Now that we’ve officially reached the midpoint of 2018, it’s time to celebrate the best books we’ve read so far — i.e., our favorite fiction, nonfiction, and poetry published between January 1 and June 30 this year. To put things into perspective, more than 150,000 books were published in the United States over the past six months, and we’ve narrowed it down to the top 0.02%.
Poetry
I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean
By Shayla Lawson
Saturnalia Books
Read our interview with Lawson.
The Affrilachian poet’s third collection is “a companion to Frank Ocean’s musical catalog” and a stunning, playful success from an exciting new talent.
The Undressing
By Li-Young Lee
WW Norton
Read our interview with Lee.
Li-Young Lee’s first book in more than a decade was worth the wait: a heart-rending collection of poems that tackle love and violence with equal curiosity.
Black Girl Magic
The BreakBeat Poets Vol 2
Edited by Mahogany L. Browne, Idrissa Simmonds, and Jamila Woods
Read Adam Morgan’s group profile in Chicago magazine.
The second BreakBeat Poets anthology — which celebrates black women within the tradition, balancing Chicago talent alongside Morgan Parker, Angel Nafis, and Safia Elhillo — will be read in classrooms for decades to come.
Junk
By Tommy Pico
Tin House Books
The third installment in Pico’s trilogy (after IRL and Nature Poem) is a single, book-length poem about a breakup that cements his status as a god-bard.
Oceanic
By Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Copper Canyon Press
Nezhukumatathil’s fourth collection is some of the best nature poetry I’ve ever read — a wildly inventive take on humankind’s relationship with the environment.
Not Here
By Hieu Minh Nguyen
Coffee House Press
Hieu Minh Nguyen’s debut doesn’t just feature one of 2018’s best book covers, it’s also a powerful, goosefleshing collection that explores family and trauma with uncanny precision.
House of McQueen
By Valerie Wallace
Four Way Books
Read our interview with Wallace, as well as an excerpt published in Arcturus.
Wallace’s poetic exploration of the late Alexander McQueen’s life and work is truly fascinating, a gorgeous translation of reality into something mythical and timeless.
Noirmania
By JoAnna Novak
Inside the Castle
Read our interview with Novak.
“Noirmania is a book-length poem, with a dark, noirish tone, and featuring line art that experiments with 3-D illusions . . . Novak’s writing, across genres, is vital to our generation, exploring sexuality, body image, and our relationship to language.” —Sara Blake
Fiction
Circe
By Madeline Miller
Little, Brown and Company
“Probably the best fantasy novel I’ve ever read that wasn’t marketed as a fantasy. Absolutely brilliant. Rarely has a novel inspired me to do so much auxiliary reading of primary sources.” —Adam Morgan
Welcome to Lagos
By Chibundu Onuzo
Catapult
A funny, insightful celebration of contemporary Nigeria that masterfully answers Adichie’s call to rid the world of “single stories.”
Berlin Alexanderplatz
By Alfred Döblin
NYRB Classics
Read our review.
“The sheer brio of Döblin’s prose, together with the unstoppable forward momentum of his narrative, makes all this squalor not only bearable but riveting.” —Jeff Thompkins
Whiskey & Ribbons
By Leesa Cross-Smith
Hub City Press
Set in contemporary Louisville, Cross-Smith’s thrilling debut is a vital addition to the canon of New Southern literature.
The Life List of Adrian Mandrick
By Chris White
Touchstone
Read our review.
“Stunningly honest . . . And yet, with White’s engaging and compassionate storytelling, the book remains hopeful.” —Meredith Boe
Compulsory Games
By Robert Aickman
NYRB Classics
Read our review.
“Truly original, [these] stories both delight and haunt; they are unforgettable . . . Aickman pulls back the curtain just long enough to give us a glimpse into that lively and shimmering dark.” —Sarah Huener
The Largesse of the Sea-Maiden
By Denis Johnson
Random House
Read our review.
“The Johnson we know and love from Jesus’ Son is just as brilliant here as he was 25 years ago. The stories in this collection tackle old age, mortality, and ghosts from the past.” —Sara Cutaia
What Should Be Wild
By Julia Fine
Harper
Read our interview with Fine.
