Books

best of 2018

The 10 Best Comedy Books of 2018

 Featuring Chris Gethard, Nell Scovell, The Simpsons, The Kids in the Hall, and an intimate look at Robin Williams. By Brian Boone
year in culture 2018

Book Publishing’s No Good, Very Good Year of Trump

 In 2018, publishers cried about the president all the way to the bank. By Lila Shapiro
best of 2018

The 10 Best Books of 2018

 Reinvented auto-fiction from Heti and Cusk, gripping essays, wild tales of Russia and opioids, and final stories from the late master Denis Johnson. By Christian Lorentzen
  1. best of 2018
    The 10 Best Comedy Books of 2018Featuring Chris Gethard, Nell Scovell, The Simpsons, The Kids in the Hall, and an intimate look at Robin Williams.
    By Brian Boone
  2. cher
    Get Ready for Even More Cher in 2020The time has come for a Cher autobiography and biopic.
    By Anne Victoria Clark
  3. money
    Michelle Obama Memoir Continues to Steamroll Every Other Book Released This YearAnd more tour dates were added.
    By John Maher
  4. best of 2018
    The 10 Best Crime Books of 2018Opium smugglers, mad scientists, Instagram socialites, and serial killers fictional and real.
    By Maris Kreizman
  5. she's done it again
    Reese Witherspoon Is Taking You to Where the Crawdads SingBased on author Delia Owens’s novel of the same name.
    By Halle Kiefer
  7. on the books
    Did Michelle Obama Really Sell 2 Million Books in 15 Days? An Investigation.The former First Lady’s book is already this year’s biggest seller. But how do we know the exact numbers?
    By John Maher
  8. old new yawk
    Notes on the Grungy Years: Two Novelists Talk About 1970s New YorkTom Barbash and John Freeman Gill on the Upper West Side of their novels, a land of muggers and John Lennon.
    By John Freeman Gill
  9. year in culture 2018
    In Fiction, It Was the Year of the WomanAmid Trump-obsessed nonfiction blockbusters, women led the way forward for fiction that matters.
    By Hillary Kelly
  10. one grand books
    Deepak Chopra’s 10 Favorite BooksSalman Rushdie, Erwin Schrödinger, and more.
    By Deepak Chopra
  11. year in culture 2018
    Book Publishing’s No Good, Very Good Year of TrumpIn 2018, publishers cried about the president all the way to the bank.
    By Lila Shapiro
  14. best of 2018
    The 10 Best Books of 2018Reinvented auto-fiction from Heti and Cusk, gripping essays, wild tales of Russia and opioids, and final stories from the late master Denis Johnson.
    By Christian Lorentzen
  15. booker book review
    Anna Burns’s Booker Prize–Winning Milkman Offers Some Hope But No ChangeA surprise winner of the U.K. prize, Milkman is about Northern Ireland, #MeToo — and really any time or place — for better and worse.
    By Maddie Crum
  16. must reads
    6 New Books You Should Read This DecemberA Rock Hudson biography, this year’s Booker Prize winner, and more.
    By Boris Kachka
  17. plagiarism
    Poetry Twitter Erupts Over a Plagiarist in Their MidstAiley O’Toole was a young poet on the rise, until colleagues found she’d stolen their verse.
    By Kat Rosenfield
  18. sequels
    André Aciman Wants a Call Me by Your Name Sequel Too, So He’s Started Writing ItThis one will probably have a happy ending, right? Right!?
    By Halle Kiefer
  19. the literati
    The 9 Worst Phrases From the Bad Sex Awards 2018 Short List“Slowly chugging my organ as a boa constrictor swallows its prey.”
    By Gabriella Paiella
  20. one grand books
    Lena Dunham’s 10 Favorite BooksNora Ephron, William S. Burroughs, and more.
    By Lena Dunham
  21. big deals
    Margaret Atwood Releasing The Handmaid’s Tale SequelYes, it’s fiction.
    By Devon Ivie
  22. art
    The Best New Architecture Books To Gift For the HolidaysFrom McKim, Mead & White to Mark Foster Gage.
    By Andrés González
  23. art
    New Art Books to Gift For the Holidays, from Kusama to Bruegel to Vivian MaierNow you just have to go buy a bigger coffee table.
    By Andrés González
  26. one grand books
    James Whiteside’s 10 Favorite BooksPatti Smith, Lewis Carroll, and Stephen Hawking.
    By James Whiteside
  27. books
    How to Write a Female Serial KillerOyinkan Braithwaite on writing a protagonist who kills men, just because she feels like it.
    By Oyinkan Braithwaite as told to Lila Shapiro
  28. vulture lists
    7 New Audiobooks Tailor-made to Help You Survive the HolidaysFeed your brain with Twain, Jack Reacher, and the Beastie Boys while your body endures the tedium of cooking and travel.
    By Jenni Laidman
  29. the female gaze
    FilmStruck’s Alicia Malone Mourns the Service and Celebrates The Female GazeThe voice of the defunct streamer has a new anthology of essays by women on women-made films.
    By Joanna Scutts
  30. vulture insiders book club
    Breakout Author Jamel Brinkley on Men, Gentrification, and ‘Safari Literature’His debut collection, Lucky Man, was a fiction finalist for last week’s National Book Awards.
    By Boris Kachka
  31. ferrante fever
    Seven Great Books on Female Friendship Elena Ferrante Didn’t WriteBonds made and broken in great novels by Zadie Smith, Claire Messud, Toni Morrison, and others.
    By Hillary Kelly
  32. tv review
    My Brilliant Friend Is an Intimate Adaptation of a Beloved NovelBased on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan books, HBO’s My Brilliant Friend is a late-breaking candidate for show of the year.
    By Matt Zoller Seitz
  33. backstories
    The Challenges of Adapting FerranteThe team behind HBO’s My Brilliant Friend on bringing the author’s Naples to life.
    By Phoebe Reilly
  34. books
    The 69th National Book Awards Reminded Us It’s a Big World Out ThereWith awards to Isabel Allende and Sigrid Nunez and a revived translated-book prize.
    By Lila Shapiro
  35. lit parade
    Critics Didn’t Sweat Michelle’s Prose Style — They Just Wanted No-Drama ObamaThey found her big-money memoir, Becoming, a refreshing return to executive restraint.
    By Hillary Kelly
  38. books
    Isabel Allende Gives Rousing Speech at National Book AwardsThe first-ever Spanish-language author to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award brought the crowd to their feet.
    By Anne Victoria Clark
  39. books
    Here’s the List of This Year’s National Book Award WinnersIt includes a few surprises and the return of the Translated Literature category.
    By Anne Victoria Clark
  40. one grand books
    Ellie Kemper’s 10 Favorite BooksNora Ephron, Zadie Smith, and more.
    By Ellie Kemper
  41. must reads
    6 New Paperbacks You Should Read This NovemberA creepy but beautiful debut, an insider look at the excessive ’80s, and more.
    By Maris Kreizman
  42. the cut on tuesdays
    If You Can’t Get Enough of Elena Ferrante, Read ThisThis week’s podcast episode comes with some book recommendations.
    By the Cut
  43. die hard
    Die Hard’s Director Breaks Down Bruce Willis’s Iconic Roof JumpJohn McTiernan on John McClane’s climactic jump — and Hans Gruber’s final, fatal plunge.
    By Simon Abrams
  44. memoirs
    How Memoirist Marina Benjamin Learned to Stopped Worrying and Love InsomniaDefying a long cultural history of pushy remedies and “rest cures,” as detailed in her new book, Insomnia.
    As told to Lilly Dancyger
  45. the autumn of scams
    J. K. Rowling’s Assistant Reportedly Scammed the Hell Out of HerShe spent thousands on candles and luxury cats.
    By Gabriella Paiella
  46. the droughtlander is over
    Outlander Season 4: Everything to Know About the New CharactersThe faces — whether friend, foe, or furry — that you can expect to see as the Frasers take on Colonial America.
    By Maggie Fremont
  47. memoirs
    7 Juicy Tidbits From Jill Soloway’s New Memoir, She Wants ItShe’s candid about Transparent’s demise.
    By Devon Ivie
  50. broadway
    Alec Baldwin Gets a Gig Reading Celebrity Books on BroadwayRachel Dratch, Antoni Porowski, Lewis Black, and more will also perform.
    By Megh Wright
  51. author talk
    Idra Novey on Fascists, Pot, #MeToo and Her Chillingly Timely New NovelThose Who Knew involves a charismatic senator in an island nation with familiar skeletons in his closet.
    By Hillary Kelly
  52. backstories
    Finding the Ferrante FourHow the stars of HBO’s My Brilliant Friend were chosen from 9,000 children to portray two of the most elusive characters in modern literature.
    By Phoebe Reilly
  53. one grand books
    Hans-Ulrich Obrist’s 10 Favorite BooksCarl Jung, Édouard Glissant, and more.
    By Hans Ulrich Obrist
  54. resurgence
    Why Lucia Berlin Matters More to Us Today Than She Did During Her LifetimeA memoir and a new story collection cement the late writer’s status as the anti-Kerouac — and a godmother of auto-fiction.
    By Maddie Crum
  55. book excerpt
    There Will Never Be a Man As Perfect As The Office’s Jim HalpertAn excerpt from Lane Moore’s new book How to Be Alone.
    By Lane Moore
  56. must reads
    7 New Books You Should Read This NovemberJonathan Lethem, Lucia Berlin, and more.
    By Boris Kachka
  57. printed matter
    42 of the Year’s Most Giftable Coffee-Table BooksWhether they’re into Martha Stewart, Yayoi Kusama, or living in the desert.
    By The Editors
  58. further reading
    Novelist Jeff Jackson on the 4 Best Rock Chronicles You’ve Never Heard ofBooks (on the Stones, Nico, Robert Johnson, and an L.A. cult) that inspired his wild new novel, Destroy All Monsters.
    By Jeff Jackson
  59. further reading
    The Many Books That Inspired Jonathan Lethem’s The Feral DetectiveChandler, of course, but also Philip Pullman, Dawn Powell, Richard Brautigan, and Virginia Woolf’s biography of a dog.
    By Jonathan Lethem
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