by Sarah Scire Picking favorites is almost always tricky business. For the staff of FSG, crowning just a few of the many books they read "the best of 2012" seemed close to impossible. There were last-minute additions, half-hearted apologies for self-interested choices, lengthy disclaimers about how all of the books they'd worked on were their favorites, and multi-part questions about eligibility ("This book was written almost two decades ago but first translated in 2012—with the exception of an excerpt two years ago. Does it count?"). Restricting everyone's favorites to books published in 2012 seemed unfair (and likely to start an uproar) so we chose to ask three questions we hoped would shed light on the staff's diverse reading habits:

We asked the staff of Farrar, Straus and Giroux to name the best books published in 2013, their favorite books they read or reread this year, and to reveal which FSG books they were gifting during the holidays. A spectrum of departments make up a publishing house—editorial, publicity, foreign rights, art, production, sales, marketing, contracts, and operations—and responses came from every corner of the office. These are the books that made FSGers miss subway stops and cancel dinner plans. They include the bestsellers that had us urging each other to “believe the hype” over the office coffeemaker and the bizarre stories written a half-century ago. Some made us hopeful and others we could only describe as heartbreaking. These books—for every kind of reason—are FSG’s Favorite Books of 2013.

Our Scientific American imprint authors and editors offer up the best science books they read this year.   EMILY ANTHES, author of Frankenstein’s Cat: Wild Ones, by Jon Mooallem An exploration of the ways that humans threaten the world's wildlife--and the long, strange lengths to which we'll go to save it. Surreal, dark, funny, and hopeful, often, somehow, simultaneously.

We asked the staff of Farrar, Straus and Giroux to pick the best books published in 2014, name their favorite titles—new, old, or forthcoming—that they read this year, and to share which FSG books they will be giving during the holidays. Responses from FSGers working in editorial, publicity, foreign rights, production, sales, marketing, contracts, and operations flooded in. Together, these are FSG’s Favorite Books of 2014.

Last week, we asked FSG staff to share their favorite books of the year. This week, authors and editors from our Scientific American imprint expand the list with their favorite science books from 2014. Amir Alexander, author of Infinitesimal: How...

No matter which hat each FSGer wears in the office—art, contracts, design, editorial, foreign rights, marketing, permissions, production, publicity, sales, or otherwise—they’re often first and foremost a reader. With that in mind, we asked the staff of Farrar, Straus and Giroux to pick the best...

We asked the staff of Farrar, Straus and Giroux to name the best book published in 2016, pick their favorite titles—old, new, or forthcoming—that they read or reread this year, and to share which FSG books they’ll be gifting during the holidays. Readers from every...

May is Short Story Month, and we at FSG are damn proud of the short stories we publish—so there’s no way we’d miss out on the fun. Our short story collections run the gamut. We’ve got classics like Bernard Malamud’s The Magic Barrel...

New England doesn’t scream noir, not in the way of movies set in New York or Los Angeles, or Jean-Claude Izzo’s Marseilles Trilogy, or any book coming out of Scandinavia these days. But it’s there, New England Noir, from The Crucible to...

June is Pride month, and we're incredibly proud to be able to share a list of FSG books that touch on LGBTQ life. From young gay men experiencing the first bloom of desire, to a lesbian poet playing with language and the erotics of...

To celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month we are highlighting some of FSG’s incredible writers from Spain, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America whom we are proud to publish. From Mario Vargas Llosa’s forthcoming detective novel to a poetry anthology surveying the twentieth century’s...

Halloween is here, and what better way to get in the mood than curling up with some chilling and thrilling reads? We’ve compiled some of our favorite books for this scary season—featuring ghosts and witches, darkly reimagined fairy tales, a house that traps us...

We asked the staff of Farrar, Straus and Giroux to pick the best book published this year, name their favorite titles—old, new, or forthcoming—that they read or reread this year, and to share which FSG books they’ll be gifting during the holidays. The Best Books...