The choice of a Best Book is often a difficult one. I do this every ten postings, and sometimes I have more than one book that is worthy of being chosen. Other times, I have books that are not quite as good to choose from. This list contains more than just the Best Books. It also contains the books that were in contention. As you can imagine, some weeks there are more books in contention than others, so I have applied an additional rating by marking the very best of this list in bold, whether the book was chosen as a Best Book or not.
- Andre Agassi: Open: An Autobiography
- Kate Atkinson: A God in Ruins, Life After Life, Transcription
- Margaret Atwood: Alias Grace, Maddaddam, Oryx and Crake
- John Aubrey: Brief Lives
- Jane Austen: Mansfield Park, Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility
- Jo Baker: A Country Road, A Tree; Longbourn
- Tiffany Baker: Mercy Snow
- Julian Barnes: The Sense of an Ending
- Brunonia Barry: The Lace Reader
- Sebastian Barry: On Canaan’s Side
- Belinda Bauer: Blacklands
- Frans G. Bengtsson: The Long Ships
- Lauren Beukes: The Shining Girls
- Mark Beauregard: The Whale: A Love Story
- Joseph Boyden: The Orenda
- Alan Bradley: A Red Herring without Mustard
- Bill Bryson: The Road to Little Dribbling
- Geraldine Brooks: Caleb’s Crossing, People of the Book, The Secret Chord
- Carla Rifka Brunt: Tell the Wolves I’m Home
- Graeme Macrae Burnet: His Bloody Project
- Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Making of a Marchioness, The Secret Garden
- Anna Burns: Milkman
- Jessie Burton: The Miniaturist
- A. S. Byatt: The Children’s Book
- Bonnie Jo Campbell: Once Upon a River
- Edward Carey: Little
- Peter Carey: Jack Maggs, Parrot and Olivier in America
- Vera Caspary: Laura
- Eleanor Catton: The Luminaries
- Dan Chaon: Await Your Reply
- Ron Chernow: Alexander Hamilton, Grant
- Mary Cholmondeley: Red Pottage
- Michael Christie: Greenwood
- Janice Clark: The Rathbones
- Emma Cline: The Girls
- Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone
- Barbara Comyns: Our Spoons Came from Woolworths, Sisters by a River, The Vet’s Daughter
- Amanda Coplin: The Orchardist
- Jim Crace: Harvest
- Richmal Cromption: Family Roundabout
- Michael Crummey: Galore, Sweetland
- Michael Cunningham: The Hours
- E. M. Delafield: The Diary of a Provincial Lady
- Edmund de Waal: The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
- Charles Dickens: David Copperfield
- Emma Donoghue: The Wonder
- Maurice Druon: The Iron King, The Lion and the Lily, The Strangled Queen
- Carol Ann Duffy: The World’s Wife
- Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca
- Sarah Dunant: Blood & Beauty, Sacred Hearts
- Helen Dunmore: The Lie
- Mark Dunn: Under the Harrow
- Dorothy Dunnett: Checkmate, The Disorderly Knights, The Game of Kings, King Hereafter, Pawn in Frankincense, Queen’s Play, The Ringed Castle
- David Ebershoff: The 19th Wife
- Esi Edugyan: Washington Black
- Jennifer Egan: The Keep, Look At Me, A Visit from the Goon Squad (second review)
- Cecilia Ekbäck: The Historians, Wolf Winter
- George Eliot: Middlemarch
- Tan Twan Eng: The Garden of Evening Mists
- Louise Erdrich: The Sentence
- Jeffrey Eugenides: The Virgin Suicides
- Jenni Fagan, The Panopticon
- J. G. Farrell: Troubles
- William Faulkner: The Mansion
- Lyndsay Faye: The Gods of Gotham, Jane Steele, Seven for a Secret
- Rachel Ferguson: Alas, Poor Lady
- Patrick Leigh Fermor: Between the Woods and the Water: On Foot to Constantinople: From the Middle Danube to the Iron Gates, A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople: From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube
- Dorothy Canfield Fisher: The Home-Maker
- Janet Fitch: White Oleander
- Susan Fletcher: Corrag
- Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl, Sharp Objects
- Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
- Ford Madox Ford: Last Post, A Man Could Stand Up, No More Parades, Some Do Not
- Karen Joy Fowler: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
- Ariana Franklin: Grave Goods, Mistress of the Art of Death, The Serpent’s Tale
- Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly: The Tilted World
- George MacDonald Fraser: The Candlemass Road
- Charles Frazier: Nightwoods
- Judith Freeman: Red Water
- Tana French: Broken Harbor, The Searcher, The Trespasser, The Witch Elm
- Claire Fuller: Bitter Orange, Our Endless Numbered Days, Swimming Lessons, Unsettled Ground
