girl
  Gillian Flynn
• The Interestings
  Meg Wolitzer
• LaRose
  Louise Erdrich
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation
  Ottessa Moshfegh
• The Nickel Boys
  Colson Whitehead
• Tenth of December
  George Saunders

The New York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2019

[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 • The 10 Best Books of 2019 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 100 Notable 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]

• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

  The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
  Shoshana Zuboff
• American Spy
  Lauren Wilkinson
• Antisocial

  Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation
  Andrew Marantz
• Audience of One

  Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America
  James Poniewozik
• Bangkok Wakes to Rain
  Pitchaya Sudbanthad
• Becoming
  Michelle Obama
• The Beneficiary

  Fortune, Misfortune, and the Story of My Father
  Janny Scott
• The Body in Question
  Jill Ciment
• Bottle of Lies

  The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom
  Katherine Eban
• The British Are Coming

  The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777
  Rick Atkinson
• Cherokee, America
  Margaret Verble
• The Club

  Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
  Leo Damrosch
• The Conservative Sensibility
  George F. Will
• The Crowded Hour

  Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century
  Clay Risen
• Deaf Republic
  Ilya Kaminsky
• Disappearing Earth
  Julia Phillips
• Ducks, Newburyport
  Lucy Ellmann
• The Dutch House
  Ann Patchett
• The Education of an Idealist
  Samantha Power
• Exhalation
  Ted Chiang
• Fall; or, Dodge in Hell
  Neal Stephenson
• Fleishman Is in Trouble
  Taffy Brodesser-Akner
• Full Throttle
  Joe Hill
• Furious Hours

  Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
  Casey Cep
• Girl
  Edna O’Brien
• The Godmother
  Hannelore Cayre
• The Gone Dead
  Chanelle Benz
• Good Talk

  A Memoir in Conversations
  Mira Jacob
• Grace Will Lead Us Home

  The Charleston Church Massacre and the Hard, Inspiring Journey to Forgiveness
  Jennifer Berry Hawes
• The Grammarians
  Cathleen Schine
• Grand Union
  Zadie Smith
• Growing Things
  Paul Tremblay
• The Guarded Gate

  Bigotry, Eugenics and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America
  Daniel Okrent
• Guest House for Young Widows

  Among the Women of ISIS
  Azadeh Moaveni
• The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

  Native America from 1890 to the Present
  David Treuer
• The Heavens
  Sandra Newman
• Horizon
  Barry Lopez
• How to Be an Antiracist
  Ibram X. Kendi
• How We Fight for Our Lives
  Saeed Jones
• If

  The Untold Story of Kipling's American Years
  Christopher Benfey
• The Impeachers

  The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation
  Brenda Wineapple
• In Byron's Wake

  The Turbulent Lives of Lord Byron's Wife and Daughter: Annabella Milbanke and Ada Lovelace
  Miranda Seymour
• In Hoffa's Shadow

  A Stepfather, a Disappearance in Detroit, and My Search for the Truth
  Jack Goldsmith
• The Institute
  Stephen King
• Know My Name
  Chanel Miller
• Kochland

  The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America
  Christopher Leonard
• Last Day
  Domenica Ruta
• The Last Whalers

  Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life
  Doug Bock Clark
• The Lost Art of Scripture

  Rescuing the Sacred Texts
  Karen Armstrong
• Lost Children Archive
  Valeria Luiselli
• Lot
  Bryan Washington
• Maid

  Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive
  Stephanie Land
• Mama's Last Hug

  Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves
  Frans de Waal
• Maggie Brown & Others
  Peter Orner
• The Man Who Saw Everything
  Deborah Levy
• Margaret Thatcher

  The Authorized Biography: Herself Alone
  Charles Moore
• The Mastermind

  Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal
  Evan Ratliff
• The Memory Police
  Yoko Ogawa
• Midnight in Chernobyl

  The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster
  Adam Higginbotham
• Mostly Dead Things
  Kristen Arnett
• Mrs. Everything
  Jennifer Weiner
• The Need
  Helen Phillips
• The Nickel Boys
  Colson Whitehead
• Night Boat to Tangier
  Kevin Barry
• No Visible Bruises

  What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us
  Rachel Louise Snyder
• Normal People
  Sally Rooney
• Nothing to See Here
  Kevin Wilson
• Now We Shall Be Entirely Free
  Andrew Miller
• The Octopus Museum
  Brenda Shaughnessy
• The Old Drift
  Namwali Serpell
• Optic Nerve
  Maria Gainza
• Our Man

  Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century
  George Packer
• The Parisian
  Isabella Hammad
• The Problem with Everything

  My Journey Through the New Culture Wars
  Meghan Daum
• Rabbits for Food
  Binnie Kirshenbaum
• Red at the Bone
  Jacqueline Woodson
• The Revisioners
  Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
• Rusty Brown
  Chris Ware
• Say Nothing

  A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• Separate

  The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America's Journey from Slavery to Segregation
  Steve Luxenberg
• The Shadow King
  Maaza Mengiste
• She Said

  Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement
  Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey
• She Was Like That

  New and Selected Stories
  Kate Walbert
• Solitary

  Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement. My Story of Transformation and Hope
  Albert Woodfox
• Spring
  Ali Smith
• Stony the Road

  Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow
  Henry Louis Gates Jr.
• The Testaments
  Margaret Atwood
• Thick

  And Other Essays
  Tressie McMillan Cottom
• The Topeka School
  Ben Lerner
• The Tradition
  Jericho Brown
• Trick Mirror

  Reflections on Self-Delusion
  Jia Tolentino
• Underland

  A Deep Time Journey
  Robert Macfarlane
• The Uninhabitable Earth

  Life After Warming
  David Wallace-Wells
• The Unwinding of the Miracle

  A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After
  Julie Yip-Williams
• The War Before the War

  Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War
  Andrew Delbanco
• Westside
  W.M. Akers
• What You Have Heard Is True

  A Memoir of Witness and Resistance
  Carolyn Forché
• Women Talking
  Miriam Toews
• Women's Work

  A Reckoning with Work and Home
  Megan K. Stack
• The Yellow House
  Sarah M. Broom

Time Magazine: The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019

[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 Fiction Books of 2019 • Best Books of 2018 • Top 20 Books of 2017]

1. Say Nothing

   A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
   Patrick Radden Keefe
2. Know My Name
   Chanel Miller
3. The Yellow House
   Sarah M. Broom
4. Underland

   A Deep Time Journey
   Robert Macfarlane
5. In the Dream House
   Carmen Maria Machado
6. Furious Hours

   Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
   Casey Cep
7. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

   Native America from 1890 to the Present
   David Treuer
8. The Collected Schizophrenias
   Esmé Weijun Wang
9. Midnight in Chernobyl

   The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster
   Adam Higginbotham
10. This Land Is Our Land

    An Immigrant's Manifesto
    Suketu Mehta

Time Magazine: The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2019

[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 • Best Books of 2018 • Top 20 Books of 2017]

1. The Nickel Boys
   Colson Whitehead
2. The Testaments
   Margaret Atwood
3. Lost Children Archive
   Valeria Luiselli
4. The Need
   Helen Phillips
5. Black Leopard, Red Wolf
   Marlon James
6. Trust Exercise
   Susan Choi
7. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
   Ocean Vuong
8. Where Reasons End
   Yiyun Li
9. The Topeka School
   Ben Lerner
10. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
    Olga Tokarczuk

The New York Times: The 10 Best Books of 2019

[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 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 100 Notable 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

• Disappearing Earth
  Julia Phillips
• The Topeka School
  Ben Lerner
• Exhalation
  Ted Chiang
• Lost Children Archive
  Valeria Luiselli
• Night Boat to Tangier
  Kevin Barry

Nonfiction

• Say Nothing

  A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• The Club

  Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
  Leo Damrosch
• The Yellow House
  Sarah M. Broom
• No Visible Bruises

  What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us
  Rachel Louise Snyder
• Midnight in Chernobyl

  The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster
  Adam Higginbotham