New York Times publishes 10 Best Books of 2008 list

Last week, The New York Times unveiled its "10 Best Books of 2008" list, and seven of the selections were published by Random House imprint Alfred A. Knopf. The sweep is not exactly surprising, as Knopf sits at the upper echelon of literary publishers; but if you take this 7/10 domination and include the ownership that came with the recent restructuring of Random House, two of the remaining three are from the Knopf/Doubleday Publishing Group.

The lone non-Knopf publication is 2666 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), an apocalyptic meta-detective novel by the late Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño. 2666 joins Toni Morrison's slavery story A Mercy and Joseph O'Neill's Booker-nominated Netherland as the more media-hyped selections. Rounding out the fiction section are Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth,  a modern portrait of Bengali-American life, and Steven Millhauser's book of 13 otherworldly short stories, Dangerous Laughter.

Of the nonfiction titles, two are National Book Award finalists: Drew Gilpin Faust's exploration on the legacy of the American Civil War, This Republic of Suffering, and Jane Mayer's The Dark Side, a look at the Bush Administration policies that led to Guantánamo Bay. The other three Knopf products include Dexter Filkins' The Forever War (a collection of "War on Terror" vignettes), Julian Barnes' Nothing to Be Frightened Of (a memoir about dead and the religious dilemma), and Patrick French's The World Is What It Is (the authorized biography of writer V.S. Naipaul).

Knopf has compiled a fairly comprehensive site marking this year's best-of-books lists from all the major publications. Click here to explore 2008 favorites, from Publisher's Weekly and NPR, to Entertainment Weekly and Amazon. And while you're at it, don't miss out on Paste's annual celebrity writer/Signs of Life in Books list.

Related links:
The New York Times: The 10 Best Books of 2008
Features: Signs of Life 2008: The Best Books We Read This Year
Dead Celebrity Author of the Month: Roberto Bolaño

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