by James Wallace Harris, Friday, December 28, 2018
I love December because of all the best-books-of-the-year lists. I used to compile all the lists I could find into a spreadsheet to identify the most loved books of the year. But for the last two years, Emily Temple at Literary Hub has performed that task for me and collected far more lists than I would ever have the patience to track down. See: “The Ultimate Best Books of 2018 List” where she aggregated 52 lists from 37 publishers totaling 880 separate titles. If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page you’ll find links to all those lists.
Temple found two books that were on 19 of the 52 lists, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh and There There by Tommy Orange, both novels, and both will be available to listen to on Scribd 1/3/19. With such universal acclaim, I believe I’ll have to try them. I can say, when I’ve read books that have been on most of the best-of-the-year lists, they have always been intensely good. The wisdom of the crowds does works.
I did compile 6 best science fiction books of the year lists to create a similar style report, see “Best of the Best Science Fiction 2018.” Strangely, Emily’s work did not overlap with my lists of best-science-fiction of 2018. My top discovery, Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller was on 5 of the 6 lists I found, but on none of Temple’s lists. However, Severance by Ling Ma was on 4 of the 6 lists I found, and 7 of the 52 lists she found. I don’t think she used any of the best science fiction book lists I used. If she had included those 6 lists, Severance would have been on 11 lists, putting it very high in Temple’s ultimate list. She did include some lists for fantasy books, but not science fiction. My final list had 8 books that had been on at least 3 of the 6 lists. Temple’s cutoff for her final list were all books that had been on at least 3 of the 52 lists. That means several science fiction books I discovered would have made Temple’s final list.
Because Temple missed the science fiction books, I’m tempted to do my own list of nonfiction books that were on the most best-of-the-year lists. Her top nonfiction book was Educated by Tara Westover, which I’ve read and loved. It was on a total of 16 lists.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
Now this is useful data analysis, thank you! I am likely to chase up a few key books as a result … but only if the descriptions appeal. Happy new year of reading, and thanks for all the fish!