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Best Books of 2008

Editors' Picks: Top 50 Books

It took us almost a whole year of reading to find our favourite book of 2008: Philip Hensher's The Northern Clemency, a late addition to the fall publication schedule after it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. A fat and fulfilling novel of two families in Sheffield, England, during the '70s, '80s, and '90s, The Northern Clemency inhabits the lives of more than a dozen characters with the kind of brilliant observation and imagination that reminded us of recent favourites like The Corrections, The Emperor's Children, and On Beauty.

You can browse through all our top 50 editors' picks for 2008 below, and find many more editors' picks and customer favourites in our Best of 2008 Store.


Showing 29 - 50 of 50 Results
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29. The White Tiger: A Novel
The White Tiger: A Novel
Aravind Adiga
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Free Press
Oct 14 2008
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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A brutal view of India's class struggles is cunningly presented in Adiga's debut about a racist, homicidal chauffer. Balram Halwai is from the Darkness, born where India's downtrodden and unlucky are destined to rot. Balram manages to escap... Read more

30. Dark Days
Dark Days
Kerry Pither
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Viking Canada
Aug 26 2008
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Quill & Quire
It’s a sad comment on the human condition that moral issues thought to have been settled by the grim experience of history are frequently dredged up and reopened for debate. Take, for example, the recent shift in global discourse about torture, which was for a time considered taboo in ... Read more

31. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Mary Ann Shaffer
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The Dial Press
July 29 2008
Hardcover

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From Publishers Weekly
The letters comprising this small charming novel begin in 1946, when single, 30-something author Juliet Ashton (nom de plume Izzy Bickerstaff) writes to her publisher to say she is tired of covering the sunny side of war and its aftermath. When Guernsey fa... Read more

32. The Enchantress of Florence
The Enchantress of Florence
Salman Rushdie
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Knopf Canada
April 8 2008
Hardcover

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Amazon.ca
Trying to describe a Salman Rushdie novel is like trying to describe music to someone who has never heard it--you can fumble with a plot summary but you won't be able to convey the wonder of his dazzling prose or the imaginative complexity of his vision. A... Read more

33. Bottomfeeder
Bottomfeeder
Taras Grescoe
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HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Oct 10 2008
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Review
In this whirlwind, worldwide tour of fisheries, Grescoe (The Devil's Picnic) whiplashes readers from ecological devastation to edible ecstasy and back again. In disturbing detail, he depicts the turbid and murky Chesapeake Bay, where, with overharvested oy... Read more

34. The Monster of Florence
The Monster of Florence
Douglas Preston
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Grand Central Publishing
Jun 10 2008
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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. United in their obsession with a grisly Italian serial murder case almost three decades old, thriller writer Preston (coauthor, ... Read more

35. The Killing Circle
The Killing Circle
Andrew Pyper
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Doubleday Canada
Aug 5 2008
Hardcover

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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this extraordinary thriller from Canadian author Pyper (... Read more

36. An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century
An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century
James Orbinski
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Doubleday Canada
April 4 2008
Hardcover

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Review
“Thoughtful and passionate.” — The Globe and Mail“With vivid personal anecdote, Orbinski chronicles the struggle around humanitarian intervention in one hotspot after another across the planet. In a narrative of grace and power, he displays the intense components of his remarkable life: integrity, compassion and principle. He is undaunted ... Read more

37. The Night of the Gun: A reporter investigates the darkest story of his life. His own.
The Night of the Gun: A reporter investigates the darkest story of his life. His own.
David Carr
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Simon & Schuster
Aug 5 2008
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From Publishers Weekly
An intriguing premise informs Carr's memoir of drug addiction... Read more

38. What It Is
What It Is
Lynda Barry
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Drawn & Quarterly
April 23 2008
Hardcover

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Review
Praise for Lynda Barry:“Barry is, underneath the wonky handwriting and the quirky, naïve drawings, a great memoirist . . . Like [Tobias] Wolff and [Dave] Eggers, she finds a tone that accommodates self-criticism and self-irony without tipping over into self-loathing . . . but what she is particularly good ... Read more

