Reversing its customary order of presentation, following the previous unveiling of this year’s “10 Best Books,” the New York Times Book Review has posted its list of “100 Notable Books of 2019” selected by its editors across the Adult Fiction & Poetry and Nonfiction categories. Nearly half the list—45 titles—are ours, our highest collective total ever.
The list, to be published in the Book Review’s December 8 print edition, is available online in its entirety now.
Here are this year’s Penguin Random House NYTBR “Notable Books”:
Fiction & Poetry
- AMERICAN SPY by Lauren Wilkinson (Random House)
- BANGKOK WAKES TO RAIN by Pitchaya Sudbanthad (Riverhead)
- THE BODY IN QUESTION by Jill Ciment (Pantheon)
- DISAPPEARING EARTH by Julia Phillips (Knopf)
- EXHALATION: Stories by Ted Chiang (Knopf)
- FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Random House)
- GRAND UNION: Stories by Zadie Smith (Penguin Press)
- LAST DAY by Domenica Ruta (Spiegel & Grau)
- LOST CHILDREN ARCHIVE by Valeria Luiselli (Knopf)
- LOT: Stories by Bryan Washington (Riverhead)
- THE MEMORY POLICE by Yoko Ogawa, Translated by Stephen Snyder (Pantheon)
- THE NICKEL BOYS by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
- NIGHT BOAT TO TANGIER by Kevin Barry (Doubleday)
- NORMAL PEOPLE by Sally Rooney (Hogarth)
- THE OCTOPUS MUSEUM: Poems by Brenda Shaughnessy (Knopf)
- THE OLD DRIFT by Namwali Serpell (Hogarth)
- RED AT THE BONE by Jacqueline Woodson (Riverhead)
- RUSTY BROWN by Chris Ware (Pantheon)
- SPRING by Ali Smith (Pantheon)
- THE TESTAMENTS by Margaret Atwood (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday)
- In addition, we have one fiction entry from a Penguin Random House Publisher Servicesclient publisher: RABBITS FOR FOOD by Binnie Kirshenbaum (Soho Press)
Nonfiction
- ANTISOCIAL: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of American Conversation by Andrew Marantz (Viking)
- BECOMING by Michelle Obama (Crown)
- THE BENEFICIARY: Fortune, Misfortune, and the Story of My Father by Janny Scott (Riverhead)
- FURIOUS HOURS: Murder, Fraud,and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep (Knopf)
- GOOD TALK: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob (One World)
- GUEST HOUSE FOR YOUNG WIDOWS: Among the Women of ISIS by Azadeh Moaveni (Random House)
- THE HEARTBEAT OF WOUNDED KNEE: Native America From 1890 to the Present by David Treuer (Riverhead)
- HORIZON by Barry Lopez (Knopf)
- HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST by Ibram X. Kendi (One World)
- IF: The Untold Story of Kipling’s American Years by Christopher Benfey (Penguin Press)
- THE IMPEACHERS: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation by Brenda Wineapple (Random House)
- KNOW MY NAME: A Memoir by Chanel Miller (Viking)
- THE LOST ART OF SCRIPTURE: Rescuing the Sacred Texts by Karen Armstrong (Knopf)
- MARGARET THATCHER: The Authorized Biography — Herself Alone by Charles Moore (Knopf)
- THE MASTERMIND: Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal. by Evan Ratliff (Random House)
- OUR MAN: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century by George Packer (Knopf)
- SAY NOTHING: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday)
- SHE SAID: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey (Penguin Press)
- STONY THE ROAD: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Penguin Press)
- TRICK MIRROR: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino (Random House)
- THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells (Tim Duggan)
- THE UNWINDING OF THE MIRACLE: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After by Julie Yip-Williams (Random House)
- THE WAR BEFORE THE WAR: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul From the Revolution to the Civil War by Andrew Delbanco (Penguin Press)
- WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD IS TRUE: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance by Carolyn Forché. (Penguin Press)
- WOMEN’S WORK: A Reckoning With Work and Home by Megan K. Stack (Doubleday)
