Thank you to all 106 people who participated in my “Readers’ Choice” survey. Joyce Maynard’s latest, The Bird Hotel, came in first. Ironically, it’s the only one of the six winners that I haven’t read, so that one is going on my to-be-read pile. Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead came in second, Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water came in third; Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures came in fourth; and tied for fifth were James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store and Geraldine Brooks’ Horse. Notably, this is Horse’s second year on the list, along with runners-up Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Lessons in Chemistry.
I’ll call out one of the honorable mentions - Anne Berest’s The Postcard - to say that I was surprised this one did not end up among the winners, which leads me to believe that not enough people have read it. So my (not-at-all-subtle) message: go read it!
Winners
1st place: The Bird Hotel, Joyce Maynard
2nd place: Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver
3rd place: The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese
4th place: Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt
5th place (tie): The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride and Horse, Geraldine Brooks
Runners-up:
Tom Lake, Ann Patchett
Looking for Jane, Heather Marshall
Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin
Go As a River, Shelley Read
Hello Beautiful, Ann Napolitano
All the Broken Places, John Boyne
The River We Remember, William Kent Krueger
Don’t Forget to Write, Sara Goodman Confino
Only The Beautiful, Susan Meissner
Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus
Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan
The Museum of Failures. Thrity Umrigar
The Measure, Nikki Erlick
Honorable Mentions:
A Play for the End of the World, Jai Chakrabarti - watch Jai at Literary Modiin
Count the Ways, Joyce Maynard
I Have Some Questions for You, Rebecca Makkai
My Name is Barbara, Barbara Streisand
Romantic Comedy, Curtis Sittenfeld
Sea of Tranquility, Emily St John Mandel
Signal Fires. Dani Shapiro
The Berry Pickers, Amanda Peters
The House in the Cerluean Sea, TJ Klune
The Marriage Portrait, Maggie O'Farrell
Mad Honey, Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
The Paris Daughter, Kristen Harmel
The Postcard, Anne Berest
Symphony of Secrets, Brendan Slocumb
The Violin Conspiracy, Brendan Slocumb
The Wolf Hunt (Relocation in Hebrew), Ayelet Gundar-Goshen