We present to you a list of the books that devastated us this year. That is, those books that broke our hearts, brought us to tears, down to our knees, then built us back again with the beauty of their language, their honesty, their courage. Here are some of those books, as nominated by the Entropy community:
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The Poetics of Trespass by Erik Anderson
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
Diorama by Rocio Ceron, translated by Anna Rosenwong
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
The Ghost in Us Was Multiplying by Brent Armendinger
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Notice by Heather Lewis
ARK by Ronald Johnson
Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
Women in Public by Elaine Kahn
Bluets by Maggie Nelson
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch
Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta
Reconsolidation: Or, it’s the ghosts who will answer you by Janice Lee
Tender Data by Monica McClure
Ongoingness by Sarah Manguso
After-Cave by Michelle Detorie
Children of the Sea by Daisuke Igarashi
Blue is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh
Bough Down by Karen Green
Crystal Eaters by Shane Jones
Citizen by Claudia Rankine
Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector
Veronica by Mary Gaitskill
The Invaders by Karolina Waclawiak
Broken Kingdoms by NK Jemisin
The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante
The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson
The Immortal Evening by Stanley Plumly
Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
In the City of Shy Hunters by Tom Spanbauer
Featured Image Credit: “Manitoba: a history,” Morton.