“Julia Fine’s debut novel has all the ingredients of a Gothic fairy tale, but expounds upon them in fantastic and modern ways. It’s gorgeous and exhilarating.” —Sara Cutaia
A Lucky Man
By Jamel Brinkley
Graywolf Press
Read our review.
“The stories in this collection follow men and boys who have been pressurized by violence, whose hopes sometimes betray them, especially in a world shaped by race, gender, and class. Luminous, exceptional, necessary.” —Sara Cutaia
The Great Believers
By Rebecca Makkai
Viking
Read our interview with Makkai.
“Makkai weaves 1980s Chicago with contemporary Paris in a tender, compelling novel about loss, friendship, tragedy, and redemption. It’s a stunning tale that is harrowing yet funny, devastating yet hopeful.” —Rachel León
Monster Portraits
By Del Samatar and Sofia Samater
Rose Metal Press
Read our review.
“The marriage between artwork and prose in Monster Portraits results in a beautiful book and a moving, subtle, timely meditation on otherness.” —Rachel León
The Overstory
By Richard Powers
WW Norton
Read our interview with Powers.
“This is the National Book Award-winning author’s twelfth novel, and it might be his finest . . . This beautiful book, for all its literary merit, is also an ode to activism.” —Amy Brady
The Comedown
By Rebekah Frumkin
Henry Holt
Read our interview with Frumkin.
A stunning, insightful story of two Cleveland families connected by a single evening in 1973, when one patriarch witnesses the murder of the other.
Empty Set
By Verónica Gerber Bicecci
Translated by Christina MacSweeney
Coffee House Press
Read our review.
“You can read it in one sitting, and finish with the feeling of a caffeine high.” —Adam Morgan at Literary Hub
Sweet & Low
By Nick White
Blue Rider Press
Read our review.
“Nick White’s gorgeous story collection is wonderfully woven from threads of identity, sexuality, family, and heartbreak.” —Aaron Coats
There There
By Tommy Orange
Knopf
“Powerful and brutal, the twelve characters in this novel struggle to identify how or why they’re Natives, and what that means to them. The intensity never lets up. If you only have time to read one novel this year, I’d vouch for this one.” —Sara Cutaia
Call Me Zebra
By Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Read our interview with Azareen.
One of the most exciting, enthralling novels I’ve read in a long time. It brought me back to a childlike sense of joy and awe.” —Adam Morgan
Nonfiction
Tonight I’m Someone Else
By Chelsea Hodson
Henry Holt
No one writes like Chelsea Hodson. These essays are a welcome battering ram to the chest.
Feast
True Love in and Out of the Kitchen
By Hannah Howard
Little A
Read Howard’s essay.
A moving celebration of food, love, and human potential — full of pain, but also full of joy.
Feel Free
By Zadie Smith
Penguin Press
Read our review.
Smith may be best-known for her fiction, but this essential collection of essays firmly establishes her as one of our great cultural critics.
High-Risers
Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing
By Ben Austen
Harper
With this book, Austen joins Natalie Y. Moore, Eve Ewing, and Alex Kotlowitz as one of Chicago’s great chroniclers of the devastating effects of bad public policy. This book — like The South Side, Ghosts in the Schoolyard, and There Are No Children Here — should be required reading.
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
By Alexander Chee
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
An absolute gift of a book for writers everywhere. Every single essay is a pearl.
Rising
Dispatches from the New American Shore
By Elizabeth Rush
Milkweed Editions
Read our interview with Rush.
“A thoughtful, fascinating, and often deeply moving look at some of the country’s most vulnerable populations, and one of my favorite books of the year.” —Amy Brady
The Line Becomes a River
Dispatches from the Border
By Francisco Cantú
Read our interview with Cantú.
“This book gives you a look at the border with both emotional depth and empathy, and also deliberate facts and history to give context to the complexity of the issue we’ve had at our border for decades.” —Sara Cutaia
Reblogged this on Memórias ao Vento.
That’s Great. Best and selective books of the year 2018. Thanks for sharing
Very nice collection of books. thanks for sharing.