The Best Books of 2004 from Metacritic.com

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The following table lists the highest-scoring books in our database for 2004. The higher a Metascore for a book (on a 0-100 scale), the better the overall reviews for that book were. Note that a book must have a minimum of seven reviews to qualify for this list.

You may also view all-time high scores | view 2005 high scores

Fiction

1	Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley	2004	93
2	The Circus In Winter by Cathy Day	2004	90
3	The Line Of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst	2004	89
4	Runaway by Alice Munro	2004	88
5	Wolves Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith	2004	87
6	Gilead by Marilynne Robinson	2004	87
7	Harbor by Lorraine Adams	2004	87
8	Heir To The Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick	2004	86
9	An Unfinished Season by Ward Just	2004	83
10	Between Two Rivers by Nicholas Rinaldi	2004	83
11	The In-Between World Of Vikram Lall by M.G. Vassanji	2004	83
12	Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke	2004	83
13	Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell	2004	82
14	Little Black Book Of Stories by A.S. Byatt	2004	81
15	When The Nines Roll Over by David Benioff	2004	81
16	Crossing California by Adam Langer	2004	81
17	The Master by Colm Tóibín	2004	81
18	California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker	2004	81
19	The Lemon Table by Julian Barnes	2004	80
20	The Plot Against America by Philip Roth	2004	80
21	Old Boys by Charles McCarry	2004	80
22	The Year Is '42 by Nella Bielski	2004	79
23	The System Of The World by Neal Stephenson	2004	79
24	Havoc, In Its Third Year by Ronan Bennett	2004	79
25	Dark Voyage by Alan Furst	2004	79
26	Case Histories by Kate Atkinson	2004	79
27	An Evening Of Long Goodbyes by Paul Murray	2004	79
28	Sweet Land Stories by E.L. Doctorow	2004	79
29	Natasha by David Bezmozgis	2004	78
30	War Trash by Ha Jin	2004	78
31	The Tyrant's Novel by Thomas Keneally	2004	78
32	The Preservationist by David Maine	2004	78
33	The Summer Guest by Justin Cronin	2004	78
34	The Inner Circle by T. Coraghessan Boyle	2004	77
35	Snow by Orhan Pamuk	2004	77
36	Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay	2004	77
37	Four Souls by Louise Erdrich	2004	77
38	You Remind Me Of Me by Dan Chaon	2004	77
39	Transmission by Hari Kunzru	2004	77
40	Human Capital by Stephen Amidon	2004	77
41	Iron Council by China Mieville	2004	75
42	My Nine Lives by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala	2004	75
43	Life Mask by Emma Donoghue	2004	75
44	The Divine Husband by Francisco Goldman	2004	74
45	The Rule Of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason	2004	74
46	Banishing Verona by Margot Livesey	2004	73
47	The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble	2004	73
48	Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen	2004	72
49	Wake Up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames	2004	72
50	The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith	2004	71

