Annual Best-of Awards

At the final meeting of each year (starting in 2005), with all five members in attendance, the secret members ponder the best books of the year. Ballots are secretly cast and counted. Determination of winners are executed by a complicated secret statistical analysis developed by members and officers of The Ancient and Honorable Bibliophilic Society of Oak Park.

2023

1. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson,
   The Trial by Franz Kafka,
   and Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinkley Firestorm of 1894 by Daniel James Brown (3-way TIE)
2. Chicago’s Great Fire by Carl S. Smith
   Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (TIED)
3. Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut
   Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith (TIED)

2022

1. The Promise by Damon Galgut
   and The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben McIntyre (TIED)
2. Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
3. Fat City by Leonard Gardner

2021

1. The Searchers by Alan LeMay
2. A Dangerous Season: A Sheriff Matt Callahan Mystery by Russell Fee
   and The Ghost of Cleopatra: Edmonia Lewis and Her Lost Masterpiece by John Rice and Gail Tanzer (TIED)
3. The Depositions: New and Selected Essays on Ceasing to Be by Thomas Lynch
   and Stampede: Gold Fever and Disaster in the Klondike by Brian Castner (TIED)

2020

1. The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson
2. A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler by Jason Roberts
3. The King of Confidence: A Tale of Utopian Dreamers, Frontier Schemers, True Believers, False Prophets, and the Murder of an American Monarch by Miles Harvey

2019

1. Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
2. Alive by Piers Paul Read
   and The Defender by Ethan Michaeli
   (TIED)
3. Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America by Christopher Wylie

2018

1. News of the World by Paulette Jiles
2. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
3. Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation by John Ehle
   and The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
   (TIED)

2017

1. The Circuit by Francisco Jimenez
   and The Last Days of St. Pierre by Ernest Zebrowski, Jr.
   (TIED)
2. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
   and Razor Girl by Carl Hiaasen
   (TIED)
3. The White Cascade by Gary Krist
   and Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
   (TIED)

2016

1. Hostile Waters by Perter Huchthausen, Igor Kurdin & Alan White
2. A Dangerous Remedy by Russell Fee
   and Dead Wake by Erik Larson
   (TIED)
3. Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission by Hampton Sides
   and Killer Show: The Station Nightclub Fire, America's Deadliest Rock Concert by John Barylick
   (TIED)

2015

1. In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides
2. Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown
3. The Martian by Andy Weir

2014

1. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
2. Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders
3. The Guards by Ken Bruen
   and City of Scoundrels by Gary Krist
   (TIED)

2013

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
   and Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey
   (TIED)
2. HHnH (Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich) by Laurent Binet
3. The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough

2012

1. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
2. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
   and Peace by Richard Bausch
   (TIED)
3. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

2011

1. True Grit by Charles Portis
2. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
   and Who You Gotta Kill by Russell Fee
   (TIED)
3. The Man in the Rockefeller Suit by Mark Seal

2010

1. Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
2. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
3. August: Osage County by Tracy Letts
   and Dean's December by Saul Bellow
   (TIED)

2009

1. In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
2. Fort Dearborn by Jerry Crimmins
   and Who You Gotta Kill by Russell Fee
   and Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
   (TIED)
3. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

2008

1. The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
2. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
3. Frankenstin by Mary Shelley
   and Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
   (TIED)

2007

1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
2. Empire Falls by Richard Russo
   and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
   (TIED)
3. Out by Natsuo Kirino

2006

1. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
2. The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
3. American Pastoral by Philip Roth

2005

1. Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
2. Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson
   and Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kantner
   (TIED)
3. 1776 by David McCullough
4. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
5. Water Music by T.C. Boyle
6. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
7. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain