As 2014 comes to a close, we are extremely proud to see so many of our speakers on year’s end “best of” lists. Below you will find a compilation of the year’s best books according to The Amazon Top 100, The Washington Post Top 50 Fiction, The Washington Post Top 50 Non-Fiction, The Washington Post Top 10, NPR’s Best Books 2014, and The New York Times Top 10. We hope you have the chance to discover some of these great books and if you’d like to learn more about these great storytellers both on and off the page, please contact us.
Best Books of The Year
All the Truth Is Out - Matt Bai
Amazon Top 100
“A miniclassic of political journalism that will restart the debate of 1987.” —Jack Shafer, The New York Times Book Review
Lucky Us - Amy Bloom
Amazon Top 100
“Exquisite . . . a short, vibrant book about all kinds of people creating all kinds of serial, improvisatory lives.”—The New York Times
Red Rising - Pierce Brown
Amazon Top 100
“[A] top-notch debut novel . . . Red Rising ascends above a crowded dystopian field.”—USA Today
The Nixon Defense - John Dean
The Washington Post Top 50 Non-Fiction, NPR’s Best Books of the Year
“Dean shapes those conversations into a readable, dense narrative.” —Los Angeles Times
Perfidia - James Ellroy
NPR’s Best Books of the Year
“Densely plotted and fast on its feet. . . . [A] sinister and wildly entertaining universe.” —Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News
- Amy Greene
The Washington Post Top 50 Fiction
“Superb . . . This emotional, informative and brilliant page-turner resonates with resilience and humanity.”—The Washington Post
The Painter - Peter Heller
Amazon Top 100
“[A] carefully composed story about one man’s downward turning life in the American West . . . beautiful near-visionary descriptions . . . I read with great fascination.” –Alan Cheuse, The Boston Globe
The Book of Unknown Americans - Cristina Henriquez
Amazon Top 100, The Washington Post Top 50 Fiction, NPR’s Best Books of the Year, The New York Times 100 Notable Books
“The story encapsulate[s] the promises and perils of the American dream . . . Henríquez’s myriad gifts as a writer shine.”—The New York Times
Under the Wide and Starry Sky - Nancy Horan
The Washington Post Top 50 Fiction
“A richly imagined [novel] of love, laughter, pain and sacrifice . . . [Fanny Osbourne] kidnapped Robert Louis Stevenson’s heart.”—USA Today
Redeployment - Phil Klay
Amazon Top 100, The Washington Post Top 50 Fiction, The New York Times 100 Notable Books, The New York Times 10 Best Books
“Phil Klay has written brilliant, true, and winning fiction on the Iraq War.” -The Daily Beast
On Such a Full Sea - Chang-Rae Lee
Amazon Top 100, The Washington Post Top 50 Fiction, NPR‘s Best Books of The Year
“[A] riveting story . . . Lee’s brilliantly rendered dystopia resembles our America.”—More
The Secret History of Wonder Woman - Jill Lepore
NPR’s Best Books of the Year
“It’s an irresistible story, and the author tells it with relish and delight.” -Kirkus Reviews
All Our Names - Dinaw Mengestu
The Washington Post Top 50 Fiction, NPR’s Best Books of the Year, The New York Times 100 Notable Books
“Beautiful. . . . Mysterious . . . you can’t turn the pages fast enough.” —The New York Times Book Review
Plato at the Googleplex - Rebecca-Newberger-Goldstein
The Washington Post Top 50 Non-Fiction
“Rebecca Newberger Goldstein manages to be so funny and right.” —Stephen Fry
The Dog - Joseph O'Neill
NPR’s Best Books of the Year
“Every page of The Dog is a little masterpiece of comedy, erudition and linguistic acrobatics.”-The Washington Post
Boy, Snow, Bird - Helen Oyeyemi
Amazon Top 100, The Washington Post Top 50 Fiction, NPR’s Best Books of the Year, The New York Times 100 Notable Books
“Incandescent…stunning…utterly enchanting.”—A.V. Club
Little Failure - Gary Shteyngart
The Washington Post Top 50 Non-Fiction, NPR‘s Best Books of the Year, The New York Times 100 Notable Books
“Literary gold . . . [a] bruisingly funny memoir.”—Vogue
In The Kingdom of Ice - Hampton Sides
Amazon Top 100, The Washington Post Top 50 Non-Fiction
“…harrowing and impeccably paced.” –The New Yorker
Some Luck - Jane Smiley
The Washington Post Top 50 Fiction, NPR‘s Best Books of the Year
“The expansive American epic is Smiley’s métier, and she’s in top form with this multigenerational story of an Iowa farming family
—sturdy sons, passionate daughters, a tough but tender existence—across the first half of the 20th century.” —Time
Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
Amazon Top 100, The Washington Post Top 10 Fiction, NPR‘s Best Books of the Year
“Station Eleven is so compelling, so fearlessly imagined, that I wouldn’t have put it down for anything.” — Ann Patchett
Just Mercy - Bryan Stevenson
The Washington Post Top 50 Non-Fiction, The New York Times 100 Notable Books
“Inspiring . . . a work of style, substance and clarity . . . Stevenson is not only a great lawyer, he’s also a gifted writer and storyteller.”—The Washington Post
Belzhar - Meg Wolitzer
Amazon Top 100
“Wolitzer has imagined a world for young readers that celebrates the sacred, transcendent power of reading and writing.” —The New York Times Book Review
Thirteen Days in September - Lawrence-Wright
The Washington Post Top 50 Non-Fiction, NPR’s Best Books of the Year, The New York Times 100 Notable Books, The New York Times 10 Best Books
“Exceedingly balanced, highly readable, and appropriately sober.”–Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times