Best Books of the Year
Menu

Year consensus · 2010

The Most Recommended Books of 2010

We counted 3,043 entries from 116 sources in 2010. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen appeared on 15, 1 more than any other book.

A source counts once per book, whatever the result: a win, a shortlist place, or a list pick. We show books named by 3 or more sources. 2010 is the award or list year, not the publication year.

15 sources

  1. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

14 sources

  1. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

12 sources

  1. A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

  2. Room by Emma Donoghue

11 sources

  1. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

10 sources

  1. Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

  2. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

  3. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

  4. To the End of the Land by David Grossman

8 sources

  1. Just Kids by Patti Smith

  2. Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey

  3. The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

7 sources

  1. Hitch-22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens

  2. One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

  3. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis

  4. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

  5. The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

6 sources

  1. Great House by Nicole Krauss

  2. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

  3. One Day by David Nicholls

  4. The City & the City by China Miéville

  5. The Long Song by Andrea Levy

5 sources

  1. A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner

  2. Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff

  3. Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

  4. Faithful Place by Tana French

  5. Human Chain by Seamus Heaney

  6. Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

  7. Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell

  8. Ling & Ting: Not Exactly the Same! by Grace Lin

  9. Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer

  10. Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick

  11. Selected Stories by William Trevor

  12. So Much for That by Lionel Shriver

  13. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

  14. The Ask by Sam Lipsyte

  15. The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan and Peter Sís

  16. The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

  17. The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

  18. The Passage by Justin Cronin

  19. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman

  20. The Tiger by John Vaillant

  21. The War to End All Wars: World War I by Russell Freedman

  22. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

  23. They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of An American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

  24. Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier

  25. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience & Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

  26. War by Sebastian Junger

4 sources

  1. A Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield

  2. Annabel by Kathleen Winter

  3. Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet by Jennifer Homans

  4. Art & Max by David Wiesner

  5. Ash by Malinda Lo

  6. At Home by Bill Bryson

  7. Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan

  8. Black Water Rising by Attica Locke

  9. Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott

  10. Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

  11. Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous With American History by Yunte Huang

  12. City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems

  13. Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose

  14. Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson

  15. Country Driving by Peter Hessler

  16. Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve

  17. Hellhound on His Trail by Hampton Sides

  18. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

  19. How To Live: Or, A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell

  20. Life by Keith Richards

  21. Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon

  22. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

  23. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

  24. Nox by Anne Carson

  25. Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre

  26. Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

  27. Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

  28. Shark Vs. Train by Chris Barton

  29. Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos

  30. The Bridge by David Remnick

  31. The Last Boy by Jane Leavy

  32. The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

  33. The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee

  34. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

  35. The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith by Joan Schenkar

  36. The Things A Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt

  37. Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

  38. White Egrets by Derek Walcott

  39. Yummy: The Last Days of A Southside Shorty by Greg Neri

3 sources

  1. A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

  2. A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip Christian Stead

  3. A Trace of Smoke by Rebecca Cantrell

  4. Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk

  5. Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone

  6. Annexed by Sharon Dogar

  7. As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins

  8. Batwoman: Elegy by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams

  9. Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

  10. Bink & Gollie by Kate DiCamillo

  11. Bloodroot by Amy Greene

  12. Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

  13. By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham

  14. Cities of Refuge by Michael Helm

  15. Clever Jack Takes the Cake by Candace Fleming

  16. Come On All You Ghosts by Matthew Zapruder

  17. Cool Water by Dianne Warren

  18. Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce

  19. Countdown by Deborah Wiles

  20. Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq by John W. Dower

  21. Day for Night by Frederick Reiken

  22. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne

  23. Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

  24. Father of the Rain by Lily King

  25. Feed by Mira Grant

  26. Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

  27. Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) With Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes by Stephen Sondheim

  28. Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta

  29. Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson

  30. Four Fish by Paul Greenberg

  31. Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson

  32. Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus

  33. How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu

  34. I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman

  35. Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco

  36. In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff

  37. Innocent by Scott Turow

  38. Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson

  39. Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot by Sy Montgomery

  40. Keeper by Kathi Appelt

  41. Lafayette and the American Revolution by Russell Freedman

  42. Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds by Lyndall Gordon

  43. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson

  44. Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness

  45. Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross

  46. Nemesis by Philip Roth

  47. New Light for the Old Dark by Sam Willetts

  48. Pearl Buck in China: Journey to the Good Earth by Hilary Spurling

  49. Running from the Devil by Jamie Freveletti

  50. Rupture by Simon Lelic

  51. Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward by Justin Spring

  52. Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich

  53. Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

  54. Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theatre by Larry Stempel

  55. Smile by Raina Telgemeier

  56. Snakewoman of Little Egypt by Robert Hellenga

  57. Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley

  58. Talking About Detective Fiction by P.D. James

  59. The Best of It: New and Selected Poems by Kay Ryan

  60. The Curse of the Wendigo (The Monstrumologist) by Rick Yancey

  61. The Eternal City by Kathleen Graber

  62. The Extraordinary Mark Twain by Barbara Kerley

  63. The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

  64. The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville

  65. The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw

  66. The Grace of Silence by Michele Norris

  67. The Greeks and Greek Love: A Bold New Exploration of the Ancient World by James Davidson

  68. The Hotel Under the Sand by Kage Baker

  69. The Last Child by John Hart

  70. The Last Stand by Nathaniel Philbrick

  71. The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis

  72. The Privileges by Jonathan Dee

  73. The Quiet Book by Underwood

  74. The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton

  75. The Ring of Solomon by Jonathan Stroud

  76. The Shanghai Moon by S.J. Rozan

  77. The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

  78. The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris

  79. The Wrecking Light by Robin Robertson

  80. Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin Kelley

  81. Tinkers by Paul Harding

  82. Trash by Andy Mulligan

  83. Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm

  84. Ubiquitous by Joyce Sidman

  85. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

  86. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green

  87. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

  88. Worth Dying For by Lee Child

Sources counted in 2010