Time Magazine's Best Books of the Year

451 Works 1,802,574 Books 59,899 Reviews 4.0
Time magazine's yearly "Best Books" list was first published in 1996. The format has changed over the years, ranging from 10 to 30 books, usually categorized by fiction and non-fiction, with the show more exception of 2006. Children's books were added in 2008 & 2009. show less
Categories:
Years:
All, 2023 (4), 2022 (7), 2021 (22), 2020 (15), 2019.19 (1), 2019 (12), 2018 (15), 2017 (19), 2016 (17), 2015 (14), 2014 (16), 2013 (16), [2012] (2), 2012 (9), 2011 (17), 2010 (13), 2009 (26), 2008 (29), 2007 (18), 2006 (8), 2005 (7), 2004 (10), 2003 (9), 2002 (10), 2001 (8), 2000 (6), 1999 (6), 1998 (8), 1997 (5), 1996 (9), 1994 (1), 1986 (6)
WorkCategoryYear
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
Fiction2023
Victory City by Salman Rushdie
Fiction2023
Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
Nonfiction2023
I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country by Елена Костюченко
2023
The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li
Fiction2022
The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken
Fiction2022
All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews
Fiction2022
Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson
Nonfiction2022
South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry
Nonfiction2022
The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
2022
The Furrows by Namwali Serpell
2022
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Fiction2021
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Fiction2021
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Fiction2021
My Monticello: Fiction by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
Fiction, 22021
The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.
Fiction, 22021
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Fiction, 42021
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Fiction, 52021
The Life of the Mind by Christine Smallwood
Fiction, 62021
Afterparties: Stories by Anthony Veasna So
Fiction, 82021
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Fiction, 92021
Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott
Nonfiction2021
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
Nonfiction2021
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders
Nonfiction2021
A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib
Nonfiction, 12021
The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation's Neglect of a Deadly Disease by Daisy Hernandez
Nonfiction, 102021
Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
Nonfiction, 22021
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery across America by Clint Smith
Nonfiction, 42021
Aftershocks: A Memoir by Nadia Owusu
Nonfiction, 52021
The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood, Youth, Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen
Nonfiction, 82021
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard
Nonfiction, 92021
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
2021
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
2021
Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir by Natasha Trethewey
Non-fiction, 42020
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow
2020
A Burning by Megha Majumdar
Fiction, 72020
The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir by Wayétu Moore
Non-fiction, 32020
The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
Non-fiction, 72020
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Fiction2020
Deacon King Kong by James McBride
Fiction2020
A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet
Fiction2020
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Fiction2020
I Hold a Wolf by the Ears: Stories by Laura Van den Berg
Fiction2020
Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
Fiction (10)2020
The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel
Fiction, 32020
Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
Fiction, 52020
Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine
Non-fiction (10)2020
Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald
Non-fiction (6)2020
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
Non-fiction, 22020
Having and Being Had by Eula Biss
Nonfiction2020
Hitler: Downfall: 1939-1945 by Volker Ullrich
Nonfiction2020
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Nonfiction2020
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne
Nonfiction, 52020
In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado
Non-fiction, 52019
The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
Fiction, 92019
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Fiction, 72019
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
Fiction, 32019
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
Fiction, 52019
Where Reasons End by Yiyun Li
Fiction2019
The Need by Helen Phillips
Fiction2019
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Fiction2019
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Fiction (6)2019
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Fiction, 22019
This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto by Suketu Mehta
Non-fiction (10)2019
Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane
Non-fiction (4)2019
The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esmé Weijun Wang
Non-fiction (8)2019
The Yellow House: A Memoir by Sarah M. Broom
Nonfiction2019
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham
Nonfiction2019
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
Nonfiction2019
Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller
Nonfiction2019.19
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer
Nonfiction2019
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep
2019
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
Non-fiction, 72018
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
Fiction, 62018
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
Fiction, 42018
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Fiction, 102018
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee
Non-fiction, 52018
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
Fiction (1)2018
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
Fiction (2)2018
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Fiction (3)2018
Circe by Madeline Miller
Fiction (5)2018
There There by Tommy Orange
Fiction (7)2018
Gun Love by Jennifer Clement
Fiction (8)2018
Florida by Lauren Groff
Fiction (9)2018
Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston
Non-fiction (2)2018
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
Non-fiction (3)2018
The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli
Non-fiction (4)2018
These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore
Non-fiction (6)2018
All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung
Non-fiction (8)2018
Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art by Mary Gabriel
Non-fiction (9)2018
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
Nonfiction2018
How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky
Nonfiction2018
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
Non-fiction, 62017
Transit by Rachel Cusk
Fiction2017
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Fiction2017
White Tears by Hari Kunzru
Fiction2017
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Fiction2017
New People by Danzy Senna
Fiction (10)2017
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
Fiction (4)2017
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Fiction (5)2017
The Changeling by Victor LaValle
Fiction (7)2017
The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott
Fiction (8)2017
Days without End by Sebastian Barry
Fiction (9)2017
What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Non-fiction (1)2017
The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983 - 1992 by Tina Brown
Non-fiction (10)2017
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Non-fiction (2)2017
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
Non-fiction (4)2017
The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir by Ariel Levy
Non-fiction (5)2017
Blind Spot by Teju Cole
Non-fiction (7)2017
The Meaning of Michelle: 16 Writers on the Iconic First Lady and How Her Journey Inspires Our Own by Veronica Chambers
Non-fiction (8)2017
The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America by Frances FitzGerald
Nonfiction2017
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
Nonfiction2017
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance
Non-fiction, 22016
Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul by James McBride
Non-fiction, 82016
My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
Fiction, 92016
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
Fiction2016
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Fiction2016
Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson
Fiction2016
Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer
Fiction (10)2016
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Fiction (3)2016
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Fiction (4)2016
Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett
Fiction (6)2016
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Fiction (7)2016
The Trespasser by Tana French
Fiction (8)2016
Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda
Fiction, 92016
March: Book Three by John Lewis
Non-fiction (1)2016
Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape by Peggy Orenstein
Non-fiction (10)2016
You'll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein
Non-fiction (3)2016
Known and Strange Things: Essays by Teju Cole
Non-fiction (4)2016
Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
Non-fiction (5)2016
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
Non-fiction (7)2016
The Constitution Today: Timeless Lessons for the Issues of Our Era by Akhil Reed Amar
Non-fiction (9)2016
Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin
Nonfiction2016
The Givenness of Things: Essays by Marilynne Robinson
Non-fiction, 82015
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Fiction, 32015
Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt
Fiction, 82015
The Story of the Lost Child: Neapolitan Novels, Book Four by Elena Ferrante
Fiction, 12015
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Non-fiction, 92015
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
Fiction2015
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Fiction2015
The Dust That Falls from Dreams by Louis De Bernières
Fiction (10)2015
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
Fiction (2)2015
Get in Trouble: Stories by Kelly Link
Fiction (4)2015
The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud
Fiction (6)2015
The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray
Fiction (9)2015
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan
Non-fiction (2)2015
The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy by Masha Gessen
Non-fiction (4)2015
Being Nixon: A Man Divided by Evan Thomas
Non-fiction (5)2015
Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine by Damon Tweedy
Non-fiction (6)2015
Destiny and Power The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush by Jon Meacham
Non-fiction (7)2015
Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson
Nonfiction2015
