 Sherry of Placerville sent us her top books for 2008
fiction
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller
Annie Dunne by Sebastian Barry
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan nonfiction
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter
A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas
Our good friend Marilyn, from Woodland, sent us her favorite books of 2008 A Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard
The Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester
The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin
Memories of My Melancholy Whore by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The View From Castle Rock by Alice Munro
Best Food Writing of 2007 by Holly Hughes
Hall of a 1000 Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith
I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven
Indie Bestsellers for 2008
this year's top-selling titles at independent bookstores across the country hardcover fiction
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
The Host - Stephenie Meyer
The Appeal - John Grisham
Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri
World Without End - Ken Follett
The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein
People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
Fearless Fourteen - Janet Evanovich
Change of Heart - Jodi Picoult
The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie
The Miracle at Speedy Motors - Alexander McCall Smith
Duma Key - Stephen King hardcover nonfiction
The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch
When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan
The Secret - Rhonda Byrne
Goodnight Bush - Erich Origen, Gan Golan
Hot, Flat, and Crowded - Thomas L. Friedman
The Dangerous Book for Boys - Conn Iggulden & Hal Iggulden
Dewey - Vicki Myron
Audition - Barbara Walters
Just Who Will You Be? - Maria Shriver
What Happened - Scott McClellan
I Am America (and So Can You!) - Stephen Colbert
My Stroke of Insight - Jill Bolte Taylor
Deceptively Delicious - Jessica Seinfeld
The Art of Simple Food - Alice Waters paperback fiction
Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
The Shack - William P. Young
Loving Frank - Nancy Horan
Out Stealing Horses - Per Petterson
The Friday Night Knitting Club - Kate Jacobs
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Gathering - Anne Enright
Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult
In the Woods - Tana French
Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union - Michael Chabon
No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy paperback nonfiction
A New Earth - Eckhart Tolle
Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama
Dreams From My Father - Barack Obama
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara & Camille Kingsolver
The Omnivore’s Dilemma - Michael Pollan
Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle
The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls
Marley & Me - John Grogan
Skinny Bitch - Rory Freedman, Kim Barnouin
This Is Your Brain on Music - Daniel J. Levitin
90 Minutes in Heaven - Don Piper
Infidel - Ayaan Hirsi Ali children's & young adult
Twilight - Stephenie Meyer
New Moon - Stephenie Meyer
Breaking Dawn - Stephenie Meyer
Eclipse - Stephenie Meyer
Brisingr - Christopher Paolini
Gallop! - Rufus Butler Seder
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules - Jeff Kinney
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Jeff Kinney
Goodnight Moon - Margaret Wise Brown, Clement Hurd (Illus)
The Battle of the Labyrinth - Rick Riordan, Hyperion
The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie
The Mysterious Benedict Society - Trenton Lee Stewart
Fancy Nancy: Bonjour, Butterfly - Jane O'Connor, Robin Preiss Glasser (Illus.)
The New York Times - The 10 Best Books of 2008 Fiction
DANGEROUS LAUGHTER: Thirteen Stories by Steven Millhauser
A MERCY by Toni Morrison
NETHERLAND by Joseph O’Neill
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
UNACCUSTOMED EARTH by Jhumpa Lahiri Non-Fiction
THE DARK SIDE: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals
by Jane Mayer
THE FOREVER WAR by Dexter Filkins
NOTHING TO BE FRIGHTENED OF by Julian Barnes
THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING by Drew Gilpin Faust
THE WORLD IS WHAT IT IS: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul by Patrick French
The New York Times - 100 Notable Books of 2008
This list is from books reviewed in The Book Review since Dec. 2, 2007.
