New York Times Notable Books 2008
Globe Corner’s Selection of New York Times Notable Books are 15% off unless a higher discount is noted.
Notable Books within their categories in 2008, 15% Off:
The 10 Best Books of 2008
Travel
Fiction
Nonfiction
Design
Gift Books
Cooking
Visual
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The 10 Best Books of 2008
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NETHERLAND
by Joseph O’Neill
In the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction yet about post-9/11 New York and London, the game of cricket provides solace to a man whose family disintegrates after the attacks.
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2666
by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer
The five autonomous sections of this posthumously published novel interlock to form an astonishing whole, a supreme capstone to Bolaño’s vaulting ambition.
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UNACCUSTOMED EARTH
by Jhumpa Lahiri
In eight sensitive stories, Lahiri evokes the anxiety, excitement and transformations felt by Bengali immigrants and their American children.
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THE FOREVER WAR
by Dexter Filkins
Filkins, a New York Times reporter who was embedded with American troops during the attack on Falluja, has written an account of the Iraq war in the tradition of Michael Herr’s Dispatches.
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THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING: Death and the American Civil War
by Drew Gilpin Faust
The lasting impact of the war’s immense loss of life is the subject of this extraordinary account by Harvard’s president.
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THE WORLD IS WHAT IT IS: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul
by Patrick French
French has created a monument fully worthy of its subject, elucidating the enduring but painfully asymmetrical love triangle at the core of Naipaul’s life and work.
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Travel
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My Mercedes Is Not for Sale: From Amsterdam to Ouagadougou…An Auto-Misadventure Across the Sahara
by Jeroen Van Bergeijk
This book captures more than the adventure: it vividly portrays the impact of globalization on Africa through a surprise-filled journey into its thriving car culture.
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Descending the Dragon: My Journey Down The Coast of Vietnam
by Jon Bowermaster
In chapters flowing from north to south, Bowermaster’s highly personal story and Rob Howard’s compelling images bring to life Vietnam’s vibrant edge.
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I’ll Never Be French (No Matter What I Do)
by Mark Greenside
I’ll Never Be French is a charming variation on the theme popularized two decades ago by the British writer Peter Mayle in his Provence series: Anglophone city slicker resettles in French hamlet and confronts domestic mini-disasters and eccentric locals.
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Napoleon and Saint Helena
by Johannes Willms, translated by John Brownjohn
The island–the final place of exile for Napoleon Bonaparte–remains a place of mystery as a unique colonial survivor, with the island’s inhabitants still dependent on the support of the British government.
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Aran Islands and Connemara
by J.M. Synge
Reissued this fall, Synge’s classic travel essays chronicle the harsh, dignified lives of the region’s Gaelic-speaking inhabitants, who survived – barely – by fishing the storm-tossed waters of Galway Bay.
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Blood River: Journey into Africa’s Heart
by Tim Butcher
Blood River is the harrowing and audacious story of Tim Butcher’s journey in the Congo and his retracing of renowned explorer H. M. Stanley’s famous 1874 expedition in which he mapped the Congo River.
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Greasy Rider: Two Dudes One Fry-Oiled Car & a Cross Country Search for a Greener Future
by Greg Melville
Is it possible to drive coast-to-coast without stopping at a single gas pump? Journalist Greg Melville is determined to try. The quest: to be the first people to drive cross-country in a french-fry car.
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Fiction
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BEIJING COMA
By Ma Jian, translated by Flora Drew
Ma’s novel, an important political statement, looks at China through the life of a dissident paralyzed at Tiananmen Square.
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DEAR AMERICAN AIRLINES
by Jonathan Miles
Miles’s fine first novel takes the form of a letter from a stranded traveler, his life a compilation of regrets, who uses the time to digress on an impressive array of cultural issues, large and small.
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FINE JUST THE WAY IT IS: Wyoming Stories 3
by Annie Proulx
These rich, bleak stories offer an American West in which the natural elements are murderous and folks aren’t much better.
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THE LAZARUS PROJECT
by Aleksandar Hemon
This novel’s despairing immigrant protagonist becomes intrigued with the real-life killing of a presumed anarchist in Chicago in 1908.
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NETHERLAND
by Joseph O’Neill
In the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction yet about post-9/11 New York and London, the game of cricket provides solace to a man whose family disintegrates after the attacks.
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THE SCHOOL ON HEART’S CONTENT ROAD
by Carolyn Chute
In Chute’s first novel in nearly 10 years, disparate characters cluster around an off-the-grid communal settlement.
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TELEX FROM CUBA
by Rachel Kushner
In this multilayered first novel, international drifters try to bury pasts that include murder, adultery and neurotic meltdown, even as the Castro brothers gather revolutionaries in the hills.
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2666
by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer
The five autonomous sections of this posthumously published novel interlock to form an astonishing whole, a supreme capstone to Bolaño’s vaulting ambition.
. . .
. . .
UNACCUSTOMED EARTH
by Jhumpa Lahiri
In eight sensitive stories, Lahiri evokes the anxiety, excitement and transformations felt by Bengali immigrants and their American children.
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Nonfiction
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BACARDI AND THE LONG FIGHT FOR CUBA: The Biography of a Cause
by Tom Gjelten
An NPR correspondent paints a vivid portrait of the anti-Castro clan behind the liquor empire.
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CHAMPLAIN’S DREAM
by David Hackett Fischer
Fischer argues that France’s North American colonial success was attributable largely to one remarkable man: Samuel de Champlain.
