10 Best Books of 2008

Each year, The New York Times names its 100 Notable Books. Then, they short­en the list and name their top ten.

The Times pub­lished 100 Notable Books of 2008 last week­end, and now we have The 10 Best Books of 2008. We’ve list­ed the books below, along with links to the first chap­ter of most works. For more insight into what the book review team found spe­cial about each book, just click here.

Fic­tion

• Dan­ger­ous Laugh­ter: Thir­teen Sto­ries by Steven Mill­hauser (Excerpt)
• A Mer­cy by Toni Mor­ri­son (First Chap­ter)
• Nether­land by Joseph O’Neill (First Chap­ter)
• 2666 by Rober­to Bolaño (Excerpt)
• Unac­cus­tomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (Excerpt)

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 (First Chap­ter)
• Noth­ing to be Fright­ened Of by Julian Barnes (First Chap­ter)
• This Repub­lic of Suf­fer­ing by Drew Gilpin Faust (First Chap­ter)
• The World Is What It Is: The Autho­rized Biog­ra­phy of V. S. Naipaul (First Chap­ter)

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