The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff
Nonfiction2015
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
Non-fiction, 72014
H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Non-fiction, 12014
Euphoria by Lily King
Fiction, 82014
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
Non-fiction, 52014
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Fiction2014
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
Fiction2014
The Secret Place by Tana French
Fiction (1)2014
The Laughing Monsters by Denis Johnson
Fiction (10)2014
The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis
Fiction (3)2014
Redeployment by Phil Klay
Fiction (4)2014
Wonderland by Stacey D'Erasmo
Fiction (5)2014
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by David Shafer
Fiction (6)2014
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
Fiction (9)2014
Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War by Helen Thorpe
Non-fiction (1)2014
Thrown by Kerry Howley
Non-fiction (2)2014
Little Failure: A Memoir by Gary Shteyngart
Non-fiction (6)2014
The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan by Graeme Smith
Non-fiction (8)2014
Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line by Michael Gibney
Non-fiction (9)2014
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
Nonfiction2014
In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides
Nonfiction2014
The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking by Olivia Laing
Non-fiction, 102013
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Fiction, 72013
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
Fiction, 32013
Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
Non-fiction, 82013
Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright
Non-fiction, 72013
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Fiction2013
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
Fiction2013
The Encyclopedia of Early Earth: A Graphic Novel by Isabel Greenberg
Fiction (10)2013
Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders
Fiction (2)2013
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
Fiction (4)2013
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
Fiction (5)2013
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
Fiction (6)2013
Lexicon by Max Barry
Fiction (9)2013
Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore
Non-fiction (1)2013
The Selected Letters of Willa Cather by Willa Cather
Non-fiction (10)2013
The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Non-fiction (3)2013
Forty-one False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers by Janet Malcolm
Non-fiction (4)2013
The Book of My Lives {original edition} by Aleksandar Hemon
Non-fiction (5)2013
Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air by Richard Holmes
Non-fiction (9)2013
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink
Nonfiction2013
Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser
Nonfiction2013
Building Stories by Chris Ware
Fiction, 72012
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum
Non-fiction, 12012
The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling
Fiction, 62012
Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Fiction, 92012
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
Fiction, 22012
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
Fiction, 32012
Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel
Non-fiction, 52012
People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up by Richard Lloyd Parry
Non-fiction, 82012
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Fiction, 12012
This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz
Fiction (10)2012
At Last by Edward St. Aubyn
Fiction (4)2012
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente
Fiction (5)2012
NW by Zadie Smith
Fiction, 8[2012]
The Black Count: Napoleon's Rival and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas by Tom Reiss
Non-fiction (10)2012
My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
Non-fiction (4)2012
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
Non-fiction (6)2012
Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz
Non-fiction (7)2012
The First Four Notes: Beethoven's Fifth and the Human Imagination by Matthew Guerrieri
Non-fiction (9)2012
The Passage of Power by Robert A. Caro
Non-fiction, 22012
Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon
Non-fiction, 3[2012]
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
Non-fiction, 92011
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Non-fiction, 22011
A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin
Fiction (1)2011
The Death-Ray by Daniel Clowes
Fiction (10)2011
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
Fiction (2)2011
Open City by Teju Cole
Fiction (4)2011
Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
Fiction (5)2011
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
Fiction (6)2011
Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton
Fiction (7)2011
The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler
Fiction (8)2011
Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan
Fiction (9)2011
1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann
Non-fiction (1)2011
A Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers by Michael Holroyd
Non-fiction (10)2011
All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945 by Max Hastings
Non-fiction (3)2011
Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge by Mark Yarm
Non-fiction (4)2011
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick
Non-fiction (5)2011
Pulphead: Essays by John Jeremiah Sullivan
Non-fiction (6)2011
A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother by Janny Scott
