Best Book Published in 2018

Hey there! Welcome to the next installment of The First Annual Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards. 

One of the things I like about books and reading them is that there are always more. Always something new to read! Always something new and exciting being published! I used to keep a list of books I wanted to read in the back of my journal; now I keep an entire separate notebook and I don’t even want to count up how many unread titles there are in it. I gain great satisfaction in crossing off a title but I can easily add three new ones a day. There is always a balance between reading books that have been on my To Read list for years, books that are classics that I haven’t yet read, and books that are new releases. Here are the best books I read this year that were published this year.

Honourable Mention:

The Boat People – Sharon Bala (McClelland & Stewart)

Our Animal Hearts – Dania Tomlinson (Anchor Books Canada)

Warlight – Michael Ondaatje (McClelland & Stewart)

An American Marriage – Tayari Jones (Harper Collins)

Washington Black – Esi Edugyan (Patrick Crean Editions)

Our Homesick Songs – Emma Hooper (Hamish Hamilton)

And The Winner:

There There – Tommy Orange (Random House)

This was a tricky decision for me. Washington Black and Warlight were both major contenders because those were two of the best books I read this year from two authors I greatly admire. In the end though, I’ve opted to choose a book that I read primarily because it was a newly published book. There There is very much a book that is important Right Now. While that isn’t to say it won’t be equally important next year or ten years from now, it felt very topical and very urgent. It’s an American book but there is a lot that is relevant to Canada and our current political and social situation and that was part of why I wanted to read the book immediately when I heard about it.