Barnes & Noble Names the Best New Books of 2013
2013 was a great year to be a reader, seeing the release of long-awaited sequels, nail-biting series enders, mind-bending literary fiction, and books from authors we’ve waited years to read again. After a year spent reading and recommending piles of new releases, our 40,000-strong team of booksellers recently made their picks for the 60 Best New Books of 2013.
Our Best New Fiction list includes Eleanor Catton’s multi-strand epic (and Man Booker Prize winner) The Luminaries; Bleeding Edge, Thomas Pynchon’s tale of pre- and post-9/11 New York; and Life After Life, Kate Atkinson’s wildly ambitious, utterly original book with a genre twist.
On our Best New Nonfiction list is David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell’s latest work of counterintuitive pop science; Sheryl Sandberg’s hugely influential Lean In; and The Bully Pulpit, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s hotly anticipated look at the first decade of the Progressive Era and early 20th-century American journalism.
Atop the Best New Kids’ Books list is Wonder, a tearjerker about a child with a facial deformity that became the latest age-group crossover hit. Emily Winfield Martin’s Dream Animals pairs warm, textured illustrations with bedtime-friendly verse, and Hard Luck, the eighth installment in Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, sees grade schooler Greg putting his fate into the hands of a Magic 8-ball.
Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park, a love story about two teen misfits in 1980s Omaha, was on our list of Best New Teen Books, alongside Allegiant, the controversial final installment in Veronica Roth’s dystopic Divergent series, and Rose Under Fire, Elizabeth Wein’s WWII-set thriller about a young female pilot who is captured by Nazis.
Check out all 60 of our Best New Books of 2013, and let us know your picks for the year’s best releases!