I don’t finish books I don’t enjoy. I recommend every one of these, and I am grateful to the writers who kept me company this year.
Novels
Half in Love with Death by Emily Ross
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
The Known World by Ernest P. Jones
The Incendiaries by R. O. Kwon
Chemistry by Weike Wang
When Reasons End by Yiyun Li
The Book of X by Sarah Rose Etter
Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore
Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
The Summer Demands by Deborah Shapiro
Ormeshadow by Priya Sharma
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi
The Changeling by Victor LaValle
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
The Australian by Emma Smith-Stevens
Shame by Makenna Goodman
Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rosas Contreras
Parakeet by Marie Helene Bertino
Cleanness by Garth Greenwell
Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas
Golden State by Lydia Kiesling
Sad Janet by Lucie Britsch
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Short Story Collections
We Love Anderson Cooper by R. L. Maizes
An Unfinished World by Amber Sparks
And I Do Not Forgive You by Amber Sparks
Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link
Every Mask I Tried On by Alina Stefanescu
Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone by Sequoia Nagamatsu
Memoir
Children of the Land by Marcello Hernandez Castillo
In the Dreamhouse by Carmen Maria Marchado
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
So Sad Today by Melissa Broder
Cherry Hill by Jona Frank
What We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl by Jeanie Vanasco
Lightning Flowers by Katherine Standefer
Loved and Wanted by Christa Parravani
Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch
Poetry
Beast Meridian by Vanessa Angelica Villarreall
The Tradition by Jericho Brown
Anthologies
Best Horror of the Year Volume 11 ed. by Ellen Datlow
The Horrorzine’s Book of Ghost Stories ed. by Jeani Rector
Not That Bad ed. by Roxane Gay
Scholarship
Fat Chance by Robert M. Lustig M.D.
How to Be an Anti-Racist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
Stamped from the Beginning by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Hell Week by Erik Bertrand Larsen
Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
