The New York Times Book Review
Each year since 1968, around the beginning of December, a list of notable books and/or editor's choice ("Best Books") is announced. Beginning in 2004, it consists of a "100 Notable Books of the Year" list[19] which contains fiction and non-fiction titles, 50 of each. From the list of 100, 10 books are awarded the "Best Books of the Year" title, five each of fiction and non-fiction. This list includes the results from 1998 onwards.
- 1
Birds of America
Lorrie Moore · 1998 · 5 lists
- 2
Cloudsplitter
Russell Banks · 1998 · 2 lists
- 3
Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth
Richard Fortey · 1997 · 1 list
- 4
The Love of a Good Woman
Alice Munro · 1998 · 2 lists
- 5
The Poisonwood Bible
Barbara Kingsolver · 1998 · 8 lists
- 6
Preston Falls
David Gates · 1999 · 1 list
- 7
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
Ron Chernow · 2004 · 1 list
- 8
To End a War
Richard Holbrooke · 1998 · 1 list
- 9
The Unknown Matisse
Hilary Spurling · 1998 · 1 list
- 10
Victor Hugo: A Biography
Graham Robb · 1997 · 1 list
- 11
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
Philip Gourevitch · 1998 · 3 lists
- 12
An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton
Richard A. Posner · 1999 · 1 list
- 13
Close Range: Wyoming Stories
Annie Proulx · 1999 · 1 list
- 14
Coleridge: Darker Reflections, 1804-1834
Richard Holmes · 1982 · 1 list
- 15
Disgrace
J.M. Coetzee · 1999 · 12 lists
- 16
The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness
António Damásio · 1999 · 1 list
- 17
The First World War
John Keegan · 1998 · 1 list
- 18
Headlong
Michael Frayn · 1999 · 1 list
- 19
Morgan: American Financier
Jean Strouse · 1999 · 1 list
- 20
Reading the Holocaust
Inga Clendinnen · 1999 · 1 list
- 21
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette
Judith Thurman · 1999 · 1 list
- 22
A Star Called Henry
Roddy Doyle · 1999 · 1 list
- 23
Being Dead
Jim Crace · 2021 · 2 lists
- 24
- 25
Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
Matt Ridley · 1999 · 1 list
- 26
Gertrude and Claudius
John Updike · 2000 · 1 list
- 27
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers · 2000 · 5 lists
- 28
The Human Stain
Philip Roth · 2000 · 6 lists
- 29
- 30
Rimbaud: A Biography
Graham Robb · 2000 · 1 list
- 31
Way Out There In the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War
Frances FitzGerald · 2000 · 1 list
- 32
White Teeth
Zadie Smith · 2000 · 17 lists
- 33
Austerlitz
W.G. Sebald · 2001 · 11 lists
- 34
Borrowed Finery: A Memoir
Paula Fox · 2001 · 1 list
- 35
The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen · 2001 · 16 lists
- 36
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage
Alice Munro · 1998 · 3 lists
- 37
John Adams
David McCullough · 2001 · 3 lists
- 38
John Henry Days
Colson Whitehead · 2001 · 1 list
- 39
The Metaphysical Club
Louis Menand · 2001 · 2 lists
- 40
True History of the Kelly Gang
Peter Carey · 2000 · 5 lists
- 41
Uncle Tungsten
Oliver Sacks · 2001 · 1 list
- 42
Anthony Blunt: His Lives
Miranda Carter · 2001 · 1 list
- 43
Atonement
Ian McEwan · 2001 · 18 lists
- 44
Bad Blood
Lorna Sage · 2000 · 2 lists
- 45
