THE Best Books of the Year
The Daily Beast is checking the best books lists to see which titles get the most picks. According to their current calculations, the winners are:
Fiction — Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
Nonfiction — Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
Dozens of American and UK sources are included, from Publishers Weekly to Vogue. So far, Library Journal‘s recently-released Top Ten, plus sixteen More of the Best, is not.
At this point, we’re finding the unexpected choices more interesting than the consensus titles. LJ is the only source to pick Joe Blair’s memoir By the Iowa Sea (S&S/Scribner). They think so much of it that they make it one of five nonfiction titles in their Top Ten and describe as “startling, bleak, and thoroughly honest.”
Unique picks on LJ‘s More of the Best include Jane Harris’s paperback original novel, Gillespie and I (Harper Perennial), which sounds delicious (read Carolyn See’s review in the Washington Post) and a librarian favorite, Suzanne Joinson’s A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar. They like that one so much they picked it twice (as both a reviewer’s historical fiction and an editor’s pick).
We’ve now wrapped up all the lists we are tracking (not as many as the Daily Beast; we’re focused on professional sources plus the most influential consumer sources) and will add Booklist’s picks when they are released in January. You can use the lists for end-of-the year ordering and to discover new readers advisory titles (there’s RA gold in those unique picks).
Adult Fiction Best Books, Collated