Nonfiction

1	Arc Of Justice by Kevin Boyle	2004	94
2	A Tale Of Love And Darkness by Amos Oz	2004	94
3	Armageddon by Max Hastings	2004	93
4	Public Enemies by Bryan Burrough	2004	92
5	Nightingales by Gillian Gill	2004	90
6	Chronicles by Bob Dylan	2004	88
7	The Irresponsible Self by James Wood	2004	88
8	The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book) by Jon Stewart And The Writers Of The Daily Show	2004	88
9	Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson	2004	88
10	Perilous Times by Geoffrey R. Stone	2004	88
11	de Kooning by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan	2004	88
12	John James Audubon by Richard Rhodes	2004	87
13	Dress Your Family In Corduroy And Denim by David Sedaris	2004	85
14	Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi	2004	84
15	His Excellency by Joseph J. Ellis	2004	84
16	Maximum City by Suketu Mehta	2004	83
17	George Balanchine by Robert Gottlieb	2004	83
18	The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins	2004	82
19	Running On Empty by Peter G. Peterson	2004	82
20	Wodehouse by Robert McCrum	2004	81
21	Vermeer In Bosnia by Lawrence Weschler	2004	81
22	Margot Fonteyn by Meredith Daneman	2004	80
23	Namath by Mark Kriegel	2004	79
24	What's The Matter With Kansas? by Thomas Frank	2004	78
25	Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett	2004	78
26	Leonardo da Vinci by Charles Nicholl	2004	78
27	Rising '44 by Norman Davies	2004	77
28	The Fall Of Baghdad by Jon Lee Anderson	2004	77
29	So You Wanna Be A Rock & Roll Star by Jacob Slichter	2004	75
30	The Myth Of Solid Ground by David L. Ulin	2004	75
31	Will In The World by Stephen Greenblatt	2004	75
32	Another Bullshit Night In Suck City by Nick Flynn	2004	75
33	Amazonia by James Marcus	2004	75
34	Coast Of Dreams by Kevin Starr	2004	75
35	The Truth About The Drug Companies by Marcia Angell	2004	75
36	Bicycle by David Herlihy	2004	75
37	Lucrezia Borgia by Sarah Bradford	2004	75
38	One Matchless Time by Jay Parini	2004	73
39	Exuberance by Kay Redfield Jamison	2004	73
40	Collapse by Jared Diamond	2004	73
41	Jerome Robbins by Deborah Jowitt	2004	73
42	American Dream by Jason DeParle	2004	73
43	How Soccer Explains The World by Franklin Foer	2004	73
44	Wonderland by Michael Bamberger	2004	72
45	Spice by Jack Turner	2004	72
46	War And The American Presidency by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.	2004	71
47	Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs	2004	70
48	American Taboo by Philip Weiss	2004	70
49	The Iraq War by John Keegan	2004	69
50	Osama by Jonathan Randal	2004	69

2004 Man Booker Prize Nominees

The full longlist is displayed below. Shortlisted titles are denoted with an asterisk; the winner is denoted with two asterisks.

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam
Clear: A Transparent Novel by Nicola Barker
The Island Walkers by John Bemrose
Havoc, in its Third Year by Ronan Bennett
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Always the Sun by Neil Cross
* Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor
Becoming Strangers by Louise Dean
A Blade of Grass by Lewis Desoto
* The Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall
Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton Paterson
The Honeymoon by Justin Haythe
The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
** The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Sixty Lights by Gail Jones
* Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
The Unnumbered by Sam North
Snowleg by Nicholas Shakespeare
Cherry by Matt Thorne
* The Master by Colm Tóibín
* I'll Go to Bed at Noon by Gerard Woodward

More Information: bookerprize.co.uk

2004 National Book Awards

Winners are marked with an asterisk.

Fiction finalists
Madeleine Is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
Florida by Christine Schutt
Ideas of Heaven by Joan Silber
* The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck
Our Kind by Kate Walbert

Nonfiction finalists
* Arc Of Justice by Kevin Boyle
Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer
Life On The Outside by Jennifer Gonnerman
Will In The World by Stephen Greenblatt
The 9/11 Commission Report by the 9/11 Commission

More Information: nationalbook.org

2004 Nobel Prize for Literature

Elfriede Jelinek

2004 National Book Critics Circle

Winners are marked with an asterisk.

Fiction finalists
The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
* Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

General Nonfiction finalists
Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle
Blue Blood by Edward Conlon
* The Reformation: A History by Diarmaid MacCulloch
The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David Shipler
Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story by Timothy B. Tyson

Autobiography / Biography finalists
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Chronicles, Vol. 1 by Bob Dylan
Will In The World by Stephen Greenblatt
Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart by John Guy
* de Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan

Poetry finalists
The Orchard by Brigit Pegreen Kelly
Cocktails by D.A. Powell
* The School Among the Ruins by Adrienne Rich
Interglacial by James Richardson
Danger on Peaks by Gary Snyder

Criticism finalists
Paper Trail: Selected Prose 1965-2003 by Richard Howard
* Where You’re At: Notes From the Frontline of a Hip-Hop Planet by Patrick Neate
Strangers: Homosexual Love in the 19th Century by Graham Robb
Sontag & Kael: Opposites Attract Me by Craig Seligman
The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel by James Wood

More Information: bookcritics.org

2005 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

Winner is marked with an asterisk.

Finalists
The Green Lantern by Jerome Charyn
The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat
* War Trash by Ha Jin
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Prisoners of War by Steve Yarbrough

More Information: penfaulkner.org

2005 Pulitzer Prize

Fiction
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Nonfiction
Ghost Wars by Steve Coll

Biography
de Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan

History
Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer

Drama
Doubt, a parable by John Patrick Shanley

Poetry
Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser

More Information: pulitzer.org

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