39. Telex from Cuba: A Novel
Telex from Cuba: A Novel
Rachel Kushner
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Scribner
July 1 2008
Hardcover

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From Publishers Weekly
Kushner's colorful, character-driven debut succinctly captures the essence of life for a gilded circle of American expats in pre-Castro Cuba, chronicling a m... Read more

40. The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Soccer
The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Soccer
David Goldblatt
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Riverhead Books
Jan 1 2008
Paperback

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41. More Information Than You Require
More Information Than You Require
John Hodgman
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Riverhead (HC)
Oct 21 2008
Hardcover

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Product Description
The bestselling author of The Areas of My Expertise--also known as The Daily Show's "Resident Expert" and the PC in the iconic Mac ads--picks up exactly where his first book left off. Exactly.Like its predecessor, MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU REQUIRE compiles incredibly handy made up facts into brief articles, ... Read more

42. Atmospheric Disturbances and Other Sad Meteorological Phenomena
Atmospheric Disturbances and Other Sad Meteorological Phenomena
Rivka Galchen
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HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
May 20 2008
Hardcover

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Amazon.ca
Imagine what it might be like to realize that the person you love is, in fact, not the person you love but a doppelg... Read more

43. Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood
Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood
Mark Harris
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Tantor Media
Mar 3 2008
Audio CD

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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. While one might think that the films discussed in this book have been thoroughly plumbed (... Read more

44. My Revolutions
My Revolutions
Hari Kunzru
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Dutton
Feb 5 2008
Hardcover

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Product Description
Critics have compared him to Martin Amis, Zadie Smith, Tom Wolfe, and Don DeLillo. Granta dubbed him ... Read more

45. The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead
The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead
David Shields
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Knopf
Feb 5 2008
Hardcover

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From Publishers Weekly
Inspired by the immense vitality of his 90-something father, author Shields (Body Politic: The Great American Sports Machine) looks at the arc of a human life in order to come to terms with mortality. Organized into four stages of life-infancy and childhoo... Read more

46. How Jesus Became Christian: St. Paul, the Early Church and the Jesus Cover-up
How Jesus Became Christian: St. Paul, the Early Church and the Jesus Cover-up
Barrie Wilson
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Random House Canada
Mar 18 2008
Hardcover

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From Publishers Weekly
Of the making of Jesus books there appears to be no end. Although Wilson, professor of religious studies at Toronto's York University, treads familiar ground already covered by Geza Vermes in ... Read more

47. The Monsters Of Templeton
The Monsters Of Templeton
Lauren Groff
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Hyperion
Oct 22 2008
Paperback

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Amazon.ca
On the very morning Willie Upton slinks home to Templeton, New York (after a calamitous affair with her archeology professor), the 50-foot-long body of a monster floats from the depths of the town's lake. This unsettling coincidence sets the stage for one ... Read more

48. Sweetheart: A Thriller
Sweetheart: A Thriller
Chelsea Cain
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Minotaur Books
Sep 2 2008
Hardcover

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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In Cain's superb follow-up to Heartsick, damaged detective Archie Sheridan is back home in Portland, Ore., trying to resume a normal life. Archie's ties to serial killer Gretchen Lowell still run deep, even if he's stopped their weekly visits in prison. Meanwhile, reporter Susan Ward is finishing ... Read more

49. Perfumes
Perfumes
Luca Turin
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Viking USA
April 15 2008
Hardcover

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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Less a guide in the sense of helping people choose the perfect fragrance than a wide-ranging, critical review of some 1,200 perfumes, both famous and obscure, this comprehensive book is unfailingly entertaining. A collaboration between Turi... Read more

50. The Gargoyle
The Gargoyle
Andrew Davidson
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Random House Canada
Aug 5 2008
Hardcover

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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. At the start of Davidson's powerful debut, the unnamed narrator, a coke-addled pornographer, drives his car off a mountain road in a part of the country that's never specified. During his painful recovery from horrific burns suffered in the... Read more

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