Here are a few of Salon.com senior writer Laura Miller’s picks for the year’s best books. 
Fiction:
Alif the Unseen, by G. Willow Wilson
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountian
Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn
Nonfiction:
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss
Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity, by Andrew Soloman
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, by Cheryl Strayed