【百道编按】什么样的书成为英国《书商》杂志的年度图书呢？按该杂志新闻组的编辑们自己的说法：形形色色的“最佳”都充斥着一定程度的主观性，在激烈的讨论声中，大家对一些在2013年的图书市场真正产生冲击力的图书和电子书还是达成了共识。当然，《书商》的编辑们特别强调，所谓的冲击力既有文化层面的，也有商业层面的蕴含。

让我们先来看看《书商》编辑团队法眼中的商业畅销书，它们是弗格森的《我的自传》，丹·布朗的《地狱》，威廉姆斯的《恶魔牙医》，咪咪·斯潘塞与米切尔·莫斯里合著的《速食》。编辑们看中这些书的理由除了其商业价值之外，更在于它们对于文化的推广意义，这类书遍布超市等渠道，使得很多从不踏入书店店门的人也有机会成为读者。不过，如果仅停留在商业上判断一本书的价值，对于有文化自觉意识的行业媒体，编辑们会觉得有失身份。因此，尽管有些书在市场上根本没卖起来，但《书商》编辑评审团队将它们高高竖起，比方说，罗伯莱恩的《看不见的王国》，马克·科克尔的《鸟与人》。

《书商》杂志这份榜单的主体部分一共有32本年度选书，其评选机制有必要简述如下：评审小组由六人组成，每个人提交一份个人年度书单，这些书须得是2013年度出版的，销售数据来自尼尔森图书监测公司提供的数据，对应的ISBN号通常是首版的精装书或平装书。当然，这些数据仅供参考，毕竟，现在图书的发行渠道十分多元，尼尔森的监控点并不能全然覆盖，更不用说其中的两本只出了电子版的图书——《自我信仰》《魔咒之书》，完全超出了尼尔森的监控范围。

《书商》杂志年度选书：

Iain Banks The Quarry Little, Brown, 9781408703946, June, £18.99 A brilliant final blast from the late, great Banks, released just days after he passed away in June. Fans also revisited his backlist in 2013: unit sales were up 141% year on year.
25,967 sold

Dan Brown Inferno Bantam, 9780593072493, May, £20 The biggest-selling book of 2013 by volume and value to date, and one of the publishing events of the year. Inferno is the second-bestselling adult hardback since records began; eclipsed only by Brown’s The Lost Symbol.
620,002 sold

Eleanor Catton The Luminaries Granta, 9781847084316, August, £18.99 Almost a 19th-Century throwback in its sprawling scope (800 pages) and setting (gold rush New Zealand in the 1880s). Very young and very talented, Catton was a worthy Booker winner.
39,527 sold

Mark Cocker Birds and People Cape, 9780224081740, August, £40 This monumental study of birds’ dramatic effect on human civilization, a decade in the making, is arguably the best natural history book this century. Cocker’s accessible writing perfectly fits David Tipling’s stunning photographs.
4,858 sold

Jamal Edwards Self Belief Virgin Digital, July, £0.84 Innovative e-book series from Virgin—the business book is divided into six downloadable levels—by the council-house kid turned hugely successful media mogul.
N/A sold

Sir Alex Ferguson My Autobiography Hodder, 9780340919392, October, £25 The former Man U boss looks set to be Christmas number one with the bestselling HB sport memoir since records began, eclipsing former charge David Beckham’s My Side’s 517,000.
567,605 sold

Helen Fielding Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy Cape, 9780224098090, October, £18.99 Reviews were mixed for the return of the zeitgeisty ‘90s heroine, but it was event publishing writ large, with Fielding’s decision to kill off Darcy making headlines globally.
196,053 sold

Robert Galbraith The Cuckoo’s Calling Sphere, 9781408703991, April, £16.99 Were it not for an unwise tweet from the wife of one of J K Rowling’s lawyers, The Cuckoo’s Calling probably would not be on this list. The author’s pseudonymous crime novel gave Little, Brown an unexpected, instant bestseller—especially in e-book when physical copies were unavailable in the reveal’s aftermath.
109,256 sold

Isabel Greenberg The Encyclopedia of Early Earth Cape, 9780224097192, October, £16.99 The début graphic novel by Greenberg—who won the Observer/Jonathan Cape Graphic Short Story Prize in 2011—tells a beguiling tale of lovers who are poles apart. It plays with the nature of storytelling yet has a timeless, epic feel.
1,497 sold

Stephen Grosz The Examined Life Chatto, 9780701185350, January, £14.99

Aleksandra Mizielinska & Daniel Mizielinska Maps Big Picture, 9781848773011, October, £20 This book by the Polish husband-and-wife team is aimed at primarily at children, but its stunning illustrations draw adults in too. One of five strong titles on Templar imprint Big Picture’s 2013 launch list.
7,512 sold

Charles Moore Margaret Thatcher: The Authorised Biography Allen Lane, 9780713992823, April, £30 Moore’s first of two biographies of the Iron Lady was lauded as one of the genre’s great works. It was also a production triumph. Moore was granted full access to Thatcher and her archives with the proviso that he published posthumously; Penguin rush-released the 860-page tome within two weeks of her death.
25,954 sold

Morrissey Autobiography Penguin, 9780141394817, October, £8.99 Mozza certainly knows how to generate controversy. Penguin’s (or Morrissey’s ) strategy of making his memoir a Penguin Classic was the subject of criticism, yet it helped propel the book to the top of the charts.
127,922 sold

Patrick Ness More Than This Walker, 9781406331158, September, £12.99 A busy year for Ness, who also published adult novel The Crane Wife (Canongate). This YA horror/thriller—a boy drowns and wakes in a world full of ghouls—is tense, boundary-pushing and challenging.
7,871 sold

Ruth Ozeki A Tale for the Time Being Canongate, 9780857867971, March, £8.99 A clever time-shifting novel, rightly Booker shortlisted. The book’s innovation was matched by Canongate, which released it in all formats simultaneously (HB, PB, EB and audiobook), along with offering “p” and “e” bundling: a glimpse of publishing schedules of the future
23,990 sold

Philip Reeve & Sarah McIntyre Oliver and the SeaWigs OUP, 9780192734556, September, £8.99 A madcap romp in which Oliver sets out to find his parents aided by a grumpy albatross, a short-sighted mermaid, and Cliff, a friendly island. The first in a four-book series from Carnegie winner Reeve and young illustrator McIntyre.
4,959 sold

Donal Ryan The Spinning Heart Transworld, 9781781620083, June, £12.99 Structured as a series of interconnected stories, Ryan’s tale of the struggles of people living in austerity Ireland struck a chord with reviewers, winning the Irish Book of the Year and the Guardian First Book Award, alongside its Booker longlisting.
3,067 sold

Rob Ryan The Invisible Kingdom Hutchinson, 9780091944438, October, £16.99 The first of a trilogy, Ryan’s graphic novel features a prince who yearns to be normal, and is given a pen with invisible ink to create his own world. A timeless story of finding oneself, brought to life by Ryan’s unique papercut style.
1,219 sold

Sheryl Sandberg Lean In W H Allen, 9780753541623, March, £16.99 A blueprint for female leadership. An egocentric and elitist vanity project. Those were two views from differing columns in the New York Times on the same day.The year’s water cooler business book is the Facebook c.o.o.’s “sort of feminist manifesto”.
28,028 sold

Taiye Selasi Ghana Must Go Viking, 9780670919864, April, £14.99 Début novelist Selasi—mentored by Toni Morrison and lauded by Salman Rushdie—lived up to the hype. A family saga suffused with dark secrets, Ghana Must Go tackled themes of race and immigration, and was one of the standout fiction titles of the year. Selasi was also named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists.
4,969 sold

Tina Seskis One Step Too Far Kirk Parolles, 9780957544321, April, £7.99 Like many self-published authors, Seskis isn’t work-shy. She set up Kirk Parolles to publish her book, designed it herself, got it reviewed in mags such as Grazia, and was even able to place print copies in Waterstones and W H Smith. It helped that her taut, compelling novel—unlike many self-published titles—was a storming read. She’s parlayed indie success by signing with Michael Joseph in a six-figure, three-book deal.
6,609 sold

Holly Smale Geek Girl HCCB, 9780007489442, February, £6.99 Smale had the bestselling children’s début of 2013 with Geek Girl, starring nerd-cum-model Harriet. The sequel, September’s Model Misfits, has fared even better: sales are up 45% on the performance of Geek Girl.
69,284 sold

Nina Stibbe Love, Nina Viking, 9780670922765, November, £12.99 Stibbe’s witty epistolary memoir recounts her time as a nanny for the LRB’s Mary-Kay Wilmers, and features the likes of Alan Bennett and Claire Tomalin—but its wider appeal is in Stibbe’s note-perfect observations about a young person entering the wider world for the first time.
7,807 sold

Shaun Usher Letters of Note Canongate Unbound, 9781782112235, October, £30 This is a 21st-Century publishing story: created by Usher, who runs the Letters of Note website; funded by £125,000 raised through crowdsourcing publisher Unbound; and co-published by Canongate. It also happens to be a fascinating selection of letters from the great and the good.
8,986 sold

David Walliams Demon Dentist HCCB, 9780007453566, September, £12.99 Walliams has owned the children’s charts this year—the PB of Gangsta Granny was number one for an incredible 21 consecutive weeks, and Demon Dentist held the top spot for six weeks in a row. All told, Walliams has shifted more than £6.1m through BookScan this year.
313,390 sold