Fiction & Poetry
AMERICAN WIFE by Curtis Sittenfeld
ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES by Rivka Galchen
BASS CATHEDRAL by Nathaniel Mackey
BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN by Charles Bock
BEIJING COMA by Ma Jian, translated by Flora Drew
A BETTER ANGEL: Stories by Chris Adrian
BLACK FLIES by Shannon Burke
THE BLUE STAR by Tony Earley
THE BOAT by Nam Le
BREATH by Tim Winton
DANGEROUS LAUGHTER: Thirteen Stories by Steven Millhauser
DEAR AMERICAN AIRLINES by Jonathan Miles
DIARY OF A BAD YEAR by J. M. Coetzee
DICTATION: A Quartet by Cynthia Ozick
ELEGY: Poems by Mary Jo Bang
THE ENGLISH MAJOR By Jim Harrison
FANON by John Edgar Wideman
THE FINDER by Colin Harrison
FINE JUST THE WAY IT IS: Wyoming Stories 3 by Annie Proulx
THE GOOD THIEF by Hannah Tinti
HALF OF THE WORLD IN LIGHT: New and Selected Poems by Juan Felipe Herrera
HIS ILLEGAL SELF by Peter Carey
HOME by Marilynne Robinson
INDIGNATION by Philip Roth
THE LAZARUS PROJECT by Aleksandar Hemon
LEGEND OF A SUICIDE by David Vann
LIFE CLASS by Pat Barker
LUSH LIFE by Richard Price
A MERCY by Toni Morrison
MODERN LIFE: Poems by Matthea Harvey
A MOST WANTED MAN by John le Carré
MY REVOLUTIONS by Hari Kunzru
NETHERLAND by Joseph O’Neill
OPAL SUNSET: Selected Poems, 1958-2008 by Clive James
THE OTHER by David Guterson
OUR STORY BEGINS: New and Selected Stories by Tobias Wolff
THE ROAD HOME by Rose Tremain
THE SACRED BOOK OF THE WEREWOLF by Victor Pelevin, translated by Andrew Bromfield
THE SCHOOL ON HEART’S CONTENT ROAD by Carolyn Chute
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT: A New Verse Translation by Simon Armitage
SLEEPING IT OFF IN RAPID CITY: Poems, New and Selected by August Kleinzahler
TELEX FROM CUBA by Rachel Kushner
2666 by Roberto Bolaño Translated by Natasha Wimmer (cloth and paper )
UNACCUSTOMED EARTH By Jhumpa Lahiri
THE UNFORTUNATES by B. S. Johnson
WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? by Kate Atkinson
THE WIDOWS OF EASTWICK by John Updike
YESTERDAY’S WEATHER by Anne Enright Nonfiction
AMERICAN LION: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
ANGLER: The Cheney Vice Presidency by Barton Gellman
BACARDI AND THE LONG FIGHT FOR CUBA: The Biography of a Cause by Tom Gjelten
THE BIG SORT: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart by Bill Bishop with Robert G. Cushing
BLOOD MATTERS: From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene by Masha Gessen
CAPITOL MEN: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen by Philip Dray
THE CHALLENGE: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power by Jonathan Mahler
CHAMPLAIN’S DREAM by David Hackett Fischer
CHASING THE FLAME: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World by Samantha Power
CONDOLEEZZA RICE. An American Life: A Biography by Elisabeth Bumiller
THE DARK SIDE: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer
DELTA BLUES: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music by Ted Gioia
DESCARTES’ BONES: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason by Russell Shorto
DREAMS AND SHADOWS: The Future of the Middle East by Robin Wright
THE DRUNKARD’S WALK: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow
AN EXACT REPLICA OF A FIGMENT OF MY IMAGINATION: A Memoir by Elizabeth McCracken
FACTORY GIRLS: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang
THE FOREVER WAR by Dexter Filkins
FREEDOM’S BATTLE: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention by Gary J. Bass
A GREAT IDEA AT THE TIME: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books By Alex Beam
HALLELUJAH JUNCTION: Composing an American Life by John Adams
THE HEMINGSES OF MONTICELLO: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
HOT, FLAT, AND CROWDED: Why We Need a Green Revolution — and How It Can Renew America by Thomas L. Friedman
THE HOUSE AT SUGAR BEACH: In Search of a Lost African Childhood by Helene Cooper
HOW FICTION WORKS by James Wood
MORAL CLARITY: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists by Susan Neiman
THE NIGHT OF THE GUN: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life. His Own by David Carr
NIXONLAND: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein
NOTHING TO BE FRIGHTENED OF by Julian Barnes
NUREYEV: The Life by Julie Kavanagh
PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris
THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD by Fareed Zakaria
PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely
THE RACE CARD: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse by Richard Thompson Ford
RETRIBUTION: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 by Max Hastings
A SECULAR AGE by Charles Taylor
SHAKESPEARE’S WIFE by Germaine Greer
THE SUPERORGANISM: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies by Bert Hölldobler & Edward O. Wilson
TELL ME HOW THIS ENDS: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq by Linda Robinson
THE TEN-CENT PLAGUE: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu
THEY KNEW THEY WERE RIGHT: The Rise of the Neocons by Jacob Heilbrunn
THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
THE THREE OF US: A Family Story by Julia Blackburn
THRUMPTON HALL: A Memoir of Life in My Father’s House by Miranda Seymour
TRAFFIC: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt
THE TRILLION DOLLAR MELTDOWN: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash by Charles R. Morris
A VOYAGE LONG AND STRANGE: Rediscovering the New World by Tony Horwitz
WAKING GIANT: America in the Age of Jackson by David S. Reynolds
WHILE THEY SLEPT: An Inquiry Into the Murder of a Family by Kathryn Harrison
WHITE HEAT: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson by Brenda Wineapple
THE WILD PLACES by Robert Macfarlane
THE WORLD IS WHAT IT IS: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul by Patrick French
San Francisco Chronicle - 50 Best Fiction and Poetry Books of 2008 AWESOME by Jack Pendarvis
BEIJING COMA by Ma Jian
CITY OF REFUGE by Tom Piazza
DAY by A.L. Kennedy
DEATH WITH INTERRUPTIONS by José Saramago
DIARY OF A BAD YEAR by J.M. Coetzee
THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE by Salman Rushdie
THE END OF THE JEWS by Adam Mansbach
THE ENGLISH MAJOR by Jim Harrison
FAULT LINES by Nancy Huston
THE FLOWERS by Dagoberto Gilb
FROM A TO X: A Story in Letters by John Berger
FINE JUST THE WAY IT IS by Annie Proulx
GOLDENGROVE by Francine Prose
THE GOOD THIEF by Hannah Tinti
THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
THE HAKAWATI by Rabih Alameddine
HAPPY FAMILIES by Carlos Fuentes
HOME by Marilynne Robinson
INDIGNATION by Philip Roth
LEGEND OF A SUICIDE by David Vann
THE LITTLE BOOK by Selden Edwards
LUSH LIFE by Richard Price
A MERCY by Toni Morrison
THE MONSTERS OF TEMPLETON by Lauren Groff
A MOST WANTED MAN by John le Carré
NIGHT TRAIN TO LISBON by Pascal Mercier
ONE MORE YEAR: Stories by Sana Krasikov
OLIVE KITTERIDGE by Elizabeth Strout
OUR STORY BEGINS: New and Selected Stories by Tobias Wolff
THE PLAGUE OF DOVES by Louise Erdrich
THE ROAD HOME by Rose Tremain
SEA OF POPPIES by Amitav Ghosh
SENSELESSNESS by Horacio Castellanos Moya
SERENA by Ron Rash
SLUMBERLAND by Paul Beatty
THE SILVER SWAN by Benjamin Black
SLEEPING IT OFF IN RAPID CITY: Poems, New and Selected by August Kleinzahle
SONGS FOR THE MISSING by Stewart O'Nan
THE SORROWS OF AN AMERICAN by Siri Hustvedt
THE STORY OF A MARRIAGE by Andrew Sean Greer
THE SUMMER OF NAKED SWIM PARTIES by Jessica Anya Blau
TELEX FROM CUBA by Rachel Kushner
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
UNACCUSTOMED EARTH by Jhumpa Lahiri
VERSES AND VERSIONS: Three Centuries of Russian Poetry selected and translated by Vladimir Nabokov; edited by Brian Boyd and Stanislav Shvabrin
THE WETTEST COUNTY IN THE WORLD by Matt Bondurant
WHAT HAPPENED TO ANNA K. by Irina Reyn
WOLF TOTEM by Jiang Rong
YESTERDAY'S WEATHER by Anne Enright
San Francisco Chronicle - 50 Best Nonfiction Books of 2008 THE AGE OF REAGAN: A History, 1974-2008 by Sean Wilentz
ALFRED & EMILY by Doris Lessing
ALFRED KAZIN: A Biography by Richard M. Cook
AMERICAN BUFFALO: In Search of a Lost Icon by Steven Rinella
AMERICAN LION: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
THE AMERICAN RESTING PLACE: 400 Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds by Marilyn Yalom
BACARDI AND THE LONG FIGHT FOR CUBA: The Biography of a Cause by Tom Gjelten
BEAUTIFUL BOY: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction by David Sheff
BIG BOY RULES by Steve Fainaru
BONK: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach
CHAMPLAIN'S DREAM by David Hackett Fischer
CHASING THE FLAME: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World by Samantha Power