Middlesex
Jeffrey Eugenides · 2002 · 12 lists
- 46
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World
Margaret MacMillan · 2003 · 1 list
- 47
Roscoe
William Kennedy · 2002 · 1 list
- 48
Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril
Timothy Ferris · 2002 · 1 list
- 49
- 50
Brick Lane
Monica Ali · 2003 · 2 lists
- 51
Drop City
T. Coraghessan Boyle · 2003 · 2 lists
- 52
The Fortress of Solitude
Jonathan Lethem · 2003 · 2 lists
- 53
Khrushchev
William Taubman · 2003 · 2 lists
- 54
The Known World
Edward P. Jones · 2003 · 11 lists
- 55
Living to Tell the Tale
Gabriel García Márquez · 2002 · 2 lists
- 56
Random Family
Adrian Nicole LeBlanc · 2003 · 2 lists
- 57
Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
Claire Tomalin · 2002 · 2 lists
- 58
Alexander Hamilton
Ron Chernow · 2004 · 1 list
- 59
Chronicles
Bob Dylan · 2004 · 1 list
- 60
Washington's Crossing
David Hackett Fischer · 2004 · 2 lists
- 61
- 62
- 63
Runaway
Alice Munro · 1987 · 3 lists
- 64
Snow
Orhan Pamuk · 1994 · 3 lists
- 65
Gilead
Marilynne Robinson · 2004 · 12 lists
- 66
The Plot Against America
Philip Roth · 2004 · 8 lists
- 67
The Master
Colm Tóibín · 2004 · 4 lists
- 68
The Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion · 2005 · 9 lists
- 69
Veronica
Mary Gaitskill · 1909 · 2 lists
- 70
- 71
- 72
Saturday
Ian McEwan · 1996 · 4 lists
- 73
Kafka on the Shore
Haruki Murakami · 2005 · 5 lists
- 74
The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq
George Packer · 2005 · 1 list
- 75
Prep
Curtis Sittenfeld · 2005 · 1 list
- 76
On Beauty
Zadie Smith · 2005 · 4 lists
- 77
- 78
The Lay of the Land
Richard Ford · 2006 · 1 list
- 79
The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel · 2006 · 2 lists
- 80
The Emperor's Children
Claire Messud · 2006 · 2 lists
- 81
Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Marisha Pessl · 2006 · 1 list
- 82
- 83
- 84
Absurdistan
Gary Shteyngart · 2006 · 1 list
- 85
The Places in Between
Rory Stewart · 2004 · 1 list
- 86
Falling Through the Earth: A Memoir
Danielle Trussoni · 2006 · 1 list
- 87
The Looming Tower
Lawrence Wright · 2006 · 6 lists
- 88
The Savage Detectives
Roberto Bolaño · 1998 · 5 lists
- 89
Imperial Life in the Emerald City
Rajiv Chandrasekaran · 2006 · 2 lists
- 90
- 91
Then We Came to the End
Joshua Ferris · 2007 · 1 list
- 92
Tree of Smoke
Denis Johnson · 2007 · 4 lists
- 93
Little Heathens
Mildred Armstrong Kalish · 2007 · 1 list
- 94
Out Stealing Horses
Per Petterson · 2010 · 3 lists
- 95
The Rest is Noise
Alex Ross · 2007 · 3 lists
- 96
Man Gone Down
Michael Thomas · 2009 · 2 lists
- 97
- 98
Nothing to Be Frightened Of
Julian Barnes · 2008 · 1 list
- 99
2666
Roberto Bolaño · 2004 · 12 lists
- 100
This Republic of Suffering
Drew Gilpin Faust · 2008 · 2 lists
- 101
The Forever War
Dexter Filkins · 2008 · 3 lists
- 102
The World Is What It Is
Patrick French · 2008 · 2 lists
- 103
Unaccustomed Earth
Jhumpa Lahiri · 2008 · 1 list
- 104
The Dark Side
Jane Mayer · 2008 · 2 lists
- 105
Dangerous Laughter
Steven Millhauser · 2008 · 2 lists
- 106
A Mercy
Toni Morrison · 1998 · 2 lists
- 107
Netherland
Joseph O'Neill · 2008 · 4 lists
- 108
