2008 Favorite Books

Davina Morgan-Witts, BookBrowse editor

At this time of year, 'best of year' lists start popping up all over the place. Any number of products that can be measured against easily defined and relatively objective criteria lend themselves comfortably to 'best in class' lists. Considering this, it's somewhat ironic that more 'best of year lists' are devoted to books than any other product that I can think of - ironic because it's difficult to imagine a more subjective topic than what defines a good book. Added to which, while it's quite possible for one person to test every toaster on the market, it's impossible for even the most prolific of readers to read more than a tiny fraction of the books published in a year - so are any of us in a position to opine on which are the best?

For this reason, we are steering clear of making 'best of the year' recommendations, favoring instead something a little more modest - a list of our personal favorites. All the books in this year's list have been nominated by one of our reviewers as one of his or her favorite books of the year. This is by no means a complete list but we had to draw the line somewhere, and 25 books in one issue was the line! Browse the list here.