What Obama Means by Jabari Asim
If timing is everything, Jabari Asim, formerly an editor at The Washington Post and currently editor-in-chief of The Crisis -- the magazine of the NAACP -- has it all figured out.
The Book of Dead Philosophers by Simon Critchley
The Book of Dead Philosophers is shockingly lucid, surprisingly good, unexpectedly funny. It’s a book that meets its initial mandate, then passes it by a country mile.
Love in 90 Days by Diana Kirschner
In Love in 90 Days, Kirschner offers up all the answers. And that’s not tongue-in-cheek, either. After all, the subtitle is The Essential Guide to Finding Your Own True Love.
The Complete Beck Diet for Life: The Five Step Program to Permanent Weight Loss by Dr. Judith S. Beck
Dr. Beck offers up another tome that uses cognitive therapy to help your battle the bulge. The idea is to “gain control of your eating and your weight, and once you do, you’ll be more in control of your life.”
Little Pink House by Jeff Benedict
Author Jeff Benedict, a veteran investigative journalist, has created a page-turning story over a fairly arcane area of Constitutional law.
Best Non-Fiction of 2008
January Magazine's writers and editors have gone through the stacks a picked out the books that impressed them most deeply in 2008.
Birdscapes by Myoko Chu
There’s something deliciously crazy about Birdscapes. Cunningly engineered and beautifully designed, to open the book is to initiate a wildlife symphony that is entirely convincing.
Solitude by Robert Kull
Robert Kull is an extraordinary man. In 2001, he put together sufficient supplies to last one year, then he traveled to a remote island in the Patagonian wilderness with the idea of exploring the effects that deep solitude might have on body and mind.
Jetpack Dreams by Mac Montandon
According to the author of Jetpack Dreams, the desire for flight without the aid of a fuselage is probably as old as mankind itself.
Owls of North America by Frances Backhouse
Readers with an interest in owls will simply not find a better book than respected science and environmental writer Frances Backhouse’s Owls of North America.
The 2009 Old Farmer’s Almanac
Obviously, you’d don’t have to be an old farmer -- or even any kind of farmer -- to enjoy The Old Farmer’s Almanac which has been published annually since 1792.
I Live Here by Mia Kirshner
Actually four books held together in an artful portfolio, each documents the stories of some of the displaced women and children in four locations: survivors of ethnic cleansing in Burma, war in Chechnya, globalization in Mexico and AIDS in Malawi.
The 12-Step Bush Recovery Program by Gene Stone
Sometimes you just have to laugh in order to avoid crying. Alternately, one could say: it would be funny, if it weren’t also true.
The Muslim Next Door by Sumbul Ali-Karamali
The Muslim Next Door should be required reading in the West at this time. Ali-Karamali clearly knows her subject both on a personal and professional level.
Zen and Now by Mark Richardson
Even if you haven’t the time or inclination to tackle Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Zen and Now is still well worth you time -- for the road trip, the sad biography of a troubled genius, and the wisdom still readily available on the open road.
My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor
For those who have been impacted by stroke as well as those who are interested in the mechanics of the human mind, My Stroke of Insight is an important and highly-recommended book.
The Man Who Made Vermeers by Alyson Mead
In one of those odd coincidences of collective unconscious, 2008 saw the publication of two important books on mid-20th century art forger Han van Meergeren.
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Shimmering Images by Lisa Dale Norton
Shimmering Images is spare, slender and entirely to the point. In her introduction, Norton writes that the book “gives you the steps without a lot of fancy mumbo jumbo about literature and books you haven’t read and never will.”
Bonk by Mary Roach
Mary Roach’s three books -- Stiff, Spook and now Bonk -- boldly go where most other writers fear to tread, into the realms of cadaver research, scientific attempts at tracking the afterlife and the hush-hush history of sex studies.
Wake Up to Your Weight Loss by Alyson Mead
A whiff of blasphemy and a hint of fun leads potential readers to think endless quantities of both might be found between these covers.
Dishing With the Kitchen Virgin by Susan Reinhardt
The “modern-day, Southern-fried Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry” has done it again with Dishing with the Kitchen Virgin.
House Calls by Dogsled by Keith Billington
The material here is rich and stands on its own: a fascinating glimpse into a culture foreign to many of us, with the narrating Billington most often the proverbial fish out of water. It’s a memorable book.
France: Instructions for Use by Alison Culliford and Nan McElroy
“When all else fails ... read the instructions,” is the tongue-in-cheek advice on the cover of this diminutive book, setting the lighthearted tone for this latest offering in the Instructions for Use travel series.
Lost: A Memoir by Cathy Ostlere
Cathy Ostlere approaches her material with a journalist’s eye and heart. Even so, almost from the very first moment, you get the feeling that this is a story that can’t have a happy ending.
Petite Anglaise by Catherine Sanderson
When agents and editors search the blogosphere looking for projects that will surprise and delight -- the overlooked gems that will wow the world -- Petite Anglaise is what they’re looking for.
While They Slept by Kathryn Harrison
It’s difficult to say whether ours is an increasingly violent society or we just have more media access to the various horrors taking place. A book like While They Slept sheds some light on how such violence occurs.
The Art of Column Writing by Suzette Martinez Standring
The Art of Column Writing by Suzette Martinez Standring sounds as though it were written for newspaper columnists. Don’t let the title fool you: this is a book for all writers of non-fiction, and there are likely a few fiction writers who could benefit, too.
The Healthy Skeptic by Robert J. Davis
If you are complacent about your health and feel good about the way health care is administered in your life, you probably don’t need The Healthy Skeptic: Cutitng Through the Hype About Your Health.
How to be Useful by Megan Hustad
The trouble with saying that a book is “unerringly hip” is that the people you most want to attract with that phrase are likely to be put off by it.
The First Total War by David A. Bell
Bell suggests that though in the self-involved current age, we tend to think about the century just past as the one that caused all the trouble, it was the Napoleonic era that laid the groundwork for war as we would all come to know it.
Good Food Tastes Good by Carol Hart
Where the self-help market was once awash in love books -- how to fall in, how to fall out, how to survive or thrive, we are now deluged with treatises dwelling on another unavoidable human pastime: eating.
An Uncertain Inheritance edited by Nell Casey
An Uncertain Inheritance is not the sort of book one gives as a stocking stuffer. Instead, you give it to the friend who is caring for her demented parent. The book may not make her feel better -- nothing will -- but it will make her feel less alone.
Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler
Cooking and dining alone need not be so fraught. We need not step into the kitchen each night dragging parents, weight woes, or money pains with us. It is possible to eat well alone without being Julia Child or depending on Saltines.
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