Best Books 2004

Another year, another best books list. And such lists certainly can stir controversy. This year's National Book Award (NBA) nominees in fiction were decreed too precious by many publishing and media folk, who promptly turned around and chided the New York Times for a best books list boasting all the usual suspects—including titles they might have expected to see on the NBA roster. Interestingly, LJ departs completely from both the NBA and the Times in its fiction choices and shares only one nonfiction pick with the latter, which shows you just how subjective awards can be. We're not trying to stir up controversy, just a passion for reading, and we believe that our list includes the most persuasive books published this year—regardless of hype. As usual, we return with a list of this year's best genre fiction, and we are introducing something new: a list of best how-to titles, drawn from our various columns, that we believe will help librarians enhance their collections.

Algonquin. ISBN 1-56512-421-9. $21.95. Journalist Almond went in search of the gooey bonds that candy wrought in childhood—and came up with this addictive memoir cum profile of a mom-and-pop candy business. The author doesn't have just a king-sized sweet tooth, he has a bona fide obsession. Readers will cheer his shameless search for that big sugar high. (LJ 2/15/04)

ANDERSON, JON LEE. The Fall of Baghdad. Penguin Pr: Penguin Putnam. ISBN 1-59420-034-3. $24.95. In one of the few works of timeless reportage to emerge from the American war in Iraq, this study by New Yorker writer Anderson profiles Iraqis under Saddam just before the invasion, then calmly describes life and death in the city as the shells rain down. This work of masterly narrative compression, complexity, and great sadness should outlive heavier-handed books, pro or con. (LJ 10/1/04)

ANGELL, MARCIA, M.D. The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What To Do About It. Random. ISBN 0-375-50846-5. $24.95. U.S. drugmakers blame high prices on research and development expenses, but this important exposé by the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine reveals the cold, hard truth: pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing old drugs than on developing new ones. They also lavish huge sums on lobbying Congress, pressuring the FDA, and influencing doctors. Let's hope Angell's book will do for Big Pharma what Upton Sinclair's The Jungle did for meatpacking. (LJ 7/04)

BRAGG, MELVYN. The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language. Arcade, dist. by Little, Brown. ISBN 1-55970-710-0. $27.95. Every language has a story, but after reading this book none will seem as adventurous as that of English. Just how did it become such a spectacular success, wonders British novelist/commentator Bragg. He then delivers a compulsively readable account of how the billion-tongued language first arrived "on the scene like a fury from hell" and evolved over centuries to emerge triumphantly universal today. (LJ 5/1/04)

CLARKE, SUSANNA. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Bloomsbury. ISBN 1-58234-416-7. $27.95. A cathedral that speaks. A fleet of rain ships. Who says that there was no magic left in Merrie Olde England? First novelist Clarke provides an astonishing tale about two magicians during the Napoleonic Wars who seek to restore English magic to its former glory. A tour de force blending imaginative fantasy and realistic historical fiction. (LJ 8/04)

CONLON, EDWARD. Blue Blood. Riverhead: Putnam. ISBN 1-57322-266-6. $26.95. A fourth-generation NYPD officer who came to the beat by way of Harvard, Conlon presents the inner life of a patrolman with eloquence, poise, honesty, and not a trace of blue-brotherhood defensiveness. He doesn't tell you that you can't understand a cop's life; he just describes it perfectly. The result is both a family memoir and a social history of New York City and its "Finest." (LJ 4/1/04)

COOPER, MARTHA. Hip Hop Files: Photographs 1979–1984. From Here to Fame Publishing, dist. by powerHouse. ISBN 3-937946-00-4. $39.95. Graffiti-blasted subway cars, electrifying feats of b-boys and b-girls—these and other images lay woefully unpublished until a German fan came knocking on Cooper's door. This first in a projected trilogy celebrates the largely unknown photographer while bringing to life New York City's nascent hip-hop scene before rap ruled. Crucial to the book's success is its artful design, which fuses words and pictures to create a seamless artifact.

DE BERNIRES, LOUIS. Birds Without Wings. Knopf. ISBN 1-4000-4341-7. $25.95. A chorus of distinctive voices tells the story of Muslims and Orthodox Christians coexisting cheerfully in a small Anatolian village until World War I shatters their idyll and Turkey is wrenched into the 20th century. As rich and dense as a cup of Turkish coffee, this novel lasts a lot longer and will satisfy anyone looking for an absorbing read. From the talented author of Corelli's Mandolin. (LJ 9/15/04)

DUNN, SARAH. The Big Love. Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-73815-8. $21.95. Sure, the basic chick-lit elements are here: single girl gets dumped by boyfriend and is passed over for job promotion. But substance triumphs over fashionista style in Dunn's witty, sympathetic portrait of a young woman struggling to overcome her oppressive evangelical Christian upbringing as she navigates the treacherous waters of romance. Besides, Dunn's observations on unmarried men ("surely, not every dented can is bad, or they wouldn't be allowed to sell them, right?") are hilarious. (LJ7/04)

