My books of the year

It's that time of year again. Here's a list of the 10 books I most enjoyed reading in 2008, though not all of them were published this year. They're listed roughly in the order in which I read them - not of preference - and the hyperlinks will take you to the posts where I discussed them:

The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda's Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright

Night Soldiers by Alan Furst

Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah

Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare by Clare Asquith

London in the Nineteenth Century: A Human Awful Wonder of God by Jerry White

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, or the Murder at Road Hill House by Kate Summerscale

The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq by George Packer

The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street by Charles Nicholl

War in Val d'Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944 by Iris Origo

Hillary's Turn: Inside Her Improbable, Victorious Senate Campaign by Michael Tomasky