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The Boston Globe Best Books of the Year 2008

The Boston Globe Best Books of the Year 2008 names 21 books across 2 categories. 10 of them also won or were shortlisted for an award.

Fiction

  1. A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanifsource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Fall of Frost by Brian Hallsource (opens in a new tab)
  3. Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghoshsource (opens in a new tab)
  4. The Girl of His Dreams by Donna Leonsource (opens in a new tab)
  5. The Night Following by Morag Josssource (opens in a new tab)
  6. The Rain Before It Falls by Jonathan Coesource (opens in a new tab)
  7. The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barrysource (opens in a new tab)
  8. The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslamsource (opens in a new tab)
  9. The White Tiger by Aravind Adigasource (opens in a new tab)
  10. To Siberia by Per Pettersonsource (opens in a new tab)
  11. What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynnsource (opens in a new tab)
  12. When We Were Romans by Matthew Knealesource (opens in a new tab)
  13. When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinsonsource (opens in a new tab)

Nonfiction

  1. A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Martin Johnson Heade by Christopher Benfeysource (opens in a new tab)
  2. The Forever War by Dexter Filkinssource (opens in a new tab)
  3. The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reedsource (opens in a new tab)
  4. The Paradise of All These Parts: A Natural History of Boston by John Hanson Mitchellsource (opens in a new tab)
  5. The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order by Joan Wickershamsource (opens in a new tab)
  6. The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowellsource (opens in a new tab)
  7. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faustsource (opens in a new tab)
  8. Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief by James M. McPhersonsource (opens in a new tab)

About the The Boston Globe Best Books of the Year

The Globe's year-end Fiction and Nonfiction critics' picks. Picks from the same year-end package for mystery, poetry, sports, graphic novels, science, New England, children's, middle grade, and young adult books are left out. 2006-2009 lists are the boxed title lists that ran with the year-end fiction and nonfiction essays on boston.com. In 2011 and 2014 each section was the combined picks of two or three critics; books picked by more than one critic appear once. Missing years: no 2010 adult list could be found in the Wayback Machine (only a children's list was archived). No list is ranked. bostonglobe.com robots.txt blocks AI crawlers, so no Globe page was fetched directly: Globe pages were read through Wayback Machine captures, and the 2022-2024 lists were read from the Flourish card embeds the Globe pages load. Secondary sources: yearendlists.com copies of the 2020-2025 lists were used to cross-check counts and to correct three page typos (Walter Mosley, Natasha Trethewey, and the title Loved and Missed). Other page typos were corrected against existing catalog entries (Tenth of December, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Jodi Kantor) and against the publisher listing for Helon Habila's Travelers. The 2016 list files Svetlana Alexievich's Secondhand Time under Fiction, as the Globe did.

Organization: The Boston Globe. Official site (opens in a new tab)

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