Rounding out 2014 with a standard end-of-the-year list, the New York Times published a catalog of the top 100 notable books of the year in its Sunday Book Review column, noting some of the most significant fiction, poetry and nonfiction as selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review. This comes shortly after the Goodreads Choice Awards -- the only major book awards chosen by readers -- were announced.

The Times also noted that the novelists and wordsmiths behind some of today's most celebrated works of fiction and poetry are exploring similar terrain. From forays into the unwritten rules of the art world (Siri Hust­vedt's "The Blazing World"), rites of passage narratives (Haruki Murakami's "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage") and kitchen-sink family tragedies (Linn Ullmann's "The Cold Song," Celeste Ng's "Everything I Never Told You"), today's writers are creating exciting accounts about the human condition, alluding to everything from the havoc of Hurricane Sandy on New Jersey to an assassination attempt against reggae icon Bob Marley.

There is also biting commentary on the race problem, from Ng's nuclear mixed-race family epoch to startlingly stories about Latin immigrants (Cristina Henríquez's "The Book of Unknown Americans,"), African rebel armies (Susan Minot's "Thirty Girls") or post-racial Nigerian Snow White (Helen Oyeyemi's "Boy, Snow, Bird,") Marlon James' "A Brief History of Seven Killings." 

Sociopolitical critiques aside, there's something for everyone, even binge-reading occult favorites for those who have a fetish for the bizarre (Michel Faber's "The Book of Strange New Things"), the eccentric (David Mitchell's "The Bone Clocks") and the uncanny (Francine Prose's "Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932").

Perhaps more than before, this year also offers some of the most diverse writers, ranging around England and Ireland, throughout the Americas, and off the coast of Australia, Asia and Africa. Even more unusual are the addition of various women writers, something that was a far cry on last year's list. Leading the revolution are writers like Eimear McBride ("A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing") and Kathleen Founds ("When Mystical Creatures Attack!") and non-fiction writer Jennifer Percy ("Demon Camp: A Soldier's Exorcism"), who are ushering in a call-to-arms for lady wordsmiths everywhere.