Best Books of 2008

Reading is a good habit which opens the mind. For the time spent in reading the writings of another, we are exposed to the structured thoughts of another person. But inasmuch as a good book advances the mentality of its readers, a bad book will potentially poison and malign the thoughts of its readers. Misinformed ideas, malicious misrepresentations, and generally detrimental writing, can survive great wars and become the root of misguided schools of thought. Therefore it is important to select good books. Here are two lists of "Top Books of 2008".

List Compiled By The Economist

Politics and current affairs

1. The Rise and Fall of the Islamic State. By Noah Feldman.
2. A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East. By Lawrence Freedman.
3. Britain Since 1918: The Strange Career of British Democracy. By David Marquand.
4. The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict. By Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes.
5. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. By Jane Mayer.
6. Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror. By Benjamin Wittes.
7. India: The Emerging Giant. By Arvind Panagariya.
8. Dinner with Mugabe: The Untold Story of a Freedom Fighter Who Became a Tyrant. By Heidi Holland.

Economics and Business

1. The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash. By Charles R. Morris.
2. Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State. By Yasheng Huang.
3. When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change. By Mohamed El-Erian.
4. The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World. By Amar Bhidé.
5. The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World. By Tim Harford.
   
6. Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World. By Don Tapscott.
   
7. Globality: Competing with Everyone from Everywhere for Everything.  By Hal Sirkin, Jim Hemerling and Arindam Bhattacharya.
   
8. The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs. By Charles D. Ellis.
   

History

1. The Return of History and the End of Dreams. By Robert Kagan.
   
2. A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World.  By William J. Bernstein.
   
3. Freedom for the Thought that We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment. By Anthony Lewis.
   
4. The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. By Richard Holmes.
5. Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West. By Andrew Roberts.
   
6. Out of Mao’s Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China. By Philip P. Pan.
   
7. Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present. By Jonathan Fenby.
   
8. The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919. By Mark Thompson.
   
9. The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum. By Sarah Wise.
   
10. Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Centre of the World. By Roger Crowley.
    
11. American Rifle: A Biography. By Alexander Rose.
    

Biography

1. Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. By Rick Perlstein.
   
2. The World Is What It Is: The Authorised Biography of V.S. Naipaul. By Patrick French.
   
3. Soul of the Age: A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare. By Jonathan Bate.
   
4. White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson & Thomas Wentworth Higginson. By Brenda Wineapple.
   
5. Chagall: A Biography. By Jackie Wullschlager.
   

Science and Technology

1. The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters.  By Rose George.
   
2. The Princeton Companion to Mathematics. Edited by Timothy Gowers, June Barrow-Green and Imre Leader.
   
3. Bad Science.  By Ben Goldacre.
   
4. The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Duelling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York. By Matthew Goodman.
   
5. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. By Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein.
   
6. Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population. By Matthew Connelly.
   
7. Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets. By Sudhir Venkatesh.
   
   

Culture and Digressions

1. Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth-Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts. By Joseph Horowitz.
   
2. Salon to Biennial: Exhibitions that Made Art History: Volume I, 1863-1959. Edited by Bruce Altshuler.
   
3. The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English. By Henry Hitchings.
   
4. How Fiction Works. By James Wood.
   
5. Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionised American Music. By Ted Gioia.
   
6. Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes. By Ferdinand Mount.

Fiction and Memoirs

1. Sea of Poppies: A Novel. By Amitav Ghosh.
   
2. Breath: A Novel. By Tim Winton.
   
3. Lush Life. By Richard Price.
   
4. The Secret Scripture. By Sebastian Barry.
   
5. Fishing in Utopia: Sweden and the Future That Disappeared. By Andrew Brown.
   
6. The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran. By Hooman Majd.
   
7. Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape.  By Raja Shehadeh.
   
8. The Three of Us: A Family Story. By Julia Blackburn.
   
   

List Compiled By The New York Times

Fiction

1. Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories. By Steven Millhauser.
   
2. A Mercy. By Toni Morrison.
3. Netherland. By Joseph O'Neill.
4. 2666. By Roberto Bolaño. Translated by Natasha Wimmer.
   
5. Unaccustomed Earth. By Jhumpa Lahiri.

Non-Fiction

1. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. By Jane Mayer.
2. The Forever War. By Dexter Filkins.
3. Nothing To Be Frightened Of. By Julian Barnes.
4. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. By Drew Gilpin Faust.
5. The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul. By Patrick French.

Other Lists

If you are buying for a child between the ages of  7 to 18, do check out the top books list of School Library Journal. 

If you like reading classics, do check out Michael Kinsley's list at The Week. 

Manticore Books of Canada also has a selection of compelling and deeply satisfying fiction.