Lords of Finance
Liaquat Ahamed · 2009 · 2 lists
- 109
The Good Soldiers
David Finkel · 2009 · 1 list
- 110
The Age Of Wonder
Richard Holmes · 2008 · 3 lists
- 111
- 112
Chronic City
Jonathan Lethem · 2009 · 1 list
- 113
Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It
Maile Meloy · 2009 · 1 list
- 114
A Gate at the Stairs
Lorrie Moore · 2009 · 2 lists
- 115
Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life
Carol Sklenicka · 2009 · 1 list
- 116
A Short History of Women
Kate Walbert · 2009 · 1 list
- 117
Half Broke Horses
Jeannette Walls · 2009 · 1 list
- 118
The New Yorker Stories
Ann Beattie · 2010 · 1 list
- 119
Room
Emma Donoghue · 2010 · 3 lists
- 120
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan · 2010 · 9 lists
- 121
Freedom
Jonathan Franzen · 1994 · 2 lists
- 122
Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet
Jennifer Homans · 2010 · 1 list
- 123
The Emperor of All Maladies
Siddhartha Mukherjee · 2010 · 3 lists
- 124
Cleopatra
Stacy Schiff · 2010 · 1 list
- 125
Finishing the Hat
Stephen Sondheim · 2010 · 1 list
- 126
Selected Stories
William Trevor · 2010 · 1 list
- 127
The Warmth of Other Suns
Isabel Wilkerson · 2010 · 6 lists
- 128
The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Journey to Understand His Extraordinary Son
Ian Brown · 2010 · 1 list
- 129
- 130
The Art of Fielding
Chad Harbach · 2011 · 3 lists
- 131
Ten Thousand Saints
Eleanor Henderson · 2011 · 1 list
- 132
Arguably: Essays
Christopher Hitchens · 2011 · 1 list
- 133
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman · 2011 · 4 lists
- 134
23337
Stephen King · 1 list
- 135
Malcolm X
Manning Marable · 2011 · 2 lists
- 136
The Tiger's Wife
Téa Obreht · 2011 · 2 lists
- 137
Swamplandia!
Karen Russell · 2011 · 1 list
- 138
Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Katherine Boo · 2012 · 3 lists
- 139
The Passage of Power
Robert Caro · 1999 · 2 lists
- 140
A Hologram for the King
Dave Eggers · 2012 · 1 list
- 141
- 142
Bring Up the Bodies
Hilary Mantel · 2012 · 5 lists
- 143
The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy
David Nasaw · 2012 · 1 list
- 144
The Yellow Birds
Kevin Powers · 2012 · 1 list
- 145
- 146
NW
Zadie Smith · 2012 · 3 lists
- 147
Building Stories
Chris Ware · 2012 · 2 lists
- 148
Americanah
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie · 2013 · 9 lists
- 149
Life after life
Kate Atkinson · 2013 · 5 lists
- 150
Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House
Peter Baker · 2013 · 1 list
- 151
After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead
Alan S. Blinder · 2013 · 1 list
- 152
- 153
Wave
Sonali Deraniyagala · 2013 · 1 list
- 154
Five Days at Memorial
Sheri Fink · 2013 · 2 lists
- 155
The Flamethrowers
Rachel Kushner · 2013 · 5 lists
- 156
The Goldfinch
Donna Tartt · 2013 · 9 lists
- 157
Tenth of December
George Saunders · 2012 · 3 lists
- 158
On Immunity: An Inoculation
Eula Biss · 2015 · 1 list
- 159
Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
Roz Chast · 2014 · 2 lists
- 160
All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr · 2014 · 7 lists
- 161
- 162
Redeployment
Phil Klay · 2014 · 3 lists
- 163
