All ‘Books of the Year’ lists sound the same

The formally inventive novel: The author slices up standard novelistic devices such as plot and structure and reassembles their slivers in innovative ways. A lack of conventional paragraphing and punctuation drives home the point that imagination is best when it is unconstrained. In this way, she breathes fresh life into tired tropes and makes us imagine afresh the large consequences of small actions. Many have spoken about the death of the novel; in her hands, it is reborn.

The book that redefines our past: Forget all you’ve been told about who we are and how we got here. This volume that re-interprets original sources to come up with a surprising and convincing theory about our shared history. It wears its impressive research lightly, to demystify historical figures and explain their impact upon the world. You’ll never think about the subject in the same way again.

The translated novella: This slim volume packs a punch that belies its size. In just over 100 pages, it delivers an incandescent meditation on the nature of truth, power and memory, circling around fragments of intersecting lives with skill and certitude. The prose is sharp as well as cadenced, and the translator deserves our gratitude for introducing it to the English-speaking world.

The interlinked short story collection: Every tale in this impressive new collection deals with members of a group who face inevitable loss and change. Characters deal with this in ways that are sometimes surprising and sometimes heart-breaking. The volume shifts from first person to third, often in a single story, to weave a web that makes us understand why Forster exclaimed: “Only connect!”

The gripping family saga: In a time of short attention spans, this novel takes the other tack with its delineation of the fortunes of an average family over the decades. You’ll shed a tear at the downfall of the imperious patriarch and smile ruefully at the way his sons and daughters navigate colleges, jobs and relationships. This is an immersive look at how the passage of decades changes us, and the mark left behind by those who came before.

The historical masterpiece: This gripping work of fiction holds up a mirror to a vanished age of rulers, conflict and derring-do. Even though we know how the story turns out, the portrayal of rich inner lives has us in its thrall. It also brings to life the significant roles of hitherto ignored women of the era. In doing so, it gives new meaning to the Faulknerian dictum of the past not being dead, and not even past.

The millennial chronicle: A novel that boldly gives voice to a new generation of young men and women. It shows how the culture of a new century has seeped into the way they love, work and play, and the mediating role of the Internet in forming and shaping identity. Written with immediacy and passion, this is a compelling investigation into a mindset that has begun to change how the world thinks.

The scientific odyssey: An author with the rare ability to understand the latest advances in the field and translate them into a spellbinding scientific adventure. The implications of findings in research laboratories over the world are laid out in a manner that is always engrossing and instructive. Along the way, we meet once-derided pioneers as well as scientists whose faith kept them going during their darkest hours.