It would be silly to act as if the NBCC’s Good Reads List encapsulated everyone’s taste. To do that we’d need a list nearly a thousand books long. But in the interest of showing the breadth of voting in our winter list, here are are the fiction titles which received multiple votes, including a short novel by Alan Bennett, a new novel by Susan Choi and a collection of the early stories and novels of William Maxwell, who is pictured left, looking rather surprised. The titles are shown alphabetically within the order of highest votes received (i.e., the first four books tied with the same vote totals).
Michael Chabon, “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union,” Joshua Ferris, “Then We Came to the End,” Per Petterson, “Out Stealing Horses,” Philip Roth, “Exit Ghost,” Alan Bennett, “The Uncommon Reader,” Susan Choi, “A Person of Interest,” Richard Price, “Lush Life,” “William Trevor, “Cheating at Canasta,” Pat Barker, “Life Class,” Brock Clarke, “An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England,” Don Delillo, “Falling Man,” Matthew Eck, “The Farther Shore,” Anne Enright, “The Gathering,” Molly Gloss, “The Hearts of Horses,” A.L. Kennedy, “Day,” Jhumpa Lahiri, “Unaccustomed Earth,” Adam Langer, “Ellington Boulevard,” William Maxwell, “Early Novels and Stories,” Lydia Millett, “How the Dead Dream,” Michael Ondaatje, “Divisadero,” Manil Suri, “The Age of Shiva,” Chris Abani, “Song for Night,” Daniel Alarcon, “Lost City Radio,” Sherman Alexie, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” Charles Baxter, “The Soul Thief,” Amy Bloom, “Away,” Charles Bock, “Beautiful Children,” Robert Bolano, “Nazi Literature in the Americas,” Roberto Bolano, “The Savage Detectives,” Jon Clinch, “Finn,” Jonathan Coe, “Rain Before it Falls,” Annie Dillard, “The Maytrees,” Stephen Dixon, “Meyer,” Andrew Sean Greer, Khaled Hosseini, “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” “The Story of a Marriage,” Ha Jin, “The Free Life,” Marina Lewcyka, “Strawberry Fields,” James McBride, “Song Yet Unsung,” Ian McEwan, “On Chesil Beach,” Pascal Mercier, “Night Train to Lisbon,” Ann Patchett, “Run,” Meg Rosoff, “What I Was,” Bernard Schlink, “Homecoming: A Novel,” Matthew Sharpe, “Jamestown,” Jim Shepard, “Like You’d Understand, Anyway,” Michael Thomas, “Man Gone Down,” Marianne Wiggins, “The Shadow Catcher.”