3 EZ BookWorld THE BEST BOOKS OF 2010
bad books we’ve reviewed throughout the year and to sort through them to find the very best. Applaud, ponder or pan our choices, but please join with us in celebrating another fine year in books.—The Editors
A FEATURES
23TheWriting Life: On finding inspiration in a class full of readers, by Dave Eggers 123The Year in Review, by Stephen Lowman
ALSOINSIDE
43Fiction & Poetry 53Audio books, by Katherine A. Powers 63Home design, by Jura Koncius 63Gift books, by Christopher Schoppa 73Cookbooks, by Bonnie S. Benwick 83Nonfiction 103Children’s books 113Jonathan Yardley’s favorites
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COVER
Andrea Dezsö, a visual artist, aims to create experiences of wonder through intricate drawings, cut paper, embroi- dery, sculpture, installation, animation and large-scale per- manent public art. Dezsö teaches at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She lives in New York City.
www.andreadezso.com
BOOKWORLDSTAFF
EDITOR Rachel Hartigan Shea DEPUTY EDITOR Ron Charles
SENIOR EDITOR Steven Levingston
ART DIRECTORS Kristin Lenz, Carrie Lyle BOOK CRITIC Jonathan Yardley
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Dennis Drabelle EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Christopher Schoppa EDITORIAL AIDE Stephen Lowman
LOCAL AND NATIONAL ADVERTISING SALES KathrynWhitener 202.334.6171 Mike Towle 202.334.7135
Reach us at
bookworld@washpost.com NONFICTION
THE BIG SHORT: Inside the Doomsday Machine, byMichael Lewis (Norton, $27.95). “The Big Short” manages to give us the truest picture yet of what went wrong onWall Street—and why. At times, it reads like a morality play, at other times like a modern-day farce.—Steven Pearlstein
THE DEATH OF AMERICAN VIRTUE: Clinton vs. Starr, by Ken Gormley (Crown, $35). Gormley’s signal contribution is his heroic evenhandedness. All but the most unregenerate partisans should deem this book fair.—David Greenberg
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS, by Rebecca Skloot (Crown, $26). A deftly crafted in- vestigation of a social wrong committed by the medical establishment, as well as the scientific and medical miracles to which it led.—Eric Roston
JUST KIDS, by Patti Smith (Ecco, $27). This beauti- fully written memoir is a haunting elegy for Smith’s soul mate RobertMapplethorpe and a lost NewYork City. One of the best books ever written on becoming an
artist.National Book Award winner.—Elizabeth Hand
THE TIGER: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, by John Vaillant (Knopf, $26.95). This riveting story unfolds in the brutal cold of Russia’s Boreal Forest where a ti- ger has killed a poacher.—Sy Montgomery
FICTION
FAITHFUL PLACE, by Tana French (Viking, $25.95). Two decades after he was supposed to elope with his childhood sweetheart, a Dublin detective learns that her body has been discovered where they used to meet. An elaborately twisted ballad of class resentments, family burdens and passion. —Maureen Corrigan
ROOM, byEmmaDonoghue (Little Brown, $24.99).Using news reports as grim inspiration, Donoghue has invented the abduction of a 19-year- old college student who’s been kept in a sound- proof garden shed for seven years with her young son.—Ron Charles
SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY, by Gary Shteyn- gart (RandomHouse, $26). This absurdist satire follows today’s most ominous trend lines past Twitter and Facebook addiction to a post-literate, consumption-crazed America that abhors books, newspapers and even conversation.—R.C.
TO THE END OF THE LAND, by David Grossman (Knopf, $26.95). An Israeli woman flees her home to avoid learning of her soldier son’s death. A desperate story that somehow does not cause despair, a book about death that stubbornly insists on life. —Donna Rifkind
A VISIT FROMTHE GOON SQUAD, by Jennifer Egan (Knopf, $25.95). Ev- ery movement of this symphony of boomer life plays out through the modern music scene, a white-knuck-
le trajectory of cool, from punk to junk to whatever might lie beyond.—R.C.
ANDREA DEZSÖ
t BookWorld, the arrival of winter means it’s time to reflect on all the powerful, provocative, thrilling, funny, and even
the washington post book world sunday, december 12, 2010 l l
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