THE CORPSE WALKER: Real Life Stories, ChinaFrom the Bottom Up by Liao Yiwu
A CONEY ISLAND OF THE MIND: 50th Anniversary Edition by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
DESCARTES' BONES: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason by Russell Shorto
DESCENT INTO CHAOS: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid
AN EXACT REPLICA OF A FIGMENT OF MY IMAGINATION by Elizabeth McCracken
FACTORY GIRLS by Leslie T. Chang
THE FIRES OF VESUVIUS: Pompeii Lost and Found by Mary Beard
FIRST STOP IN THE NEW WORLD: Mexico City, the Capital of the 21st Century by David Lida
THE FOREVER WAR by Dexter Filkins
THE GEOGRAPHY OF BLISS: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner
GOD'S CRUCIBLE: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 by David Levering Lewis
'HAVE YOU SEEN ...?': A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films by David Thomson
THE HEMINGSES OF MONTICELLO: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS AND HOW EASILY IT CAN BE BROKEN by Daniel Mendelsohn
HOW FICTION WORKS by James Wood
AN IMPERFECT OFFERING: Humanitarian Action for the Twenty-First Century by James Orbinski
IN DEFENSE OF FOOD: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan
KING: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop by Harvard Sitkoff
MY LIFE AS A TRAITOR by Zarah Ghahramani, with Robert Hillman
McMAFIA: Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld byMisha Glenny
THE NIGHT OF THE GUN: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of his Life - His Own by David Carr
NIXONLAND: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein
NOTHING TO BE FRIGHTENED OF by Julian Barnes
ON THE LAPS OF GODS: The Red Summer of 1919 and the Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation by Robert Whitaker
OUTLIERS: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
RIDING TOWARD EVERYWHERE by William T. Vollmann
PROMISED LAND: 13 Books that Changed America by Jay Parini
A ROMANCE ON THREE LEGS: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano by Katie Hafner
ROME 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World by David Maraniss
SWIMMING IN A SEA OF DEATH: A Son's Memoir by David Rieff
THE TEN-CENT PLAGUE: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu
THAMES: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd
THIS LAND IS THEIR LAND: Reports From a Divided Nation by Barbara Ehrenreich
THE TWO KINDS OF DECAY by Sarah Manguso
THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
THIS COMMON SECRET: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor by Susan Wicklund, with Alan Kesselheim
A VOYAGE LONG AND STRANGE: Rediscovering the New World by Tony Horwitz
WARTIME WRITINGS: 1943-1949 by Marguerite Duras
TIME Magazine - Best Books of 2008 fiction
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
Lush Life by Richard Price
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Unaccustomed Earth Jhumpa Lahiri
nonfiction
The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
The Thief at the End of the World by Joe Jackson
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
The World Is What It Is by Patrick French
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale
NPR Lists
Best Books Of 2008 by Maureen Corrigan Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Indignation by Philip Roth
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken
White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson by Brenda Wineapple
World War II Writings by A.J. Liebling, edited by Pete Hamill, Library of America
Five Books To Give Yourself This Year by Karen Grigsby Bates
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas
I See You Everywhere by Julia Glass
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Mrs. Astor Regrets: The Hidden Betrayals of a Family Beyond Reproach by Meryl Gordon
Best Political And Current Affairs Books Of 2008 by Simon Maxwell Apter
The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action for the Twenty-First Century by James Orbinski
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein
The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer
The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century by Steve Coll
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