Lists of Bests: Washington Post Best Books of 2008 - Non-fiction http://www.listsofbests.com/list/61266 from here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/features/2008/holiday-guide/gifts/best-books-of-2008/ Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:30:39 GMT en-us 0 50 111 50 0 Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, ... With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4112501 <div id="position">1</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4112501"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513lsJmGifL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Roy Blount Jr.</div> Chagall: A Biography http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3710590 <div id="position">2</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Jackie Wullschlager</div> Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5495877 <div id="position">3</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5495877"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31z78ozb1dL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Timothy W. Ryback</div> Fiction http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/2822858 <div id="position">4</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by James Wood</div> Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5408163 <div id="position">5</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5408163"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FYhxywM-L._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Alison Light</div> Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4077274 <div id="position">6</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4077274"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41XKgR89usL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Stanley Plumly</div> Rostropovich: The Musical Life of the Great Cellist, Teacher, and Legend http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4739632 <div id="position">7</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4739632"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51kIA9CBkjL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Elizabeth Wilson</div> The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3343119 <div id="position">8</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3343119"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/01lDD1wn9OL.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by John Stape</div> A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Martin Johnson Heade http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5495977 <div id="position">9</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5495977"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51gPX8NQg4L._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Christopher Benfey</div> White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3824881 <div id="position">10</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Brenda Wineapple</div> Hope and History: A Biography of Alfred Kazin http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/1387169 <div id="position">11</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Richard Cook</div> American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5418065 <div id="position">12</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Jon Meacham</div> Five Easy Decades: How Jack Nicholson Became the Biggest Movie Star in Modern Times http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5351798 <div id="position">13</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Dennis McDougal</div> Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3801078 <div id="position">14</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Paul Mariani</div> Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/329113 <div id="position">15</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Paula J. Giddings</div> Madame de Stael: The First Modern Woman http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4135966 <div id="position">16</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4135966"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517u4B8N8TL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Francine du Plessix Gray</div> The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/2979458 <div id="position">17</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/2979458"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/01jvVahUpeL.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Andrew Lycett</div> The Open Road: The Global Journey of the XIVth Dalai Lama http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/2883823 <div id="position">18</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Pico Iyer</div> A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4067607 <div id="position">19</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Donald Worster</div> The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3667349 <div id="position">20</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3667349"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/019%2B9yli8hL.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Alice Schroeder</div> Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/2947486 <div id="position">21</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/2947486"><img src="http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/11RMBn-HURL.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Tim Jeal</div> The Triumph of FDR: The Life and Times of Franklin Delano Roosevelt http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3452240 <div id="position">22</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by H.W. Brands</div> Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4014487 <div id="position">23</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by James M. McPherson</div> The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3627246 <div id="position">24</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Patrick French</div> The Ascent of Money http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3634496 <div id="position">25</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Niall Ferguson</div> High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4079495 <div id="position">26</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4079495"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41oKnCQ9hUL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Peter Gosselin</div> Payback: Debt as Mental Construct and the Shadow Side of Wealth (CBC Massey Lecture) http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3871729 <div id="position">27</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3871729"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41eyXnk2SuL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Margaret Atwood</div> While America Aged: How Pension Debts Ruined General Motors, Stopped the NYC Subways, Bankrupted San Diego, and Loom as the Next Financial Crisis http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/2986275 <div id="position">28</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Roger Lowenstein</div> America and the World http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5496003 <div id="position">29</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Zbigniew Brzezinski & Brent Scowcroft</div> Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5496004 <div id="position">30</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5496004"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51bnE6P6l6L._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Fred Kaplan</div> Defeat: Why America and Britain Lost Iraq http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5496005 <div id="position">31</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5496005"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51KuvV4U%2B6L._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Jonathan Steele</div> Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5205698 <div id="position">32</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5205698"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51eABNvqBbL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Gary J. Bass</div> The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3730050 <div id="position">33</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Andrew Bacevich</div> American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5479136 <div id="position">34</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5479136"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517HkU1O-rL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Nick Taylor</div> American Transcendentalism: A History http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5175097 <div id="position">35</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5175097"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41IJgImjmDL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Philip F. Gura</div> Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First BlackCongressmen http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3829642 <div id="position">36</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Philip Dray</div> The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3656737 <div id="position">37</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3656737"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/118Hg2lQzUL.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Charles Lane</div> Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950 http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4699373 <div id="position">38</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4699373"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51MHCby8M2L._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore</div> Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3732466 <div id="position">39</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3732466"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/01FQ0wH0uZL.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Ian Kershaw</div> Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4758756 <div id="position">40</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Allen C. Guelzo</div> Prague in Danger: The Years of German Occupation, 1939-45: Memories and History, Terror and Resistance, Theater and Jazz, Film and Poetry, Politics and War http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5496009 <div id="position">41</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5496009"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51c62e98aKL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Peter Demetz</div> Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon: The Forgotten History of an American Shrine http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5354198 <div id="position">42</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5354198"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GvFKPOXtL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Scott E. Casper</div> This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (Vintage Civil War Library) http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4335388 <div id="position">43</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Drew Gilpin Faust</div> Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era, 1829-1877 http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5496014 <div id="position">44</div><div class="place-image-placeholder"><span class="qm">*</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Walter A. Mcdougall</div> Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5353209 <div id="position">45</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/5353209"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51nav9Q08wL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Timothy Brook</div> Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson (American History) http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4585736 <div id="position">46</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4585736"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AtJmYEArL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by David S. Reynolds</div> Audition: A Memoir http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3728867 <div id="position">47</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3728867"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/015KOABb4jL.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Barbara Walters</div> Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4322905 <div id="position">48</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/4322905"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51tJr8qIMFL._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Ted Sorensen</div> From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her Island http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3809220 <div id="position">49</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3809220"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GLkEQx04L._SL75_.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Lorna Goodison</div> Grand Obsession: A Piano Odyssey http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3534722 <div id="position">50</div><div class="item-image" style="padding:3px;float:left;"><a href="http://www.allconsuming.net/item/view/3534722"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/01tqdrj9I6L.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-size: 12px;"> by Perri Knize</div>