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