Emily Temple at Literary Hub:
I have arrived to present to you the Ultimate List, otherwise known as the List of Lists—in which I read all (or at least many) of the Best Of lists on the internet and count which books are recommended most.
Is consensus the same as quality? Not always. Is this basically a popularity contest? Sure. But if you want to know which books The Critics are talking about, this is one way to do it. (Three of my own personal favorite books of the year made it to the top five below, which I can only assume means I am either a) boring or b) correct or c) both??)
This year, I processed 58 lists from 49 outlets, which collectively recommended more than 1,300 different books (…help). 90 of those books made it onto 5 or more lists (weirdly this is the exact same number as last year, despite there being more books recommended in total this year), and I have collated these for you here, in descending order of frequency.
More here.
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