What is the best number? By the way, there's only one correct answer.

It's the most wonderful time of the year! When everyone posts their best-of lists. And of course, I have to add to the onslaught.

This is a tough list to put together, because I have a lot of books to choose from. (108. I'm bragging).

So without further ado, here are the best books I have read this year. Go get yourself a copy immediately! (Unless you are a member of my family. In which case, don't spoil your Christmas gift!).

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Category: Non-Fiction

Best Life Story

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

Runner up: Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff

Best Life Guide

Anti-Cancer by David Servan-Schreiber

Best Sociological Exploration

Quiet by Susan Cain

Runner up: Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari

Full List of Non-fiction Titles

Shadows at Dawn by Karl Jacoby
Quiet by Susan Cain
Everything Changes by Kairol Rosenthal
Anti-Cancer by David Servan-Schreiber
The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker
Cancer by Greg Anderson
Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips by Kris Carr
The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan
In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink
Cheating Death by Sanjay Gupta
The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
Stiff by Mary Roach
The Art Detective by Philip Mould
Ambition and Desire by Kate Williams
Drive by Daniel H. Pink
Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff
Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss
Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
Nothing Daunted by Dorothy Wickenden

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Category: Spirituality


Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hahn




Full List of Spirituality Titles
How To Expand Love by the Dalai Lama
Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chodron
No Time to Lose by Pema Chodron
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hahn
The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer

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Category: Memoir


I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai




Full List of Memoir Titles
I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
Two or Three Things I Know for Sure by Dorothy Allison
Tracks by Robyn Davidson
Shakespeare Saved My Life by Laura Bates
Spinster by Kate Bolick
Blackout by Sarah Hepola

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Category: Self-Help


Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

Runner up: Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin




Full List of Self-Help Titles
Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
Thinking for a Change by John C. Maxwell
Rising Strong by Brene Brown
Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
Mindfulness for Beginners by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Creativity, Inc by Ed Catmull
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

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Category: Classic Fiction


The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins



Full List of Class Fiction Titles
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Emily of New Moon by LM Montgomery
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Winnie the Pooh and the House at Pooh Corner by AA Milne
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
The Tempest by William Shakespeare

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Category: Young Adult Fiction


The Song of the Lioness Series
Alanna, In the Hand of the Goddess, The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, Lioness Rampant by Tamora Pierce



Full List of Young Adult Titles
Paper Towns by John Green
Alanna, In the Hand of the Goddess, The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, Lioness Rampant by Tamora Pierce
If I Stay and Where She Went by Gayle Forman

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Category: Fiction

Best Post-Apocalyptic Novel


Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel



Best World War II Novel


All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr



Best Family Drama


Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

Runner-up: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler



Best Swedish Novel


A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman

Runner up: The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson



Full List of Fiction Titles
The Eight by Katherine Neville
The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin
Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen
The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss
Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
Rogues edited by George R.R. Martin
The Violets of March by Sarah Jio
Magic Bites, Magic Burns, Magic Strikes, Magic Bleeds, Magic Slays, Magic Rises, and Magic Breaks by Ilona Andrews
Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
The Look of Love by Sarah Jio
Stoner by John Williams
Adultery by Paul Coehlo
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Sherlockian by Graham Moore
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple
Tenth of December by George Saunders
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Calico Joe by John Grisham
Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloane
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Dear Life by Alice Munro
The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore
Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker
The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
The Storied Life of AJ Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross
God Help the Child by Toni Morrison
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin
The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta
A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman
The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood

What was the best book you ever read?

And Now! Drumroll, please! What are the best books that I read this year?

First, feel free to take a look back at previous years:
See the list from 2011 here
See the list from 2012 here
See the list from 2013 here

I read a total of 67 books this year. If you took a look at previous years, you'll see that I generally had three categories: Fiction, Classic Fiction, and Non-fiction. As I looked at all the books I read this year, (by the way, please friend me on Goodreads. I like seeing what other people read), I felt like those three categories weren't working. Where do you put a book like Let's Pretend This Never Happened? Sure it's technically non-fiction, but... not really. So I've sorted the list into a bunch of additional categories. This is also better for me, because I can have more "Best" books.

Without further ado:

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Best Fiction
As I looked at the list, the three top contenders for Best Fiction are:
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

And the one I will name as Best is:



Life After Life by Kate Atkinson


This is the entire list of fictional works for 2014:
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Blameless by Gail Carriger
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth
The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom
The Maid's Version by Daniel Woodrell
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
The Story and Its Writer by Ann Charters
The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
The Red House by Mark Haddon
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
The Silent Wife by ASA Harrison
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus
How to Love by Katie Cotungo
Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
Longbourn by Jo Baker

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Best Classic Fiction
The next category is Best Classic Fiction. This category seems slightly slimmer than it was in previous years, but I still had some standouts. The winner of Best in this category is:



The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The 2014 list of Classic Fiction:
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines

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Best Memoir
Three books also made the top of the memoir list.
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
My Life in France by Julia Child
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

I chose this as the Best:



My Life in France by Julia Child

The full list of 2014 Memoirs:
Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson
My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris
Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo
My Life in France by Julia Child
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

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Best Non-Fiction
I read a lot of really good Non-Fiction books this year. It was really hard to narrow down the list and choose the best. These are the five that I thought were the best:
Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel
Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northrup
The Story of the Human Body by Daniel E. Liebermann

For ultimate best I chose:



The Story of the Human Body by Daniel E. Lieberman

The full list of 2014 Non-Fiction:
Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
Book of Ages by Jill Lepore
Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel
Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northrup
The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey
The Story of the Human Body by Daniel E. Liebermann
The Perfect Theory by Pedro G. Ferreira
32 Ways to Outsmart Cancer by Nalini Chilkov
The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons by Sam Kean

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Best Self-Help
Although I read a lot of good self-help style books, there was an easy winner for best book.



Daring Greatly by Brene Brown

Here is the full list of 2014 Self-Help:
Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown
Essentialism by Greg Mckeown
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
10% Happier by Dan Harris
Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson

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Best Spirituality
It was also easy to choose a best book for the category of spirituality.



The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh

The rest of the Spirituality category for 2014:
The Heart of Christianity by Marcus J. Borg
Plan B by Anne Lamott
An Illustrated Outline of Buddhism by William Stoddart
What is Tao? by Alan W. Watts
The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Dhammapada translated by Gil Fronsdal

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It was a good year for books.