The Guardian Best Books of the Year

About the The Guardian Best Books of the Year

The Guardian's year-end picks, one list per category, each chosen by a Guardian critic (fiction, crime, science fiction and fantasy, poetry, biography, politics, nature, food, sport, children's, graphic novels and others). 2009-2012 lists ran as critics' Christmas books-for-giving pieces. Left out: Observer pieces (a separate source here), roundups where many writers or public figures each name favourites, readers' and publishers' picks, stocking fillers and gift guides, books a critic panned, and picks with no named author. theguardian.com's robots.txt bars Claude crawlers, so pages were read through the Wayback Machine. Missing: 2006-2008 (no qualifying critic list found) and some categories in 2009-2014 and 2016-2017 that Wayback did not capture or index. Approved for use by the site owner on 2026-11-05.

Organization: The Guardian. Official site (opens in a new tab)