Non-fiction (7)2011
Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis
Non-fiction (8)2011
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Fiction, 22010
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
Fiction, 42010
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
Fiction, 72010
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Non-fiction, 22010
Life by Keith Richards
Non-fiction, 72010
You are not a gadget : a manifesto by Jaron Lanier
Non-fiction, 102010
War by Sebastian Junger
Non-fiction, 62010
The Passage by Justin Cronin
Fiction2010
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
Fiction2010
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Fiction (1)2010
Faithful Place by Tana French
Fiction (10)2010
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
Fiction (3)2010
Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
Fiction (5)2010
Wilson by Daniel Clowes
Fiction (6)2010
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
Non-fiction (1)2010
Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship by Gail Caldwell
Non-fiction (3)2010
The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood by Jane Leavy
Non-fiction (4)2010
Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the International Hunt for His Assassin by Hampton Sides
Non-fiction (8)2010
Brilliant by Jane Brox
Nonfiction2010
Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
Nonfiction2010
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Fiction, 92009
Cheever: A Life by Blake Bailey
Non-fiction, 102009
Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Children's (1)2009
The Snow Day by Komako Sakai
Children's (10)2009
Guess Again! by Mac Barnett
Children's (2)2009
Dogs Don't Brush Their Teeth! by Diane de Groat
Children's (3)2009
Crow Call by Lois Lowry
Children's (4)2009
Elephants Cannot Dance! by Mo Willems
Children's (5)2009
Creature ABC by Andrew Zuckerman
Children's (6)2009
How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? by Jane Yolen
Children's (7)2009
Pick a Pumpkin, Mrs. Millie by Judy Cox
Children's (8)2009
The Composer Is Dead by Lemony Snicket
Children's (9)2009
The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell
Fiction2009
The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter
Fiction (2)2009
Swimming by Nicola Keegan
Fiction (3)2009
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Fiction (4)2009
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
Fiction (5)2009
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer
Fiction (6)2009
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
Fiction (7)2009
Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell
Fiction (8)2009
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Fiction, 12009
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Fiction, 102009
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
Non-fiction (1)2009
D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor
Non-fiction (2)2009
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith
Non-fiction (4)2009
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed
Non-fiction (5)2009
Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son by Michael Chabon
Non-fiction (7)2009
Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder
Non-fiction (8)2009
Cooking Dirty: A Story of Life, Sex, Love and Death in the Kitchen by Jason Sheehan
Non-fiction (9)2009
Lit: A Memoir by Mary Karr
Nonfiction2009
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
Non-fiction, 102008
The Pencil by Allan Ahlberg
Children's (1)2008
The Umbrella Queen by Shirin Yim Bridges
Children's (10)2008
Big Words for Little People by Jamie Lee Curtis
Children's (2)2008
Bats at the Library by Brian Lies
Children's (3)2008
Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton
Children's (4)2008
Oodles of Animals by Lois Ehlert
Children's (5)2008
Too Many Toys by David Shannon
Children's (6)2008
The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen
Children's (7)2008
Alphabet by Matthew Van Fleet
Children's (8)2008
Help Me, Mr. Mutt!: Expert Answers for Dogs with People Problems by Janet Stevens
Children's (9)2008
Personal Days by Ed Park
Fiction2008
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Fiction2008
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
Fiction (1)2008
The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike
Fiction (10)2008
Lush Life by Richard Price
Fiction (2)2008
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
Fiction (3)2008
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Fiction (5)2008
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
Fiction (7)2008
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
Fiction (8)2008
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Fiction (9)2008
The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
Non-fiction (1)2008
The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire by Joe Jackson
Non-fiction (2)2008
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
Non-fiction (3)2008
The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul by Patrick French
Non-fiction (4)2008
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale
Non-fiction (5)2008
Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg
Non-fiction (6)2008
Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang
Non-fiction (7)2008
John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman
Non-fiction (8)2008
The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia by Laura Miller
Non-fiction (9)2008
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis
Non-fiction, 62008
No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories by Miranda July
Fiction, 72007
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
