Times Critics’ Top Books of 2019 (30 books)

The Times’s staff critics give their choices of the best fiction and nonfiction works of the year.

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1	Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry 3.62 avg rating — 21,919 ratings score: 299, and 3 people voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
2	Normal People by Sally Rooney (Goodreads Author) 3.81 avg rating — 1,872,647 ratings score: 295, and 3 people voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
3	Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe 4.47 avg rating — 167,569 ratings score: 273, and 3 people voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
4	Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power (The Lamar Series in Western History) by Pekka Hämäläinen 4.25 avg rating — 1,183 ratings score: 200, and 2 people voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
5	Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval by Saidiya Hartman 4.41 avg rating — 4,995 ratings score: 197, and 2 people voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
6	Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli 3.80 avg rating — 25,486 ratings score: 189, and 2 people voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
7	What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance by Carolyn Forché (Goodreads Author) 4.42 avg rating — 3,366 ratings score: 186, and 2 people voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
8	Solitary: Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement by Albert Woodfox 4.42 avg rating — 4,106 ratings score: 185, and 2 people voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
9	Lot by Bryan Washington 3.74 avg rating — 10,389 ratings score: 181, and 2 people voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
10	Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann 3.97 avg rating — 5,870 ratings score: 178, and 2 people voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
11	Women Talking by Miriam Toews 3.62 avg rating — 67,486 ratings score: 176, and 2 people voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
12	Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl by Uwe Johnson 4.33 avg rating — 506 ratings score: 166, and 2 people voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
13	Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation by Andrew Marantz 4.20 avg rating — 3,118 ratings score: 96, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
14	American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump by Tim Alberta 4.18 avg rating — 3,715 ratings score: 95, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
15	The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century by Thant Myint-U 4.13 avg rating — 1,603 ratings score: 94, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
16	The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy 3.67 avg rating — 11,580 ratings score: 91, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
17	The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom 3.89 avg rating — 25,383 ratings score: 90, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
18	Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter by Kerri K. Greenidge 4.08 avg rating — 177 ratings score: 88, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
19	No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us by Rachel Louise Snyder (Goodreads Author) 4.50 avg rating — 8,411 ratings score: 87, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
20	The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation by Brenda Wineapple 4.06 avg rating — 1,738 ratings score: 86, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
21	Where Reasons End by Yiyun Li 3.76 avg rating — 6,329 ratings score: 85, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
22	The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell (Goodreads Author) 3.73 avg rating — 7,582 ratings score: 84, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
23	Baby, I Don't Care by Chelsey Minnis 3.93 avg rating — 280 ratings score: 81, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
24	Trust Exercise by Susan Choi (Goodreads Author) 3.12 avg rating — 39,813 ratings score: 80, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
25	Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane (Goodreads Author) 4.23 avg rating — 21,149 ratings score: 78, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
26	Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham (Goodreads Author) 4.37 avg rating — 65,102 ratings score: 77, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
27	In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (Goodreads Author) 4.38 avg rating — 162,206 ratings score: 75, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
28	The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care by Anne Boyer (Goodreads Author) 4.15 avg rating — 5,688 ratings score: 73, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
29	How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr 4.46 avg rating — 21,344 ratings score: 72, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
30	Doxology by Nell Zink 3.45 avg rating — 2,117 ratings score: 71, and 1 person voted	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars