Each year, hundreds of thousands of books are published. Out of those, a select few stand out to literary institutions for their outstanding qualities. As a result, annually, many of these institutions recognize those books. Some titles recognized on multiple lists include “The Underground Railroad,” “Evicted: Poverty in the American City,” and “The Vegetarian.” VCU Libraries has cultivated a list of the top five “Best Books of 2016” articles.

Library Journal

• Evicted: Poverty in the American City by Matthew Desmond

• In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi

• The Nix by Nathan Hill

• To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey

• The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

• Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America by Patrick Phillips

• While the City Slept: A Love Lost to Violence and a Young Man’s Descent into Madness by Eli Sanders

• American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes, and Trial of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin

• All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation by Rebecca Traister

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

National Book Award

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X Kendi

• The Performance of Becoming Human by Daniel Borzutzky

• March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aysin and Nate Powell (Artist)

New York Times

• The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan

• The North Water by Ian McGuire

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

• The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith

• War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans, translated by David McKay

• At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell

• Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of Radical Right by Jane Mayer

• Evicted: Poverty in the American City by Matthew Desmond

• In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi

• The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar

Publishers Weekly

• Barkshins by Annie Proulx

• What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell

• Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson

• Evicted: Poverty in the American City by Matthew Desmond

• Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey by Frances Wilson

• A Kingdom of Their Own: The Family Karzai and the Afghan Disaster by Joshua Partlow

• Ninety-Nine Stories of God by Joy Williams

• Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Bela Shayevich

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

• The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith

The Washington Post

• Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

• Evicted: Poverty in the American City by Matthew Desmond

• The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

• New of the World by Paulette Jiles

• The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar

• Rogue Heroes by Ben Macintyre

• Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Bela Shayevich

• Swing Time by Zadie Smith

• The Trespasser by Tana French

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead