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Year consensus · 2008

The Most Recommended Books of 2008

We counted 2,609 entries from 107 sources in 2008. The Forever War by Dexter Filkins appeared on 12, 1 more than any other book.

A source counts once per book, whatever the result: a win, a shortlist place, or a list pick. We show books named by 3 or more sources. 2008 is the award or list year, not the publication year.

12 sources

  1. The Forever War by Dexter Filkins

11 sources

  1. 2666 by Roberto Bolaño

  2. Lush Life by Richard Price

10 sources

  1. The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul by Patrick French

9 sources

  1. Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan

  2. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer

  3. The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon

8 sources

  1. Home by Marilynne Robinson

  2. The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed

  3. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

  4. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust

  5. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

7 sources

  1. A Mercy by Toni Morrison

  2. Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

  3. Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris

  4. Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

6 sources

  1. Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

  2. How Fiction Works by James Wood

  3. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

  4. Nation by Terry Pratchett

  5. Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein

  6. Nothing to be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes

  7. The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

  8. The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order by Joan Wickersham

5 sources

  1. American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

  2. Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen

  3. Big City, Bad Blood by Sean Chercover

  4. Chagall: A Biography by Jackie Wullschlager

  5. Dangerous Laughter by Steven Millhauser

  6. Graceling by Kristin Cashore

  7. Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America by Thomas L. Friedman

  8. Indignation by Philip Roth

  9. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

  10. Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan

  11. Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner

  12. The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in an American Century by Steve Coll

  13. The Boat by Nam Le

  14. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

  15. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

  16. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

  17. The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

  18. When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson

  19. White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson & Thomas Wentworth Higginson by Brenda Wineapple

4 sources

  1. A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif

  2. A Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H.W. Brands

  3. Anathem by Neal Stephenson

  4. Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency by Barton Gellman

  5. Blood of Paradise by David Corbett

  6. Champlain’s Dream by David Hackett Fischer

  7. Cockroach by Rawi Hage

  8. Disquiet by Julia Leigh

  9. Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives by Jim Sheeler

  10. Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

  11. In the Woods by Tana French

  12. My Revolutions by Hari Kunzru

  13. Nureyev: The Life by Julie Kavanagh

  14. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

  15. Paper Towns by John Green

  16. Soul Patch by Reed Farrel Coleman

  17. Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox

  18. The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

  19. The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie

  20. The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews

  21. The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti

  22. The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary by Candace Fleming

  23. The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life. His Own. by David Carr

  24. The Outcast by Sadie Jones

  25. The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich

  26. The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria

  27. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder

  28. The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz

  29. The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

  30. The Wall: Growing Up behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sís

  31. The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia by Orlando Figes

  32. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

  33. We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson

  34. What It Is by Lynda Barry

  35. What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

3 sources

  1. 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris

  2. A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever by Marla Frazee

  3. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham

  4. An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken

  5. Beijing Coma by Ma Jian

  6. Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd

  7. Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw

  8. Brasyl by Ian McDonald

  9. Breath by Tim Winton

  10. Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson

  11. Day by A. L. Kennedy

  12. Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles

  13. Dictation: A Quartet by Cynthia Ozick

  14. Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

  15. Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang

  16. Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3 by Annie Proulx

  17. For All We Know by Ciaran Carson

  18. Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve

  19. How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz

  20. How the Dead Dream by Lydia Millet

  21. Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg

  22. Impossible: A Novel by Nancy Werlin

  23. Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock

  24. Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

  25. Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum

  26. No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay

  27. Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories by Tobias Wolff

  28. Queenpin by Megan Abbott

  29. Red Dog, Red Dog by Patrick Lane

  30. Serena by Ron Rash

  31. Sorry by Gail Jones

  32. Standard Operating Procedure by Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris

  33. Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers

  34. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

  35. The Eaves of Heaven by Andrew X. Pham

  36. The Finder by Colin Harrison

  37. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

  38. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

  39. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

  40. The Likeness by Tana French

  41. The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd

  42. The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson

  43. The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher

  44. The Origin of Species by Nino Ricci

  45. The Three of Us: A Family Story by Julia Blackburn

  46. The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke

  47. The Underneath by Kathi Appelt

  48. The Watchman by Robert Crais

  49. The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike

  50. The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedländer

  51. Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice by Janet Malcolm

  52. Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson by David S. Reynolds

  53. Watching the Spring Festival: Poems by Frank Bidart

  54. What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

  55. What the World Eats by Faith D’Aluisio

  56. What to Do About Alice?: How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove Her Father Teddy Crazy! by Barbara Kerley and Edwin Fotheringham

  57. What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn

  58. Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America by Paul Tough

  59. When We Were Romans by Matthew Kneale

  60. Yesterday’s Weather by Anne Enright

  61. Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay

Sources counted in 2008