The Economist
The Economist Books of the Year 2010
The Economist Books of the Year 2010 names 44 books across 7 categories. 22 of them also won or were shortlisted for an award.
Biography and memoir
- Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) With Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotessource (opens in a new tab)
- Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feudssource (opens in a new tab)
- The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiecesource (opens in a new tab)
- The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritancesource (opens in a new tab)
Culture
- McGilchrist's Greek Islandssource (opens in a new tab)
- Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theatresource (opens in a new tab)
- Sweetness and Blood: How Surfing Spread from Hawaii and California to the Rest of the World, With Some Unexpected Resultssource (opens in a new tab)
- Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languagessource (opens in a new tab)
Economics and business
- High Financier: The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburgsource (opens in a new tab)
- More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of the New Elitesource (opens in a new tab)
- The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machinesource (opens in a new tab)
Fiction
- Freedomsource (opens in a new tab)
- Human chainsource (opens in a new tab)
- Mr Peanutsource (opens in a new tab)
- Parrot and Olivier in Americasource (opens in a new tab)
- Selected Storiessource (opens in a new tab)
- The Imperfectionistssource (opens in a new tab)
- The Unnamedsource (opens in a new tab)
- To the End of the Landsource (opens in a new tab)
- White Egrets: Poemssource (opens in a new tab)
History
- A History of the World in 100 Objectssource (opens in a new tab)
- A World on Fire: An Epic History of Two Nations Dividedsource (opens in a new tab)
- Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalinsource (opens in a new tab)
- Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962source (opens in a new tab)
- Pearl Buck in China: Journey to the Good Earthsource (opens in a new tab)
- Red Plenty: Industry! Progress! Abundance! Inside the Fifties' Soviet Dreamsource (opens in a new tab)
- The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migrationsource (opens in a new tab)
- Why the West Rules—For Now: The Patterns of History and What They Reveal About the Futuresource (opens in a new tab)
Politics and current affairs
- Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factorysource (opens in a new tab)
- Curfewed Night: One Kashmiri Journalist's Frontline Account of Life, Love and War in his Homelandsource (opens in a new tab)
- Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetimesource (opens in a new tab)
- Molotov's Magic Lantern: A Journey in Russian Historysource (opens in a new tab)
- The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obamasource (opens in a new tab)
- The Fear: The Last Days of Robert Mugabesource (opens in a new tab)
- The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulerssource (opens in a new tab)
- The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children's Future—and Why They Should Give it Backsource (opens in a new tab)
- The Rule of Lawsource (opens in a new tab)
- The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance Statesource (opens in a new tab)
Science and technology
- A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warmingsource (opens in a new tab)
- Biology is Technology: The Promise, Peril, and New Business of Engineering Lifesource (opens in a new tab)
- The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancersource (opens in a new tab)
- The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolvessource (opens in a new tab)
- What Technology Wantssource (opens in a new tab)
- Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovationsource (opens in a new tab)
About the The Economist Books of the Year
The Economist's annual books-of-the-year round-up, published in late November or early December. One list a year, split into the paper's own sections. Section names drift, so they are folded into seven: Politics and current affairs, Biography and memoir, History, Economics and business, Science and technology, Culture, and Fiction. Culture covers "Culture and digressions", "Culture, society and travel", "Culture and ideas", "Culture and the arts" and similar names. Fiction includes the 2006-2008 "Fiction and memoirs" section and the 2010-2012 poetry sections. The 2024 "Science and health" section is filed under Science and technology and "Business, economics and technology" under Economics and business. Left out: the 2025 Food (cookbooks) section, lists of books by Economist staff, and the mid-year "best books so far" lists. Edited volumes credit the editor the page names. Titles drop a trailing ": A Novel". No list is ranked. economist.com disallows Claude-User in robots.txt, so 2006-2023 pages were read through Wayback Machine copies; the 2007 list is the old displayStory URL because no capture of its newer URL was found. Every 2024 and 2025 Wayback copy is cut off by the paywall, so those lists come from yearendlists.com, which matched the Economist pages title for title for 2021-2023. The 2023 page misprints Claire Kilroy's "Soldier Sailor" as "Solider Sailor"; the yearendlists spelling is used.
Organization: The Economist. Official site (opens in a new tab)