2008 ALA Notable Books

The American Library Association (ALA) Notable Books List began in 1944. The judging panel is guided by the RASD Board of Directors statement of purpose and list of criteria for Notable Books.

The 2008 ALA Notable Book List

FICTION

• An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, by Brock Clarke (Algonquin)
• Away, by Amy Bloom (Random)
• Cheating at Canasta, by William Trevor (Viking)
• The Complete Stories, by David Malouf (Pantheon)
• Finn, by Jon Clinch (Random)
• The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes, by Tess Uriza Holthe (Crown)
• Five Skies, by Ron Carlson (Viking)
• The Ministry of Special Cases, by Nathan Englander (Knopf)
• Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones (Dell)
• On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan (Doubleday)
• Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson (Graywolf)
• The Pesthouse, by Jim Crace (Doubleday/Nan A Talese)
• The Yiddish Policeman's Union, by Michael Chabon (Harper Collins)

NONFICTION

• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper Collins)
• The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, by Natalie Angier (Houghton)
• Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster)
• Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations, by Georgina Howell (Farrar)
• How Doctors Think, by Jerome Groopman (Houghton)
• Oil on the Brain: Adventures from the Pump to the Pipeline, by LIsa Margonelli (Doubleday/Nan A Talese)
• Super-Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart, by Ian Ayers (Bantam)
• When A Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa, by Peter Godwin (Little Brown & Co)
• The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman (Thomas Dunne/St. Martins)
• The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story, by Diane Ackerman (Norton)

POETRY

• A New Hunger, by Laure-Anne Bosselaar (Ausable)
• In A Prominent Bar in Secaucus: New and Selected Poems, by XJ Kennedy (Johns Hopkins)