- Iola Fuller: The Loon Feather
- Damon Galgut: In a Strange Room
- Jane Gardam: Old Filth
- Lisa Genova: Still Alice
- Amitav Ghosh: The Circle of Reason, The Glass Palace, Flood of Fire, River of Smoke, Sea of Poppies
- Elizabeth Gilbert: The Signature of All Things
- Susan Glaspell: Fidelity
- Rumer Godden: Black Narcissus, Coromandel Sea Change, Kingfishers Catch Fire
- Doris Kearns Goodwin: No Ordinary Time, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
- John Green: The Fault in Our Stars
- Andrew Greig: Fair Helen, Rose Nicolson
- Kate Grenville: A Room Made of Leaves
- Sarah Hall: The Wolf Border
- Helene Hanff: 84, Charing Cross Road
- Sophie Hannah: The Dead Lie Down
- Thomas Hardy: Far From the Madding Crowd, Tess of the D’Urbervilles
- Deborah Harkness: A Discovery of Witches
- Jane Harris: Sugar Money
- Robert Harris: Conspirata, Imperium, An Officer and a Spy
- Elizabeth Harrower: The Watch Tower
- Kent Haruf: Our Souls at Night
- Samantha Harvey: Dear Thief, The Western Wind
- Smith Henderson: Fourth of July Creek
- Georgette Heyer: The Convenient Marriage, Cotillion, Frederica, The Talisman Ring
- Harry Hodge and James H. Hodge (ed.): Famous Trials
- Antonia Hodgson: The Devil in the Marshalsea
- Winifred Holtby: The Crowded Street
- Khaled Hosseini: A Thousand Splendid Suns
- Katherine Howe: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
- Laird Hunt: Neverhome
- Siri Hustvedt: The Blazing World, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl
- Kazuo Ishiguro: The Remains of the Day
- Shirley Jackson: Let Me Tell You
- Roy Jacobsen: The Unseen
- Carsten Jensen: We, The Drowned
- Adam Johnson: The Orphan Master’s Son
- Edward P. Jones: The Known World
- Sadie Jones: The Uninvited Guests
- Rachel Kadish: The Weight of Ink
- I. J. Kay: Mountains of the Moon
- Margaret Kennedy: Troy Chimneys
- Hannah Kent: Burial Rites, The Good People
- Jess Kidd: Himself, The Hoarder (Mr. Flood’s Last Resort), The Night Ship, Things in Jars
- Sue Monk Kidd: The Invention of Wings
- Lily King: Euphoria, Writers & Lovers
- Paul Kingsnorth: The Wake
- Barbara Kingsolver: The Lacuna
- Rudyard Kipling: Kim
- Elizabeth Kostova: The Shadow Land
- Nicole Krauss: The History of Love
- Jhumpa Lahiri: The Lowland, Unaccustomed Earth
- Wally Lamb: The Hour I First Believed
- Erik Larson: In the Garden of the Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin
- Stieg Larsson: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, The Girl Who Played with Fire
- Mary Lawson: Crow Lake , The Other Side of the Bridge, A Town Called Solace
- Halldór Laxness: Independent People
- Tim Leach: Smile of the Wolf
- John Le Carré: A Delicate Truth, The Honourable Schoolboy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
- Andrea Lee: Red Island House
- Ursula Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness
- J. Robert Lennon: Castle
- Victor Lodato: Edgar & Lucy
- Paul Lynch: Grace
- Rose Macaulay: The Towers of Trebizond
- Helen Macdonald: H Is for Hawk
- Amy MacKinnon: Tethered
- Bernard Malamud: The Fixer
- Hilary Mantel: Bring Up the Bodies, Giving Up the Ghost, The Mirror and the Light, Wolf Hall
- Beryl Markham: West With the Night
- George R. R. Martin: A Clash of Kings, A Dance with Dragons, A Feast for Crows, Game of Thrones, A Storm of Swords
- Eimer McBride: The Lesser Bohemians
- James McBride: The Good Lord Bird
- Elizabeth McCracken: Thunderstruck and Other Stories
- Gavin McCrea: Mrs. Engels
- Ian McEwan: Atonement, Sweet Tooth
- Brenda McKeon: Solace
- John McPhee: Annals of the Former World: Basin and Range, Coming into the Country
- Catriona McPherson: Quiet Neighbors
- Susan Scarf Merrell: Shirley
- Philipp Meyer: The Son
- A. D. Miller: Snowdrops
- David Mitchell: The Bone Clocks, Cloud Atlas, Ghostwritten, Slade House, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet
- Kate Morton: The Clockmaker’s Daughter, The Forgotten Garden, The Lake House, The Secret Keeper
- Fiona Mozley: Elmet
- Alice Munro: Family Furnishings
- E. Nesbit: The Lark
- Celeste Ng: Little Fires Everywhere
- Beverley Nichols: Merry Hall
- Lawrence Norfolk: John Saturnall’s Feast
- Howard Norman: My Darling Detective
- Edna O’Brien: Girl, Wild Decembers
- Kate O’Brien: That Lady
- Tim O’Brien: In the Lake of the Woods
- Joseph O’Connor: Ghost Light
- Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir: Miss Iceland