The Sixth Extinction
Elizabeth Kolbert · 2014 · 4 lists
- 164
Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life
Hermione Lee · 2013 · 1 list
- 165
Dept. of Speculation
Jenny Offill · 2014 · 2 lists
- 166
Family Life
Akhil Sharma · 2012 · 2 lists
- 167
- 168
The Sellout
Paul Beatty · 2015 · 7 lists
- 169
Empire of Cotton: A Global History
Sven Beckert · 2004 · 1 list
- 170
A Manual for Cleaning Women
Lucia Berlin · 2015 · 3 lists
- 171
Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates · 2015 · 6 lists
- 172
Outline
Rachel Cusk · 1919 · 2 lists
- 173
The Story of the Lost Child
Elena Ferrante · 2019 · 3 lists
- 174
H is for Hawk
Helen MacDonald · 2006 · 4 lists
- 175
- 176
The Door
Magda Szabó · 1994 · 1 list
- 177
- 178
At the Existentialist Café
Sarah Bakewell · 2016 · 1 list
- 179
Evicted
Matthew Desmond · 2016 · 7 lists
- 180
In the Darkroom
Susan Faludi · 2016 · 2 lists
- 181
War and Turpentine
Stefan Hertmans · 2013 · 1 list
- 182
The Vegetarian
Kang Han · 2004 · 6 lists
- 183
The Association of Small Bombs
Karan Mahajan · 2000 · 1 list
- 184
The Return
Hisham Matar · 1950 · 6 lists
- 185
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
Jane Mayer · 2016 · 1 list
- 186
The North Water
Ian McGuire · 2016 · 1 list
- 187
The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead · 2016 · 8 lists
- 188
The Power
Naomi Alderman · 2016 · 4 lists
- 189
Grant
Ron Chernow · 2017 · 2 lists
- 190
- 191
Prairie Fires
Caroline Fraser · 2017 · 2 lists
- 192
Exit West
Mohsin Hamid · 2017 · 4 lists
- 193
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee · 2017 · 7 lists
- 194
Priestdaddy: A Memoir
Patricia Lockwood · 2017 · 1 list
- 195
The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World — and Us
Richard Prum · 2017 · 1 list
- 196
- 197
Sing, Unburied, Sing
Jesmyn Ward · 2017 · 6 lists
- 198
American Prison
Shane Bauer · 2018 · 2 lists
- 199
Small Fry
Lisa Brennan-Jobs · 2018 · 1 list
- 200
Frederick Douglass
David W. Blight · 1845 · 3 lists
- 201
Washington Black
Esi Edugyan · 2018 · 2 lists
- 202
Asymmetry
Lisa Halliday · 2018 · 2 lists
- 203
The Great Believers
Rebecca Makkai · 2018 · 4 lists
- 204
There There
Tommy Orange · 2018 · 6 lists
- 205
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
Michael Pollan · 2018 · 1 list
- 206
Lullaby
Leïla Slimani · 1 list
- 207
Educated
Tara Westover · 2018 · 3 lists
- 208
Night Boat to Tangier
Kevin Barry · 2019 · 2 lists
- 209
The Yellow House
Sarah M. Broom · 1953 · 4 lists
- 210
- 211
Exhalation
Ted Chiang · 2019 · 2 lists
- 212
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster
Adam Higginbotham · 2019 · 2 lists
- 213
Say Nothing
Patrick Radden Keefe · 2018 · 7 lists
- 214
The Topeka School
Ben Lerner · 2019 · 2 lists
- 215
Lost Children Archive
Valeria Luiselli · 2019 · 4 lists
- 216
Disappearing Earth
Julia Phillips · 2019 · 1 list
- 217
No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us
Rachel Louise Snyder · 2019 · 1 list
- 218
A Children's Bible
Lydia Millet · 2020 · 1 list
- 219
Deacon King Kong
James McBride · 2020 · 3 lists
- 220
Hamnet
Maggie O'Farrell · 2020 · 5 lists
- 221
Homeland Elegies
Ayad Akhtar · 2020 · 1 list
- 222
The Vanishing Half
Brit Bennett · 2020 · 3 lists
- 223
Hidden Valley Road
Robert Kolker · 2020 · 1 list
- 224
A Promised Land
Barack Obama · 2020 · 2 lists
- 225
Shakespeare in a Divided America
James Shapiro · 2020 · 1 list
- 226
Uncanny Valley
Anna Wiener · 2020 · 1 list
- 227
War: How Conflict Shaped Us
Margaret MacMillan · 2020 · 1 list
- 228
How Beautiful We Were
Imbolo Mbue · 2020 · 1 list
- 229
Intimacies
Katie Kitamura · 2021 · 1 list
- 230
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers · 2021 · 3 lists
- 231
No One Is Talking About This
Patricia Lockwood · 2021 · 1 list
- 232
When We Cease to Understand the World
Benjamín Labatut · 2021 · 2 lists
- 233
The Copenhagen Trilogy
Tove Ditlevsen · 2020 · 1 list
- 234
How The Word Is Passed
Clint Smith · 2021 · 2 lists
- 235
Invisible Child
Andrea Elliott · 2021 · 2 lists
- 236
On Juneteenth
Annette Gordon-Reed · 2021 · 1 list
- 237
- 238
The Candy House
Jennifer Egan · 2022 · 1 list
- 239
Checkout 19
Claire-Louise Bennett · 2021 · 2 lists
- 240
Demon Copperhead
Barbara Kingsolver · 2022 · 5 lists
- 241
The Furrows
Namwali Serpell · 2022 · 1 list
- 242
Trust
Hernan Diaz · 2022 · 6 lists
- 243
- 244
- 245
- 246
Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation
Linda Villarosa · 2022 · 1 list
- 247
- 248
The Bee Sting
Paul Murray · 2023 · 4 lists
- 249
Chain-Gang All-Stars
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah · 2022 · 1 list
- 250
Eastbound
Maylis de Kerangal · 2012 · 1 list
- 251
The Fraud
Zadie Smith · 2023 · 1 list
- 252
North Woods
Daniel Mason · 2023 · 3 lists
- 253
The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions
Jonathan Rosen · 1 list
- 254
Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs
Kerry Howley · 2023 · 1 list
- 255
Fire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter World
John Vaillant · 2023 · 1 list
- 256
Master Slave Husband Wife
Ilyon Woo · 2023 · 2 lists
- 257
Some People Need Killing
Patricia Evangelista · 2023 · 1 list
- 258
All Fours
Miranda July · 2024 · 1 list
- 259
Good Material
Dolly Alderton · 2023 · 1 list
- 260
James
Percival Everett · 2024 · 4 lists
- 261
Martyr!
Kaveh Akbar · 2024 · 2 lists
- 262
You Dreamed of Empires
Álvaro Enrigue · 2022 · 1 list
- 263
- 264
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis
Jonathan Blitzer · 2024 · 1 list
- 265
I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition
Lucy Sante · 2024 · 1 list
- 266
Reagan: His Life and Legend
Max Boot · 2024 · 1 list
- 267
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook
Hampton Sides · 1 list
- 268
Angel Down
Daniel Kraus · 2025 · 1 list
- 269
The Director
Daniel Kehlmann · 1 list
- 270
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
Kiran Desai · 2025 · 1 list
- 271
The Sisters
Jonas Hassen Khemiri · 1 list
- 272
Stone Yard Devotional
Charlotte Wood · 2023 · 1 list
- 273
A Marriage at Sea
Sophie Elmhirst · 2026 · 1 list
- 274
Mother Emanuel
Kevin Sack · 2025 · 1 list
- 275
Mother Mary Comes to Me
Arundhati Roy · 2025 · 2 lists
- 276
There Is No Place for Us
Brian Goldstone · 2025 · 1 list
- 277
Wild Thing
Sue Prideaux · 2024 · 1 list
