Year-End Lists

Smithsonian: Favorite Books of 2018, as selected individually by Smithsonian scholars

[see also 2019]

• Light of the Stars

  Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth
  Adam Frank
• The Good Neighbor

  The Life and Work of Fred Rogers
  Maxwell King
• Tinker to Evers to Chance

  The Chicago Cubs and the Dawn of Modern America
  David Rapp
• Care Work

  Dreaming Disability Justice
  Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
• There There
  Tommy Orange
• The Library Book
  Susan Orlean
• Frederick Douglass

  Prophet of Freedom
  David W. Blight
• William Stimpson and the Golden Age of American Natural History
  Ronald Scott Vasile
• Our Germans

  Project Paperclip and the National Security State
  Brian E. Crim
• Mourning
  Eduardo Halfon
• Chesapeake Requiem

  A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island
  Earl Swift

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

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019]

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

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

The New York Times: 10 Best 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 • 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

• Asymmetry
  Lisa Halliday
• The Great Believers
  Rebecca Makkai
• The Perfect Nanny
  Leila Slimani
• There There
  Tommy Orange
• Washington Black
  Esi Edugyan

Nonfiction

• American Prison

  A Reporter’s Undercover Journey Into the Business of Punishment
  Shane Bauer
• Educated
  Tara Westover
• Frederick Douglass

  Prophet of Freedom
  David W. Blight
• How to Change Your Mind

  What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
  Michael Pollan
• Small Fry
  Lisa Brennan-Jobs

Bustle: Best Books of 2018, as separate Fiction and Nonfiction lists

[see also 2020]

Fiction

• Circe
  Madeline Miller
• An American Marriage
  Tayari Jones
• Asymmetry
  Lisa Halliday
• Freshwater
  Akwaeke Emezi
• Washington Black
  Esi Edugyan
• Give Me Your Hand
  Megan Abbott
• The Friend
  Sigrid Nunez
• The Kiss Quotient
  Helen Hoang
• Motherhood
  Sheila Heti
• Tin Man
  Sarah Winman
• The Great Believers
  Rebecca Makkai
• Florida
  Lauren Groff
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation
  Ottessa Moshfegh
• The Proposal
  Jasmine Guillory
• Heads of the Colored People
  Nafissa Thompson-Spires
• Those Who Knew
  Idra Novey
• Severance
  Ling Ma
• The Poppy War
  R.F. Kuang
• The Incendiaries
  R.O. Kwon
• Melmoth
  Sarah Perry
• How Long 'til Black Future Month?
  N.K. Jemisin
• The Pisces
  Melissa Broder
• The Golden State
  Lydia Kiesling
• Crudo
  Olivia Laing
• Kudos
  Rachel Cusk
• Spinning Silver
  Naomi Novik
• Convenience Store Woman
  Sayaka Murata
• Fruit of the Drunken Tree
  Ingrid Rojas Contreras
• Where the Crawdads Sing
  Delia Owens
• Vengeful
  V.E. Schwab

Nonfiction

• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark

  One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
  Michelle McNamara
• The Recovering

  Intoxication and Its Aftermath
  Leslie Jamison
• Heart Berries
  Terese Marie Mailhot
• Heartland

  A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
  Sarah Smarsh
• Educated
  Tara Westover
• Good and Mad

  The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger
  Rebecca Traister
• Dead Girls

  Essays on Surviving an American Obsession
  Alice Bolin
• All You Can Ever Know
  Nicole Chung
• Sick
  Porochista Khakpour
• Feel Free
  Zadie Smith
• Seduction

  Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood
  Karina Longworth
• One Person, No Vote

  How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
  Carol Anderson
• The Library Book
  Susan Orlean
• Becoming
  Michelle Obama
• These Truths

  A History of the United States
  Jill Lepore
• The Poison Squad

  One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
  Deborah Blum
• Small Fry
  Lisa Brennan-Jobs
• And Now We Have Everything

  On Motherhood Before I Was Ready
  Meaghan O'Connell
• Monsoon Mansion
  Cinelle Barnes
• Eloquent Rage

  A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower
  Brittney C. Cooper
• Can You Tolerate This?
  Ashleigh Young
• Tell Me More

  Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I'm Learning to Say
  Kelly Corrigan
• The Death of Truth

  Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump
  Michiko Kakutani
• What If This Were Enough?
  Heather Havrilesky
• So You Want to Talk About Race
  Ijeoma Oluo

New York Public Library: 10 Best Books of 2018, for adults. They also list the best books for kids and teens.

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019]

• If They Come for Us
  Fatimah Asghar
• French Exit
  Patrick deWitt
• Woman World
  Aminder Dhaliwal
• Barracoon

  The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”
  Zora Neale Hurston
• Heart Berries
  Terese Marie Mailhot
• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark

  One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
  Michelle McNamara
• Circe
  Madeline Miller
• A State of Freedom
  Neel Mukherjee
• Spinning Silver
  Naomi Novik
• There There
  Tommy Orange

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

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

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

National Book Award: Fiction 2018

[see also Fiction 2023 • Nonfiction 2023 • Fiction 2022 • Nonfiction 2022 • Fiction 2021 • Nonfiction 2021 • Fiction 2020 • Nonfiction 2020 • Fiction 2019 • Nonfiction 2019 • Nonfiction 2018 • Fiction 2017 • Nonfiction 2017 • Fiction 2016 • Nonfiction 2016 • Fiction 2013 • Nonfiction 2013]

Winner

• The Friend
  Sigrid Nunez

Finalists

• A Lucky Man
  Jamel Brinkley
• Florida
  Lauren Groff
• Where the Dead Sit Talking
  Brandon Hobson
• The Great Believers
  Rebecca Makkai

Longlist

• Gun Love
  Jennifer Clement
• The Boatbuilder
  Daniel Gumbiner
• An American Marriage
  Tayari Jones
• There There
  Tommy Orange
• Heads of the Colored People
  Nafissa Thompson-Spires

National Book Award: Nonfiction 2018

[see also Fiction 2023 • Nonfiction 2023 • Fiction 2022 • Nonfiction 2022 • Fiction 2021 • Nonfiction 2021 • Fiction 2020 • Nonfiction 2020 • Fiction 2019 • Nonfiction 2019 • Fiction 2018 • Fiction 2017 • Nonfiction 2017 • Fiction 2016 • Nonfiction 2016 • Fiction 2013 • Nonfiction 2013]

Winner

• The New Negro

  The Life of Alain Locke
  Jeffrey C. Stewart

Finalists

• The Indian World of George Washington

  The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation
  Colin G. Calloway
• American Eden

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

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

  How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights
  Adam Winkler

Longlist

• One Person, No Vote

  How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
  Carol Anderson
• Directorate S

  The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan
  Steve Coll
• Brothers of the Gun

  A Memoir of the Syrian War
  Marwan Hisham and Molly Crabapple
• The Tangled Tree

  A Radical New History of Life
  David Quammen
• Call Them by Their True Names

  American Crises (and Essays)
  Rebecca Solnit