The Best Books of 2006 from Metacritic.com

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Metacritic's complete Best of 2006 coverage: High Scores | Awards | Critic Top Ten Lists

2006's Best Reviewed Books

The following table lists the highest-scoring books in our database for 2006. 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 | view 2004 high scores

Fiction

1	Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky	2006	95
2	The Road by Cormac McCarthy	2006	90
3	The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos	2006	90
4	Hollywood Station by Joseph Wambaugh	2006	89
5	The Thin Place by Kathryn Davis	2006	88
6	The People's Act Of Love by James Meek	2006	88
7	The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud	2006	85
8	After This by Alice McDermott	2006	85
9	Twilight Of The Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg	2006	85
10	Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami	2006	85
11	Intuition by Allegra Goodman	2006	84
12	The Accidental by Ali Smith	2006	83
13	The Night Watch by Sarah Waters	2006	82
14	The Last Of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez	2006	81
15	Black Swan Green by David Mitchell	2006	81
16	Everyman by Philip Roth	2006	80
17	The Amalgamation Polka by Stephen Wright	2006	80
18	Arthur & George by Julian Barnes	2006	79
19	The View From Castle Rock by Alice Munro	2006	79
20	Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle	2006	79
21	In The Company Of The Courtesan by Sarah Dunant	2006	78
22	Special Topics In Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl	2006	78
23	The Echo Maker by Richard Powers	2006	76
24	Digging To America by Anne Tyler	2006	75
25	The Dream Life Of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin	2006	75
26	A Family Daughter by Maile Meloy	2006	75
27	The Lay Of The Land by Richard Ford	2006	74
28	Theft by Peter Carey	2006	74
29	Seeing by Jose Saramago	2006	74
30	The Uses Of Enchantment by Heidi Julavits	2006	72
31	The Meaning Of Night by Michael Cox	2006	71
32	Talk Talk by T. Coraghessan Boyle	2006	71
33	Restless by William Boyd	2006	71
34	Apex Hides The Hurt by Colson Whitehead	2006	70
35	One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson	2006	70
36	The Keep by Jennifer Egan	2006	69
37	Against The Day by Thomas Pynchon	2006	68
38	Cell by Stephen King	2006	67
39	A Spot Of Bother by Mark Haddon	2006	66
40	Lisey's Story by Stephen King	2006	65
41	Utterly Monkey by Nick Laird	2006	64
42	The Brief History Of The Dead by Kevin Brockmeier	2006	64
43	The Mission Song by John le Carre	2006	63
44	The Tent by Margaret Atwood	2006	63
45	The Man Of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld	2006	61
46	The Bedroom Secrets Of The Master Chefs by Irvine Welsh	2006	61
47	Elements Of Style by Wendy Wasserstein	2006	60
48	This Book Will Save Your Life by A. M. Homes	2006	57
49	The Good Life by Jay McInerney	2006	55
50	JPod by Douglas Coupland	2006	54

Nonfiction

1	The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright	2006	88
2	Heat by Bill Buford	2006	86
3	At Canaan's Edge by Taylor Branch	2006	81
4	The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery	2006	78
5	Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert	2006	77
6	A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger	2006	76
7	Orson Welles by Simon Callow	2006	75
8	The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson	2006	73
9	The Architecture of Happiness by Alain De Botton	2006	72
10	The Dead Beat by Marilyn Johnson	2006	72
11	American Gospel by Jon Meacham	2006	71
12	The Long Tail by Chris Anderson	2006	70
13	I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron	2006	70
14	Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum	2006	69
15	The Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Franzen	2006	69
16	Murder In Amsterdam by Ian Buruma	2006	68
17	State Of Denial by Bob Woodward	2006	65
18	Guests Of The Ayatollah by Mark Bowden	2006	61
19	State Of War by James Risen	2006	60
20	The Innocent Man by John Grisham	2006	60
21	American Bloomsbury by Susan Cheever	2006	60
22	America At The Crossroads by Francis Fukuyama	2006	60
23	Point To Point Navigation by Gore Vidal	2006	60
24	The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins	2006	59
25	American Vertigo by Bernard-Henri Levy	2006	56
26	Nicole Kidman by David Thomson	2006	44
27	The Devil's Guide to Hollywood by Joe Eszterhas	2006	41
28	My Year In Iraq by L. Paul Bremer III with Malcolm McConnell	2006	40
29	To Hell With All That by Caitlin Flanagan	2006	31

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