Heeb

Your calendar for 5769 may already be posted on your wall, but let’s not forget that 5768 wasn’t too shabby in its own right. In honor of the beginning of the Jewish new year, our editors once again gaze backwards to give you the best in arts and culture of the past lunar year. Below, check out the best books.

1. Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Ms. Hempel Chronicles (Harcourt)

A tribute to the incorrigible child in all of us, Bynum’s second novel centers around a young woman gently dead-ended as a seventh grade teacher. Bravely encountering sex-ed classes, student evaluations and perpetual questioning of what is "appropriate," yet remaining hopeful of her prospects, Ms. Hempel re-experiences the pangs of childhood and its kaleidoscope of emotions. Bynum’s book, the follow-up to 2004 National Book Award Finalist Madeleine is Sleeping, is grabbing, cathartic, and seriously funny—enough to even make you wish you were back in middle school. SABRINA JASZI

2. Leni Zumas, Farewell Navigator (Open City)

3. Neil Leifer, Ballet in the Dirt: The Golden Age of Baseball (Taschen)

4. Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

5. Richard Price, Lush Life (Farrrar, Straus and Giroux)

6. Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

7. David Benioff, City of Thieves (Viking)

8. Kenny Shopsin and Carolynn Carreno, Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin (Knopf)

9. Nathan Nedorostek and Anthony Pappalardo, Radio Silence: A Selected Visual History of American Hardcore Music (MTV Press)

10. Etgar Keret, The Girl on the Fridge (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

For Heeb‘s best books of 5767, click here.