10 Best Books of 2008

The editors of The New York Times Book Review have announced their choices for the 10 Best Books of the year, always one of the most-watched end-of-the-year lists. (All books reviewed in the Book Review since December of last year are eligible. The books are unranked and are ordered according to our own current bestselling rankings below. We've listed 2666 twice, because it was released both as a single-volume hardcover and a (gorgeous!) three-volume paperback set.)

2666: A Novel Roberto Bolano
It was one thing to read Roberto Bolaño's novel The Savage Detectives last year and have your mind thrilled and expanded by a sexy, meandering masterpiece born whole into the English language. It was still another to read it and know, from

A Mercy Toni Morrison
Nobel laureate Morrison returns more explicitly to the net of pain cast by slavery, a theme she detailed so memorably in ...

The Forever War Dexter Filkins
Filkins, a New York Times prize–winning reporter, is widely regarded as among the finest war correspondents of this generation. His richly textured book is based on his work in Afghanistan and Iraq since 1998. It begins with a Taliban-staged execution in Kabul. It ends with Filkins musing ...

Netherland: A Novel Joseph O'Neill
A Q&A with Joseph O'Neill Joseph O’Neill was born in Ireland and raised in Holland. He received a law degree from Cambridge University and worked as a barrister in London. He writes regularly for The Atlantic Monthly and is the author ...

Unaccustomed Earth Jhumpa Lahiri
The gulf that separates expatriate Bengali parents from their American-raised children...

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals Jane Mayer
This hard-hitting expose examines both the controversial excesses of the war on terror and the home-front struggle to circumvent legal obstacles to its prosecution. New Yorker correspondent Mayer (Strange Justice) details the battle within the Bush Adminis...

2666 - 3-Volume Boxed Set: A Novel Roberto Bolano
It was one thing to read Roberto Bolaño's novel The Savage Detectives last year and have your mind thrilled and expanded by a sexy, meandering masterpiece born whole into the English language. It was still another to read it and know, from ...

Nothing to Be Frightened Of Julian Barnes

This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War Drew Gilpin Faust
Battle is the dramatic centerpiece of Civil War history; this penetrating study looks instead at the somber aftermath. Historian Faust

The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul Patrick French
V.S. Naipaul's biographer aims not to sit in judgment of the Nobel laureate, but to expose the subject with ruthless clarity to the calm eye of the reader. In this he succeeds admirably. Descendant of poor Brahmins, born in 1932 in Trinidad...

Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories Steven Millhauser
Phenomenal clarity and rapacious movement are only two of the virtues of Millhauser's new collection, which focuses on the misery wrought by misdirected human desire and ambition. The citizens who build insulated domes over their houses in ...