FLYNN, NICK. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. Norton. ISBN 0-393-05139-0. $23.95. Poet Flynn writes in exacting fragments about his beyond-broken family. An estranged, alcoholic father with dreams of being a writer looms large, but trust us: you haven't read this story before. Flynn eschews melodrama and self-pity for the straight facts, which are powerful enough in themselves. Literature, it's clear, saved this boy's life. (LJ 9/1/04)

FORTEY, RICHARD. Earth: An Intimate History. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-40626-3. $30. Famed paleontologist Fortey is the best kind of tour guide: he's knowledgeable and passionate about his subject. Here he takes us around the world, from Italy's Mount Vesuvius to the Hawaiian islands, to demonstrate how the plate tectonics that formed Earth as we know it also shaped human history. (LJ 11/15/04)

GREENBLATT, STEPHEN. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. Norton. ISBN 0-393-05057-2. $26.95. To appreciate what Shakespeare has left behind, one need only have a love of the written word. But to understand Shakespeare himself, one must understand Elizabethan England—and be able to imagine freely, as much of Shakespeare's life remains a mystery. Such is the premise of this awe-inspiring biography, in which Harvard professor Greenblatt leaves no stone unturned and no reader unimpressed as he shows us "Will in the world." (LJ 8/04)

GREER, ANDREW SEAN. The Confessions of Max Tivoli. Farrar. ISBN 0-374-12871-5. $23. Poor Max. He's born old and grows younger with the years, looking like an elderly midget at age six and a little boy at age 60. Just a clever conceit? In fact, Greer's work is an elegant meditation on loss, loneliness, and our persistent inability to connect. An utterly engaging fable. (LJ 2/1/04)

GRUSHKIN, PAUL DENNIS KING. Art of Modern Rock: The Poster Explosion. Chronicle. ISBN 0-8118-4529-X. $75; until 2/28, $60. If ever there was evidence that squeegees are as cool as guitars, this sequel to Art of Rock is it. Displayed here are the more than 1800 rock'n'roll posters amassed by Grushkin and King, documenting a retina-tickling international movement that would have Warhol Day-Glo green with envy. Artists as varied as Frank Kozik and Leia Bell get the presentation they deserve in a virtual gallery produced with love and precision by two hardcore collectors.

HAMILTON, MASHA. The Distance Between Us. Unbridled. ISBN 1-932961-02-X. $24.95. A foreign correspondent loses her colleague/lover to an ambush in Lebanon, then takes a good look at the suffering around her as she considers revenge. Exquisitely told with contained but evident passion, this slim volume succeeds where larger novels have failed in delineating the anguish of the Middle East. Herself a former correspondent, Hamilton speaks with authority. (LJ11/1/04)

HENIG, ROBIN MARANTZ. Pandora's Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution. Houghton. ISBN 0-618-22415-7. $25. In 1973, when a New York hospital administrator stopped an experiment that might have led to the world's first test tube baby, in vitro fertilization was thought to be the first step down the "slippery slope" to genetic engineering. Explaining why this didn't happen, Henig's lively, engrossing history also argues that "slippery slope" fears shouldn't block future research in controversial areas like embryonic stem cells. (LJ 1/04)

KABASERVICE, GEOFFREY. The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment. Holt. ISBN 0-8050-6762-0. $27.50. Kabaservice considers four influential friends who held together the liberal establishment during the superheated Sixties. The story pivots on Yale president Brewster while following McGeorge Bundy, Cyrus Vance, and John Lindsay. A wonderful account as seen from the era's vital center. (LJ 2/15/04)

LANSKY, AARON. Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books. Algonquin. ISBN 1-56512-429-4. $24.95. How does a man in his twenties rescue every abandoned Yiddish-language book he can get his hands on? He starts with a deep admiration for the Yiddish culture, an awareness that it could vanish, and enough energy to crisscross countries and continents. Twenty-five years and 1.5 million salvaged books later, Lansky retells his remarkable story in this inspired memoir. (LJ 11/1/04)

MEHTA, SUKETU. Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-40372-8. $27.95. In Mehta's able hands, Bombay is transformed from a mere flap of earth on India's western coast to a living, breathing character, a shimmering prism refracting the light and lives of its inhabitants. With a journalist's precision and a novelist's descriptive flair, Mehta details the city's gangsters, policemen, go-go dancers, and Bollywood stars. Part travelog, part cultural history, this vibrant portrait is greater than the sum of its parts. (LJ 9/15/04)

MITCHELL, DAVID. Cloud Atlas. Random. ISBN 0-375-50725-6. pap. $14.95. A plot that moves silkily from a wily physician on an 1850s voyage to a sardonic young musician who insinuates himself into a master composer's household to a 1970s gossip columnist who finally goes for a real story—and then reverses itself? This novel may sound like a thought experiment, but it reads like the most engrossing saga, with fresh and vivid language. (LJ 6/15/04)

MONTIFIORE, SIMON SEBAG. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. Knopf. ISBN 1-4000-4230-5. $30. Montefiore wades into the opened Soviet archives to deepen our picture of the notorious Joseph Stalin, finding a more subtle mind behind the familiar image of the "oafish philistine" who bullied his way to Soviet control. Through use of Stalin's letters and other writings, the author makes the thin-skinned, malevolent dictator seem more human without lessening the enormity of his crimes. In an era flooded with new scholarship, this is the definitive life. (LJ 5/1/04)

MURRAY, NICHOLAS. Kafka: A Biography. Yale Univ. ISBN 0-300-10631-9. $30. Anyone who has read Kafka's guilt-laden stories could easily define the ubiquitous term Kafkaesque. But it takes a perceptive and passionate scholar to deliver a biography that captures Kafka's indelible genius and inspiring genuineness. Even if future scholars unravel more detail, they will face the formidable challenge of making their accounts as engrossing as this. (LJ11/1/04)

NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON TERRORIST ATTACKS. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Norton. ISBN 0-393-06041-1. $19.95. One need not endorse every recommendation in this expansive analysis to concede its unusual narrative power. Given the familiarity of the horrific events it rehearses, this work is impressive for compelling us to read what we don't want to remember. Clearly the most influential book of the year, a controversial yet compelling work whose recommendations were still being debated in Congress at press time.

PERROTTA, TOM. Little Children. St. Martin's. ISBN 0-312-31571-6. $24.95. To call Perrotta's protagonists "little children" might be an insult to children—his married suburban thirtysomethings go beyond self-indulgence the summer a convicted child molester moves back to town. Adultery, among other crimes, is committed, yet Perrotta (Election) elicits a powerful empathy: bad things really do happen to good people. (LJ 2/15/04)

RHODES, RICHARD. John James Audubon: The Making of an American. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-41412-6. $30. You've seen the drawings, but do you truly know the man? Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb) recounts Audubon's life in America, using as backdrop major events of his time—the War of 1812, the Louisiana Purchase, and skirmishes with Native Americans. This juxtaposition heightens the painter's considerable charisma without ignoring his faults, and Audubon emerges as a fully fledged human being. (LJ 9/15/04)

SATRAPI, MARJANE. Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return. Pantheon. ISBN 0-375-42288-9. $17.95. Satrapi's debut, Persepolis, told the story of her childhood; now we have her coming of age. We pick up with Marjane in Vienna, after she has fled Tehran's brutal Islamic regime. Familiar teenage traumas—boy trouble, fitting in—mingle with the more harrowing—Marjane's sense of belonging to no place exactly. Simplicity is strength here, as Marjane's tale unfurls in striking black-and-white images. (LJ 9/1/04)

SEDARIS, DAVID. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-14346-4. $24.95. Funnyman Sedaris is back with more pithy and poignant essays on his life as an outcast. Here he is befriending a deranged nine-year-old kleptomaniac; here he is gobbling up all his Halloween candy in one gooey gulp to avoid sharing it with the weird neighborhood kids; here he is trying to pick up the pieces of his sister Tiffany's fractured life. Heartbreakingly funny or just plain heartbreaking, Sedaris offers up another winner. (LJ 6/15/04)

Sophie Calle: Did You See Me? Prestel. ed. by Christine Macel & others. ISBN 3-7913-3035-7. $79. Designed by the artist, this gorgeous retrospective of Calle's career is itself an art object. Printed on seven different types of paper, with pink pages both dividing and uniting sections, it comprises Calle's best-known conceptual works, and like them is at once sumptuous, arresting, random, and endlessly inspiring. (LJ 4/15/04)

STEWART, JON THE DAILY SHOW WRITERS. America (the Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction. Warner. ISBN 0-446-53268-1. $24.95. Want to know more about the land that brought us the Declaration of Independence, George Washington, and the publication Lucky ("a magazine for retards about shopping")? Look no further than America (the Book), by the Daily Show's Stewart and his crack team of writers. But don't be fooled—the silliness belies some seriously scathing political commentary.

TENNANT, ALAN. On the Wing: To the Edge of the Earth with the Peregrine Falcon. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-41551-3. $25. Part nature study, part buddy travel narrative, Tennant's marvelous book chronicles his colorful adventures as he and his crusty septuagenarian pilot track the migrations of several peregrine falcons north to the Arctic and south to Central America in a rattletrap Cessna. (LJ 9/1/04)

WOHLFORTH, CHARLES. The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change. North Point: Farrar. ISBN 0-86547-659-4. $25. Washington politicos often deny the seriousness of global warming, but Alaska's Iñupiak Eskimos know its deleterious effects firsthand. Journalist Wohlforth's extraordinary book is a compelling tale of "climate change being lived [and] the adventure of surviving...as human organisms who must adopt to a new natural world." (LJ 4/1/04)