Fiction, 82007
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
Fiction (1)2007
The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver
Fiction (10)2007
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
Fiction (2)2007
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Fiction (3)2007
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
Fiction (4)2007
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
Fiction (5)2007
House of Meetings by Martin Amis
Fiction (6)2007
Like You'd Understand, Anyway: Stories by Jim Shepard
Fiction (9)2007
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
Non-fiction (1)2007
Here If You Need Me: A True Story by Kate Braestrup
Non-fiction (10)2007
A Life of Picasso, Volume 3: 1917-1932 by John Richardson
Non-fiction (2)2007
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
Non-fiction (3)2007
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner
Non-fiction (4)2007
The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross
Non-fiction (5)2007
Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin
Non-fiction (6)2007
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
Non-fiction (7)2007
The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey through Madness by Elyn R. Saks
Non-fiction (9)2007
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin
Nonfiction2007
Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford
Best Book, 42006
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
Best Book (1)2006
What Is the What by Dave Eggers
Best Book (10)2006
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
Best Book (2)2006
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks
Best Book (5)2006
The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford
Best Book (6)2006
Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West by Hampton Sides
Best Book (8)2006
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Best Book (9)2006
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Best Book, 32006
Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart
Fiction2006
The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq by George Packer
Non-fiction, 22005
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Non-fiction, 42005
Saturday by Ian McEwan
Fiction, 42005
The March by E. L. Doctorow
Fiction2005
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Fiction2005
Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie
Fiction (2)2005
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link
Fiction (3)2005
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
Non-fiction (5)2005
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird
Nonfiction2005
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt
Nonfiction2005
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Fiction2004
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Fiction (1)2004
Runaway by Alice Munro
Fiction (3)2004
The Master by Colm Tóibín
Fiction (4)2004
The Hamilton Case by Michelle de Kretser
Fiction (5)2004
Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt
Non-fiction (1)2004
Blue Blood by Edward Conlon
Non-fiction (2)2004
The Gourmet Cookbook Volumes I and II by Ruth Reichl
Non-fiction (3)2004
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
Non-fiction (4)2004
Persepolis II: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi
Non-fiction (5)2004
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Fiction, 42003
Any Human Heart by William Boyd
Fiction (1)2003
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
Fiction (2)2003
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
Fiction (3)2003
A Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker
Fiction (5)2003
Game Time: A Baseball Companion by Roger Angell
Non-fiction (1)2003
Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point by David Lipsky
Non-fiction (2)2003
They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967 by David Maraniss
Non-fiction (4)2003
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester
Non-fiction (5)2003
Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth-Century America by Ted Morgan
Nonfiction2003
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Fiction2002
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
Fiction (2)2002
You Are Not a Stranger Here: Stories by Adam Haslett
Fiction (3)2002
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Fiction (4)2002
Unless by Carol Shields
Fiction (5)2002
Heart of a Soldier by James B. Stewart
Non-fiction (1)2002
The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd by Richard Zacks
Non-fiction (2)2002
One! Hundred! Demons! by Lynda Barry
Non-fiction (3)2002
Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande
Non-fiction (5)2002
Ninety Degrees North: The Quest for the North Pole by Fergus Fleming
Nonfiction2002
John Adams by David McCullough
Non-fiction, 12001
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Fiction, 32001
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
Fiction2001
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Fiction2001
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
Fiction (4)2001
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Fiction (5)2001
How I Came Into My Inheritance: And Other True Stories by Dorothy Gallagher
Non-fiction (2)2001
Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution by Diane McWhorter
Non-fiction (3)2001
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
Non-fiction (4)2001
President Nixon: Alone in the White House by Richard Reeves
Non-fiction (5)2001
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Fiction, 22000
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
Non-fiction, 52000
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Fiction (1)2000
Ravelstein by Saul Bellow
Fiction (3)2000
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Fiction, 52000
Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 by Stephen E. Ambrose
Non-fiction (1)2000
Robert Kennedy: His Life by Evan Thomas
Non-fiction (2)2000
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Non-fiction (3)2000
Experience by Martin Amis
Non-fiction (4)2000
Waiting by Ha Jin
Fiction, 41999
Ahab's Wife or, The Star-Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund
Fiction, 51999
A Dangerous Friend by Ward Just
Fiction, 21999
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
Fiction, 31999
Personal Injuries by Scott Turow
Fiction (1)1999
Home Town by Tracy Kidder
Non-fiction (1)1999
Morgan: American Financier by Jean Strouse
Non-fiction (2)1999
Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything by James Gleick
Non-fiction (3)1999
The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times by Susan E. Tifft
Non-fiction (4)1999
The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy by Nicholas Lemann
Non-fiction (5)1999
A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe
Fiction, 11998
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
Fiction (3)1998
I Married a Communist by Philip Roth
Fiction (4)1998
Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks
Fiction (5)1998
King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero by David Remnick
Non-fiction (1)1998
Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg
Non-fiction (3)1998
Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball
Non-fiction (5)1998
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
Non-fiction, 41998
Pillar of Fire : America in the King Years, 1963-65 by Taylor Branch
Nonfiction, 21998
Paradise by Toni Morrison
Fiction, 21997
Underworld by Don DeLillo
Fiction, 21997
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Fiction, 31997
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
Fiction, 41997
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Fiction, 51997
Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
Fiction, 11997
A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes
Non-fiction (2)1997
Legends of the American Desert: Sojourns in the Greater Southwest by Alex Shoumatoff
Non-fiction (3)1997
Whittaker Chambers: A Biography by Sam Tanenhaus
Non-fiction (4)1997
Citizen Soldiers : The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany by Stephen E. Ambrose
Non-fiction (5)1997
The Odyssey by Homer
[trans.Robert Fagles] Fiction (5)1996
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Fiction (2)1996
The Tailor of Panama by John le Carré
Fiction (3)1996
Ants on the Melon: A Collection of Poems by Virginia Hamilton Adair
Fiction (4)1996
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
Non-fiction (1)1996
Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Goldhagen
Non-fiction (2)1996
Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao to Now by Jan Wong
Non-fiction (3)1996
A Life of Picasso, Volume 2: 1907-1917 by John Richardson
Non-fiction (4)1996
My Dark Places by James Ellroy
Non-fiction (5)1996
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
Non-fiction, 11996
The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie
Fiction, 11995
My Own Country: A Doctor's Story by Abraham Verghese
Nonfiction, 51994
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories by Alice Munro
Fiction, 31986
Eisenhower at War, 1943-1945 by David Eisenhower
1986
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
1986
The Paper: The Life and Death of the New York Herald Tribune by Richard Kluger
1986
A Perfect Spy by John le Carré
1986
A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
1986
Roger's Version by John Updike
1986
Beowulf by Beowulf Poet
Fiction, 41000
* Green text is "calculated" text. Calculated text is provided based on global LibraryThing data.

Descriptions

Time magazine's yearly "Best Books" list was first published in 1996. The format has changed over the years, ranging from 10 to 30 books, usually categorized by fiction and non-fiction, with the exception of 2006. Children's books were added in 2008 & 2009.

(English, Unclassified)
Time magazine's yearly "Best Books" list was first published in 1996. The format has changed over the years, ranging from 10 to 30 books, usually categorized by fiction and non-fiction, with the exception of 2006. Children's books were added in 2008 & 2009.

When adding new books to the list, use the former entries as an example. Fiction is .30 -> .21 (with #1=.30, #10=.21) - Non-fiction is .20 -> .11 (#1 = .20 through #10=.11) and Children's is .10 to .1 (#1=.10 though #10 = .1) - this format will allow the correct display since Time ranks the books and order of display on LibraryThing is important. (English, Member-written)

Tags

20th century(3,524) 21st century(4,739) adventure(4,286) American(5,046) American history(4,012) American literature(4,796) audiobook(6,231) autobiography(3,990) biography(15,903) book club(3,616) British(3,482) classics(4,503) contemporary fiction(3,783) death(3,670) dystopia(4,673) ebook(7,775) England(6,718) family(7,380) fantasy(34,520) favorites(4,072) fiction(117,851) goodreads(4,738) hardcover(3,688) Harry Potter(7,706) historical(3,545) historical fiction(14,957) history(22,820) humor(4,303) Kindle(7,464) literary fiction(3,812) literature(10,185) magic(8,159) memoir(15,788) mystery(4,709) non-fiction(37,177) novel(16,360) own(6,788) poetry(6,641) read(17,978) science(5,388) science fiction(12,316) series(4,102) short stories(4,706) to-read(101,431) unread(6,764) usa(5,249) war(4,022) wwii(7,548) ya(4,763) young adult(7,819)

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