Malala Yousafzai & Christina Lamb I am Malala Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 9780297870913, October, £18.99 The moving memoir of the 16-year-old shot in the head by the Taliban merely for campaigning for the right for girls to attend school. Latterly, Yousafzai has spoken infront of the United Nations; on the day the UN dubbed “Malala Day”.Inspiring stuff.
46,514 sold

Minecraft: The Official Annual 2014 Egmont, 9781405267670, September, £7.99 Egmont’s annual is the biggest seller in the mini-publishing genre spawned by the digital gaming phenomenon Minecraft (around 35 million users worldwide).Other spin-offs include children’s picture books, how-to guides and even an upcoming biography of Minecraft inventor Markus “Notch” Persson. 162,614 sold

Where Chefs Eat Phaidon, 9780714865416, January, £14.95 Phaidon is increasingly ramping up its cookery list, and this might be the best it has produced: snazzily illustrated recommendations of the best places to eat worldwide, provided by some 2,000 chefs.
11,496 sold

BACKLIST BEST PICKS Lee Child The Visitor Bantam Books, 9780857500076, £7.99 The Visitor led the pack among Child’s entire backlist, which saw sales rise a massive 58% in print, boosted by a rejacketing and the Tom Cruise-starring film.
77,048 sold

Dante Alighieri Inferno Vintage Classics, 9780099583424, £8.99 This cover just might remind you of another Inferno. Vintage cleverly tapped into the Brown maina with this edition; overall, Dante’s sales jumped 346% year on year.
4,545 sold

Gillian Flynn Gone Girl Phoenix, 9780753827666, £7.99 The much-discussed thriller, and mother to many a copycat cover. Gone Girl has supplemented strong print sales with over 600,000 e-books sold in 2013 to date.
599,780 sold

Seamus Heaney New Selected Poems, 1966-1987 Faber & Faber Poetry, 9780571143726, £13.99 So adieu to Nobel laureate Heaney, one of poetry’s brightest stars for booksellers; he and Ted Hughes have accounted for an astonishing 8.6% of all sales in the sector since records began in 1998.
5,326 sold

Liz Pichon The Brilliant World of Tom Gates Scholastic, 9781407120690, £6.99 Sales were up 50% year on year for Pichon’s first Tom Gates title, helped by huge supermarket support and her World Book Day hit, Best Book Day (So Far).
54,238 sold

Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar Faber & Faber, 9780571268863, £7.99 It’s tricky to mess with the cult of Plath, as Faber found when it rejacketed The Bell Jar. The controversy, plus a range of Bell Jar anniversary publishing, saw Plath’s sales almost double year on year.
7,059 sold

John L Williams Stoner Vintage Classics, 9780099561545, £8.99 A la Richard Yates, another example of a mid-20th-Century novelist resuscitated by Vintage. It won Waterstones Book of the Year almost 50 years after its first issue.
67,467 sold

J K Rowling Book of Spells Sony/Pottermore, £8.99 An example of how books and games are overlapping. Rowling’s augmented reality game for PlayStation has sold around 500,000 units worldwide since its launch in November 2012.
THE PANEL'S CHOICES:
Stacey Bartlett, media editor

Neil Gaiman The Ocean at the End of the Lane Headline, 9781472200310, £16.99 Gaiman’s sixth adult novel transports us from the drudgery of everyday life to a magical world that always exists just below its surface, taking us back to a summer that changes one boy’s world. A remarkable book.
Cathy Rentzenbrink, associate editor

Donna Tartt The Goldfinch Little, Brown, 9781408704943, £20 This literary page-turner entranced me with the spectacle of damaged hero Theo playing the cruel game of life with a dark joy. Tartt masterfully weaves her storytelling strands to create a beautiful, satisfying denouement.
Caroline Sanderson, non-fiction previewer

Patrick Leigh Fermor The Broken Road John Murray, 9781848547520, £25 For once, the phrases “long-awaited” and “literary event” were justified, despite the fact that the finished book is not quite all Fermor’s. A god among travel writers, and a true hero of his era.
Philip Stone, charts editor

M Spencer & M Mosley The Fast Diet Short Books, 9781780721675, £7.99 More than any book in 2013, The Fast Diet can claim to be a true “publishing phenomenon”. It has sold just shy of 500,000 copies to date, and led to a bevy of publishers boarding the 5:2 bandwagon.
Tom Tivnan, features and supplements editor

Ben Percy Red Moon Hodder, 9781444724998, £16.99 A literary novel of ideas about our post-9/11 world (and the dehumanising War on Terror) and a pacey, pulpy page-turner about werewolves. One of 2013’s triumphs, it should be a, err, monster hit in PB next year.
Felicity Wood, deputy features and supplements editor

Hannah Kent Burial Rites Penguin, 9781405915571, £14.99 Kent’s début is assured, moving and incredibly well researched and written. It’s the perfect mix of literary and historical fiction, giving an insightful and empathetic look at a woman demonised in her lifetime.