Shelf Awareness - 2013 Best Books of the Year

Our 2013 Best Books of the Year feature 10 fiction, 10 nonfiction and 10 children's titles. For more on each book, see the most recent issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. 

FictionBenediction by Kent Haruf (Knopf)
Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra (Hogarth)
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Little, Brown)
Love Among the Particles by Norman Lock (Bellevue Literary Press)
Norwegian by Night by Derek Miller (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
The Returned by Jason Mott (Mira)
The Son by Philipp Meyer (Ecco)
Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders (Random House)
Truth in Advertising by John Kenney (Touchstone)

NonfictionThe Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary by Caspar Henderson (University of Chicago Press)
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown (Viking)
Dirt Work: An Education in the Woods by Christine Byl (Beacon Press)
Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father by Alysia Abbott (Norton)
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink (Crown)
Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury)
My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer by Christian Wiman (FSG)
Sugar in the Blood: A Family's Story of Slavery and Empire by Andrea Stuart (Knopf)
The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian (Doubleday)
The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family by Josh Hanagarne (Gotham)

Children's and Young AdultGo: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design by Chip Kidd (Workman)
Boxers & Saints: A Graphic Novel Diptych by Gene Luen Yang (First Second)
Far Far Away by Tom McNeal (Knopf)
Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff (Putnam)
What the Heart Knows: Chants, Charms and Blessings by Joyce Sidman, illus. by Pamela Zagarenski (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
The Real Boy by Anne Ursu, illus. by Erin McGuire (Walden Pond/HarperCollins)
Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures by Kate DiCamillo, illus. by K.G. Campbell (Candlewick)
Battle Bunny by Jon Scieszka and Mac Barnett, illus. by Matthew Myers (Simon & Schuster)
Locomotive by Brian Floca (Richard Jackson/S&S)
The Dark by Lemony Snicket, illus. by Jon Klassen (Little, Brown)