Editors at The Times Book Review choose the best fiction and nonfiction titles this year.

Fiction

1). How beautiful we were by Imbolo Mbue

2). Intimacies by Katie Kitamura

3). The love songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

4). No one is talking about this by Patricia Lockwood

5). When we cease to understand the world by Benjamin Labatut. Translated by Adrian Nathan West

Nonfiction

1). The Copenhagen trilogy: Childhood; Youth; Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen. Translated by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman

2). How the word is passed: A reckoning with the history of slavery across America by Clint Smith

3). Invisible child: Poverty, survival and hope in an American city by Andrea Elliott

4). On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed

5). Red Comet: The short life and blazing art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark