Top Tens of the Year, New York Times, Washington Post and more

The New York Times top ten has become a much bigger deal for booksellers in the last few years. The Times made some tweaks that really made readers take notice. For one thing, they publish a longlist the week before of the Top 100 notable books. They've done this forever, but by giving it the significance of 100, it makes it sound more important.

Today was the official release of the top 10. In the past, the number of editor's choice titles fluctuated, with a number that I think was as low as seven and as high as twelve. Now it's the Ten Best Books of 2008. Much better.

1. Dangerous Laughter: 13 stories, by Stephen Millhauser

2. A Mercy, by Toni Morrison

3. Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill

4. 2666, by Roberto Bolano, in cloth or boxed set

5. Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri

6. The Dark Side, by Jane Mayer

7. The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins

8. Nothing to be Frightened of, by Julian Barnes

9. This Republic of Suffering, by Drew Gilpin Faust
10. The World is What it is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Napaul, by Patrick French.

When we were first sold these titles, only Morrison and Lahiri were slam dunks. We took decent positions (for us, that's a face-out of four to five copies per shop) of O'Neill and Barnes, due to publisher enthusiasm on the first and rep enthusiasm on the second. Our Knopf rep was positively over-the-top on the Barnes. 2666 was a priority book for FSG with its two formats, and so we went a bit bigger on that as well. On the other hand, I was ready to skip the Patrick French biography. Authorized biography of a living writer? I guess that's the hot thing--witness the success of Snowball.

I was a bit surprised to see two books that are effectively on Bush policy. Will people be reading the Filkins and Mayer in ten years? How about in paperback?

Here's a list that will probably not get as much attention, the Washington Post Best Books of the Year for 2008
1. Cost, by Roxana Robinson

2. The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson

3. A Mercy, by Toni Morrison

4. Outlander, by Gil Adamson
5. 2666, by Roberto Bolano, translated by Natasha Wimmer (also boxed set)
6. The Eaves of Heaven, by Andrew X. Pham
7. The Hemingses of Monticello, by Annette Gordon-Reed
8. Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer, by Fred Kaplan
9. One Minute to Midnight, by Michael Dobbs
10. Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, edited by Thomas Travisano with Saskia Hamilton.

I was wondering what happened to Outlander, a book that got amazing reviews and readers, but has been so far shut out of the prizes. Nice to see Hedgehog of course, and several nonfiction books piqued my interest. I enjoyed Pham's Catfish and Mandala years ago, and one of our customers has been excited about the publication of Words in Air for years.

When will the first collected emails collection come out?

One more list, the Books of the Year from The Atlantic:
1. Europe Between the Oceans, by Barry Cunliffe

2. Beethoven was One-Sixteenth Black, stories by Nadine Gordimer

3. Nureyev: The Life, by Julie Kavanagh

4. Austerity Britain: 1945-1951, by David Kynaston

5. Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill

6. Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout.

Yay! Another book on our favorite books list from our Gift Guide. Here's what Ken Favell at our Brookfield shop said about Olive Kitteridge:

An exquisite novel in stories that sparkles with wonderful character
insight. Olive is such a complex lady, a stern New Englander who you
can't help but empathize with. The best book I’ve read this year. What a gem!

Finally, here are Stephen King's Top 10 Books of 2008, as listed in Entertainment Weekly. Mr. King has helped a book along over the years, such as giving a real boost to Kate Atkinson's Case Histories.

1. In Pale Battalions, and other novels by Robert Goddard

2. The Garden of Last Days, by Andre Dubus III

3. When Will There be Good News?, by Kate Atkinson

4. The Tenderness of Wolves, by Stef Penney

5. Nixonland, by Rick Perlstein
6. Heartsick/Sweetheart, by Chelsea Cain (these are two different books)

7. Hollywood Crows, by Joseph Wambaugh

8. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
9. Old Flames, by Jack Ketchum

10. The Good Guy, by Dean Koontz.

Ex-Milwaukeean Perlstein visited Schwartz this fall, and since he still has family here, he might come back in the future. Stephen King called Nixonland the best history of the 60's he's ever read.