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CHASING THE FLAME: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World
By Samantha Power
Vieira de Mello, who was killed in Iraq in 2003, embodied both the idealism and the limitations of the United Nations, which he served long and loyally.
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DELTA BLUES: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music
By Ted Gioia
Gioia’s survey balances the story of the music with that of its reception.
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DREAMS AND SHADOWS: The Future of the Middle East
By Robin Wright
This fluent and intelligent book describes the struggles of people from Morocco to Iran to reform or replace long-entrenched national regimes.
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FACTORY GIRLS: From Village to City in a Changing China
by Leslie T. Chang
Chang’s engrossing account delves deeply into the lives of young migrant workers in southern China.
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THE FOREVER WAR
by Dexter Filkins
Filkins, a New York Times reporter who was embedded with American troops during the attack on Falluja, has written an account of the Iraq war in the tradition of Michael Herr’s Dispatches.
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HOT, FLAT, AND CROWDED: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America
by Thomas L. Friedman
The Times columnist turns his attention to possible business – friendly solutions to global warming.
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THE HOUSE AT SUGAR BEACH: In Search of a Lost African Childhood
by Helene Cooper
Cooper, a New York Times reporter who fled a warring Liberia as a child, returned to confront the ghosts of her past—and to look for a lost sister.
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THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD
by Fareed Zakaria
This relentlessly intelligent examination of power focuses less on American decline than on the rise of China, trailed by India.
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THE SUPERORGANISM: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies
by Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson
The central conceit of this astonishing study is that an insect colony is a single animal raised to a higher level.
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THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING: Death and the American Civil War
by Drew Gilpin Faust
The lasting impact of the war’s immense loss of life is the subject of this extraordinary account by Harvard’s president.
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TRAFFIC: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us)
by Tom Vanderbilt
A surprising, enlightening look at the psychology of the human beings behind the steering wheels.
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A VOYAGE LONG AND STRANGE: Rediscovering the New World
By Tony Horwitz
An accessible popular history of early America, with plenty of self-tutoring and colorful reporting.
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THE WILD PLACES
By Robert Macfarlane
Macfarlane’s unorthodox British landscapes are furrowed with human histories and haunted by literary prophets.
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THE WORLD IS WHAT IT IS: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul
by Patrick French
French has created a monument fully worthy of its subject, elucidating the enduring but painfully asymmetrical love triangle at the core of Naipaul’s life and work.
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Design
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ON ARCHITECTURE: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change
by Ada Louise Huxtable
Ms. Huxtable invented architecture criticism as we know it. In the process she brought architecture out into the public consciousness with articles that were invested with an unflappable moral authority.
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Gift Books
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ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES: The Illustrated Edition
by Charles Darwin, edited and with an introduction by David Quammen
Now, for the first time, Darwin’s classic is fully and handsomely illustrated with more than 350 illustrations and photos, many of them in brilliant color.
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BIRDSCAPES: A Pop-Up Celebration of Bird Songs in Stereo Sound
by Miyoko Chu with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
This unique work includes seven elaborately engineered full-color pop-ups portraying dozens of bird species as well as extended recordings of the birds’ calls and songs.
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Cooking
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Cuisine À Latina: Fresh Tastes & a World of Flavors from Michy’s Miami Kitchen
by Michelle Bernstein
Bernstein’s Latin food is unlike any that you’ve probably tasted. Full of flavor, it is familiar but exciting — vividly seasoned but not fiery hot, with touches that reflect the casual vivacity of Miami.
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Olives & Oranges: Recipes & Flavor Secrets from Italy, Spain, Cyprus, & Beyond
by Sarah Jenkins and Mindy Fox
By the time she was a teenager, Jenkins had lived all over the Mediterranean, in cosmopolitan cities and in rural hamlets. In Olives & Oranges, she shares the simple, striking dishes she learned at the source.
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American Cheeses: The Best Regional, Artisan, & Farmhouse Cheeses
by Clark Wolf
Wolf gives us an in-depth look at the art and craft of cheese across the United States, and documents in words and beautiful black-and-white photographs the story of the talented and committed women and men who create this dairy ambrosia.
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The Complete Robuchon
by Joel Robuchon
Robuchon gives us his supremely authoritative renditions of virtually the entire French culinary repertoire, adapted for the home cook and the contemporary palate. Here are more than 800 precise, easy-to-follow, step-by-step recipes.
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A Day at elBulli
by Ferran Adria
Situated on a remote beach in Spain, elBulli is a restaurant famous for being the ultimate pilgrimage site for foodies. For the first time, the renowned restaurant and its remarkable chef–and his menus–are showcased in a stunning book.
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Eat, Memory: Great Writers at the Table, A Collection of Essays from the New York Times
edited by Amanda Hesser
New York Times Magazine food editor Amanda Hesser has showcased the food-inspired recollections of some of America’s leading writers in the magazine. Eat, Memory collects the twenty-six best stories and recipes to accompany them.
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Made in Spain: Spanish Dishes for America Kitchen
by Jose Andres
Americans have fallen in love with Spanish food in recent years, and no one has done more to play matchmaker than the award-winning chef Jose Andres.
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Visual
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In the Footsteps of Abraham: The Holy Land in Hand-Painted Photographs
Reproduces hundreds of hand-colored photographs taken during the 1920’s by the Matson Photo Agency, which was run by American Christian expatriates in Jerusalem.
