NY Times Editors Choice 1990-1999

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

NY Times, 110 Books

Every year the New York Times puts together a "Best of the Year" list, and this is all the winners from the 1990s

who voted:
Trade sources differ: a C-SPAN–based 2015 blog post tallied roughly 16 New York Times Book Review staffers, while a 2023 Publishers Weekly profile said the desk now has “more than 20 editors, critics and reporters” To keep our rankings conservative, we therefore credit each NYT list to 10 voters.

This list is a yearly book award, and was added to this site about 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
12325 Biting At The Grave Padraig O'Malley 1990 British English
2440 Poems Of Anna Akhmatova Anna Akhmatova 1912 Russian Russian
11003 Friend Of My Youth Alice Munro 1990 Canadian English
12325 Lawrence Of Arabia Jeremy Wilson 1989 British English
1674 London Fields Martin Amis 1989 British English
12325 My Son's Story Nadine Gordimer 1990 South African English
1270 Omeros Derek Walcott 1990 Saint Lucian English
718 Possession A. S. Byatt 1990 British English
784 Rabbit at Rest John Updike 1990 American English
3823 The Search For Modern China Jonathan Spence 1990 American English
12325 Simone De Beauvoir Deirdre Bair 1990 American English
648 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English
12325 Tropical Gangsters Robert Klitgaard 1988 American English
12325 Vladimir Nabokov Brian Boyd 1990 British English
5348 Collected Stories Of V. S. Pritchett V. S. Pritchett 1982 British English
2292 Consciousness Explained Daniel Dennett 1991 American English
12325 Holocaust Testimonies Lawrence L. Langer 1991 American English
12325 The Journals Of John Cheever John Cheever 1991 American English
4717 A Life of Picasso John Richardson 1991 British English
1200 Mating Norman Rush 1991 American English
1104 Maus Art Spiegelman 1980 American English
12325 The Truth About Chernobyl Grigory Medvedev 1991 Russian Russian
12325 Two Lives William Trevor 1991 Irish English
4871 Wartime Lies Louis Begley 1991 American English
12325 The Ant And The Peacock Helena Cronin 1991 British English
644 The English Patient Michael Ondaatje 1992 Canadian English
2537 Jazz Toni Morrison 1992 American English
12325 Kissinger Walter Isaacson 1992 American English
6882 Lincoln at Gettysburg Garry Wills 1992 American English
12325 The Lost Upland W. S. Merwin 1992 American English
12325 Outerbridge Reach Robert Stone 1992 American English
849 Regeneration Pat Barker 1991 British English
11003 Young Men and Fire Norman Maclean 1992 American English
12325 Across The Bridge Mavis Gallant 1993 Canadian English
11003 Balkan Ghosts Robert D. Kaplan 1993 American English
3280 Before Night Falls Reinaldo Arenas 1992 Cuban Spanish
1506 Selected Stories William Trevor 1992 Irish English
12325 The Fate Of The Elephant Douglas H. Chadwick 1992 American English
12325 The Island Gustaw Herling 1958 Polish Polish
968 Jesus' Son Denis Johnson 1992 American English
12325 Judge On Trial Ivan Klima 1991 Czech Czech
12325 The Last Panda George B. Schaller 1993 American English
3821 Lenin's Tomb David Remnick 1993 American English
12325 Mazurka For Two Dead Men Camilo José Cela 1983 Spanish Spanish
12325 A Moment Of War Laurie Lee 1991 American English
12325 Shylock John Gross 1992 British English
4075 Travels With Lizbeth Lars Eighner 1993 American English
12325 Balzac Graham Robb 1994 British English
12325 Conquest Of Mexico Hugh Thomas 1993 British English
8961 A Frolic of His Own William Gaddis 1994 American English
11003 In The Lake Of The Woods Tim O'Brien 1994 American English
3064 The Language Instinct Steven Pinker 1994 American English
11003 The Moral Animal Robert Wright 1994 American English
11003 Naturalist E. O. Wilson 1994 American English
5748 Open Secrets Alice Munro 1994 Canadian English
12325 Stalin And The Bomb David Holloway 1994 American English
12325 A Way In The World V. S. Naipaul 1994 American English
8704 W.E.B. Du Bois David Levering Lewis 2000 American English
6882 The Haunted Land Tina Rosenberg 1995 American English
12325 In Confidence Anatoly Dobrynin 1995 Russian English
1484 Independence Day Richard Ford 1995 American English
2871 The Information Martin Amis 1995 British English
11003 The Island Of The Day Before Umberto Eco 1994 Italian Italian
12325 The Life Of Graham Greene Norman Sherry 1989 British English
12325 Lincoln David Herbert Donald 1995 American English
12325 Overcoming Law Richard A. Posner 1995 American English
1758 Sabbath's Theater Philip Roth 1995 American English
10734 The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Nabokov 1995 Russian English
12325 Zola Frederick Brown 1995 Unknown English
12325 After Rain William Trevor 1996 Irish English
1643 Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt 1996 American English
9893 Bad Land Jonathan Raban 1996 British English
12325 The Collected Stories Of Mavis Gallant Mavis Gallant 1996 Canadian English
12325 The Life Of Nelson A. Rockefeller Cary Reich 1996 American English
4368 The Moor's Last Sigh Salman Rushdie 1995 British English
1285 Selected Stories of Alice Munro Alice Munro 1996 Canadian English
7811 The Song Of The Dodo David Quammen 1996 American English
12325 American Scripture Pauline Maier 1997 American English
12325 Huxley Adrian Desmond 1997 British English
2424 Into Thin Air Jon Krakauer 1997 American English
12325 Virginia Woolf Hermione Lee 1996 British English
9893 The Whole Shebang Timothy Ferris 1997 American English
380 American Pastoral Philip Roth 1997 American English
1099 The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald 1995 British English
1443 Mason & Dixon Thomas Pynchon 1997 American English
5578 The Puttermesser Papers Cynthia Ozick 1997 American English
12325 Toward The End Of Time John Updike 1997 American English
411 Underworld Don DeLillo 1997 American English
1039 Birds of America Lorrie Moore 1998 American English
12325 Cloudsplitter Russell Banks 1998 American English
12325 Life Richard Fortey 1997 British English
9893 The Love of a Good Woman Alice Munro 1998 Canadian English
878 The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver 1998 American English
12325 Preston Falls David Gates 1998 American English
12325 Titan Ron Chernow 1998 American English
12325 To End A War Richard Holbrooke 1998 American English
12325 The Unknown Matisse Hilary Spurling 1998 British English
12325 Victor Hugo Graham Robb 1997 British English
4158 We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families Philip Gourevitch 1998 American English
12325 An Affair Of State Richard A. Posner 1999 American English
5157 Coleridge Richard Holmes 1989 British English
6374 The Feeling Of What Happens Antonio Damasio 1999 Portuguese English
12325 The First World War John Keegan 1998 British English
12325 Morgan Jean Strouse 1999 American English
12325 Reading The Holocaust Inga Clendinnen 1999 Australian English
12325 Secrets Of The Flesh Judith Thurman 1999 American English
2702 Close Range Annie Proulx 1999 American English
255 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee 1999 South African English
12325 Headlong Michael Frayn 1999 British English
12325 A Star Called Henry Roddy Doyle 1999 Irish English