What were the best books of 2019?

Instead of sharing each list of the best books of 2019 that we encountered, we decided we’d tell you which titles appeared on multiple lists.

Our five sources, for this purpose: the Atlantic, Buzzfeed, the New York Times (combining lists from November and December, but counting books only once), the New Yorker, and Vanity Fair.

The results surprised us quite a bit and, naturally, made us curious to pick up some titles we hadn’t given much consideration to.

And the winners are …

Five lists

• In the Dream House: A Memoir, by Carmen Maria Machado. 

Four lists

• Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by Patrick Radden Keefe.

• Lot: Stories, by Bryan Washington.

• The Topeka School, by Ben Lerner.

• Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi.

Three lists

• Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli.

• Mostly Dead Things, by Kristen Arnett.

• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong.

• Women Talking, by Miriam Toews.

Two lists

• Disappearing Earth, by Julia Phillips.

• Ducks, Newburyport, by Lucy Ellmann.

• How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir, by Saeed Jones.

• Night Boat to Tangier, by Kevin Barry.

• Olive, Again, by Elizabeth Strout.

• The Man Who Saw Everything, by Deborah Levy.

• The Old Drift, by Namwali Serpell.

• The Yellow House: A Memoir, by Sarah M. Broom.

• Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo. 

Would you prefer to check out the best in a particular genre instead? The Guardian and Bookmarks both created genre-specific lists rather than overall best picks.

If you’d rather hear from a writer than a critic, then check out what bestsellers like Susan Orlean recommended to the Los Angeles Times.

And finally, if you're curious as to how this list compares to the year in book awards, here's all of our coverage of book awards for 2019.