Emily Temple at Literary Hub:
I now present to you the Ultimate List, otherwise known as the List of Lists—in which I read all the Best Of lists and count which books are recommended most.
In all the time I’ve done this, I’ve never seen a book run away with this list like Percival Everett’s James has this year: it was recommended a full dozen more times than the next most popular books. (It also won the National Book Award and the Kirkus Award, and was a finalist for the Booker—and with good reason.)
Overall, this year, I processed 69 lists from 39 outlets, which collectively recommended more than 1,200 individual books (RIP my spreadsheet). As always, these are probably not all the lists, but all universes have to end sometime. Anyway, 90 of those books made it onto 5 or more lists, and I have collated these for you here, in descending order of frequency.
33 lists:
Percival Everett, James
21 lists:
Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!
Miranda July, All Fours
20 lists:
Sally Rooney, Intermezzo
More here.
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