- Julie Orringer: The Flight Portfolio, The Invisible Bridge
- Lisa O’Donnell: Closed Doors, The Death of Bees
- Maggie O’Farrell: After You’d Gone, Hamnet, The Hand That First Held Mine, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
- Jenny Offill: Dept. of Speculation
- Margaret Oliphant: Hester, Miss Marjoribanks, The Perpetual Curate, Phoebe Junior, Salem Chapel
- Ed O’Loughlin: Minds of Winter
- Carola Oman: Nothing to Report
- Helen Oyeyemi: Boy, Snow, Bird
- Charles Palliser: Rustication
- Mollie Panter-Downes: One Fine Day
- Ann Patchett: Commonwealth, The Dutch House, State of Wonder
- Iain Pears: Stone’s Fall
- Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent
- Leif G.W. Persson, Between Summer’s Longing and Winter’s End
- Charles Portis: True Grit
- Richard Powers: Bewilderment, Orfeo, The Overstory
- Zia Haider Rahman: In the Light of What We Know
- Susan Rivers: The Second Mrs. Hockaday
- Marilynne Robinson: Gilead, Home, Housekeeping, Jack, Lila
- Peter Robinson: Before the Poison
- O. E. Rölvaag: Giants in the Earth
- Emily Ruskovich: Idaho
- Karen Russell: Swamplandia!
- Richard Russo: Empire Falls, Everybody’s Fool, Mohawk
- Eduardo Sacheri: The Secret in Their Eyes
- Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases, The Haunting of Maddy Clare, The Sun Down Motel
- Stacy Schiff: The Witches: Salem, 1692
- Sarah Schmidt: See What I Have Done
- James Scott, The Kept
- Lisa See: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
- Margery Sharp: Cluny Brown
- Lynn Shepherd: The Solitary House
- R. C. Sherriff, Greengates
- Maggie Shipstead: Astonish Me, Great Circle
- Nevil Shute, A Town Like Alice
- Henryk Sienkiewic: With Fire and Sword
- Helen Simonson: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, The Summer Before the War
- Jane Smiley, The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton, The Greenlanders, A Thousand Acres
- Dominic Smith, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos
- Ali Smith, How to Be Both
- Jessica Soffer: Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots
- Ahdaf Soueif: In the Eye of the Sun, The Map of Love
- Francis Spufford: Golden Hill
- Eva Stachniak, The Winter Palace
- Amy Stewart, Girl Waits with Gun
- Mary Stewart:The Ivy Tree, Nine Coaches Waiting, This Rough Magic
- Julia Strachey: Cheerful Weather for the Wedding
- Elizabeth Strout: Anything Is Possible, The Burgess Boys, My Name Is Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Olive, Again
- Douglas Stuart: Shuggie Bain
- Graham Swift: Mothering Sunday
- János Székeley: Temptation
- Donna Tartt: The Goldfinch
- Johan Theorin: The Darkest Room, Echoes from the Dead
- Paul Theroux: The Great Railway Bazaar
- Madeleine Thien: Do Not Say We Have Nothing
- Matthew Thomas: We Are Not Ourselves
- Adam Thorpe: Ulverton
- Colm Tóibín: Brooklyn, The Master
- Sarah Tolmie: All the Horses of Iceland
- Claire Tomalin: Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
- Amor Towles: Rules of Civility
- Nigel Tranter: The Lords of Misrule
- Barbara Trapido: Brother of the More Famous Jack, Sex and Stravinsky, The Travelling Hornplayer
- Lucy Treloar: Salt Creek
- Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers, Doctor Thorne
- Anne Tyler: French Braid, A Spool of Blue Thread
- Anya Von Bremzen: Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking
- S. J. Watson: Before I Go to Sleep
- Winifred Watson: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
- Ann Weisgarber: The Promise
- Eudora Welty: The Optimist’s Daughter
- Franz Werfel: The Forty Days of Musa Dagh
- Tara Westover: Educated
- Edith Wharton: The Age of Innocence
- Dorothy Whipple: Because of the Lockwoods, Greenbanks, The Priory, They Knew Mr. Knight, Someone at a Distance, They Were Sisters
- Colson Whitehead: The Nickel Boys, The Underground Railroad
- Isabel Wilkerson: The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
- John Williams: Stoner
- Niall Williams: Four Letters of Love, History of the Rain, This Is Happiness
- Pip Williams: The Dictionary of Lost Words
- Brenda Wineapple: White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson
- Meg Wolitzer: The Wife
- Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse
- Evie Wyld: All the Birds, Singing, The Bass Rock
- Hanya Yanagihara: A Little Life, The People in the Trees, To Paradise
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