Book reviews: Best of 2019

This year’s 5-star books.

Fiction
Aaronovitch, Ben. The October Man.
Anthony, Jessica. Enter the Aardvark.
Arden, Katherine. The Winter of the Witch.
Bolander, Brooke. The Only Harmless Great Thing.
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. The Water Dancer.
Coon, Kelly. Gravemaidens.
Craw, Rachel. The Rift.
Davis, Charlotte Nicole. The Good Luck Girls.
Day, Kate Hope. If, Then.
Graham, Stephen Jones. The Only Good Indians.
Grant, Mira. In the Shadow of Spindrift House.
Hannu, Rajaniemi. The New Voices of Science Fiction.
Harris, Charlaine. A Longer Fall.
Harris, Charlaine. Small Kingdoms and Other Stories.
Headley, Maria Dahvana. The Mere Wife.
Henry, Christina. The Girl in Red.
Holladay, Cary. Brides in the Sky: Stories and a Novella.
Johnston, Aviaq. Taaqtumi: An Anthology of Arctic Horror Stories.
Keenan, Elizabeth. Rebel Girls.
Kidd, Jess. Things in Jars.
Kirshenbaum, Binnie. Rabbits for Food.
Kowal, Mary Robinette. The Fated Sky.
Lee, Yoon Ha. Hexarchate Stories.
Makkai, Rebecca. The Great Believers.
McFall, Alanna. The Traveling Triple-C Incorporeal Circus.
McGuire, Seanan. Middlegame.
McGuire, Seanan. That Ain’t Witchcraft.
McGuire, Seanan. The Unkindest Tide.
Namey, Laura Taylor. The Library of Lost Things.
Nix, Garth. Angel Mage.
Parisien, Dominik. The Mythic Dream.
Pullman, Philip. Daemon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling.
Shawl, Nisi. New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color.
Stewart, Amy. Kopp Sisters on the March.
Sturges, Lilah. The Magicians: Alice’s Story.
Subramanian, Mathangi. A People’s History of Heaven.
Tesh, Emily. The Silver in the Wood.
Tidhar, Lavie. The Violent Century.
Whitehead, Colson. The Nickel Boys.
Wilson, G. Willow. The Bird King.
Yocom, Katy. Three Ways to Disappear.
Zapata, Michael. The Lost Book of Adana Moreau.

Nonfiction
Goldfarb, Bruce. 18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics.
Hunt, Will. Underground: A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet.
Manfredi, Angie. The Other F Word: A Celebration of the Fat and Fierce.
McAvory, Mary. Rehearsing Revolutions: The Labor Drama Experiment and Radical Activism in the Early Twentieth Century.
Nevins, Andrea Shaw. Working Juju: Representations of the Caribbean Fantastic.
Nussbaum, Emily: I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution.
Ryan, Hugh. When Brooklyn Was Queer.
Strings, Sabrina. Fearing the Black Body:The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia.
Taylor, Candacy. Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America.