The best books of 2009 covered the financial crisis, climate change and the war in Afghanistan, as well as justice, corruption, cooking and the power of literature

Politics and current affairs



The Crisis of Islamic Civilisation. By Ali A. Allawi. Yale University Press; 320 pages; $27.50 and £18.99

A thoughtful and original anatomy of the decay of contemporary Islam that takes issue with both Islamism and secular modernity. An eloquent cri de coeur—and a call for spiritual renewal.

The Idea of Justice. By Amartya Sen. Belknap Press; 496 pages; $29.95. Allen Lane; £25

A commanding summation of the work of Amartya Sen, an Indian-born Nobel laureate, that focuses on economic reasoning and the elements and measurement of human well-being.

The Silence and the Scorpion: The Coup Against Chávez and the Making of Modern Venezuela. By Brian A. Nelson. Nation Books; 384 pages; $26.95. Da Capo Press; £17.99

A scrupulous account of one of the most important, yet most misunderstood, events in recent South American history. It should be read by all those who believe that Hugo Chávez is a worthy champion of democracy and the oppressed.

It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistleblower. By Michela Wrong. Harper; 368 pages; $25.99. Fourth Estate; £12.99

A down-to-earth yet sophisticated exposé of how an entire country can be munched in the clammy claws of corruption and tribalism to ensure that those in power win the fattest share of the cake.

The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One. By David Kilcullen. OUP; 384 pages; $27.95. C. Hurst; £20

General David Petraeus's adviser on counter-insurgency advocates mixing military theory with a deep knowledge of culture and tradition among tribal peoples to try and win the “war on terror”.

Desperate Glory: At War in Helmand with Britain's 16 Air Assault Brigade. By Sam Kiley. Bloomsbury; 288 pages; £18.99

The most vivid account yet of British soldiering in Afghanistan.

Biography and memoirs

Louis D. Brandeis: A Life. By Melvin Urofsky. Pantheon; 976 pages; $40

A remarkable man who increasingly found himself defending what he saw as the public interest against what were then known as “the interests”.

Marx's General: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels. By Tristram Hunt. Metropolitan Books; 448 pages; $32. Allen Lane; £25

An illuminating biography of the self-effacing friend who enabled Karl Marx's most famous work, “Das Kapital”, to be written.

The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 1901-1986. By Edgar J. Dosman. McGill-Queen's University Press; 599 pages; $49.95 and £33

Best known for his ideas about trade, Raul Prebisch, an Argentine economist who was often talked about as “Latin America's Keynes”, may be due for rehabilitation. An invaluable biography.

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong. By Terry Teachout. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 496 pages; $30. J.R. Books; £20

More than a trumpeter, the great Satchmo was both pioneer and innovator, with a voice and style that set their stamp on the development of jazz.

The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham. By Selina Hastings. John Murray; 624 pages; £25.

To be published in America by Random House in May 2010 William Somerset Maugham was an unhappy man and is today a derided figure—unfashionable, unpopular and widely regarded as unpleasant. But he is still one of the finest short-story stylists Britain has ever produced.

Constable in Love: Love, Landscape, Money and the Making of a Great Painter. By Martin Gayford. Fig Tree; 384 pages; £20

How John Constable, disapproved of by his wife's relatives, his own family and his painting peers, was buoyed by the support of his wife, Maria Bicknell, and triumphed in the end.

Illustration by Daniel Pudles

William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies. By John Carey. Faber and Faber; 592 pages; £25. To be published in America by Free Press in June 2010

The first authorised biography, by a former professor of English at Oxford University and a well-known reviewer, confirms William Golding as a writer deserving far wider recognition.

The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth: A Life. By Frances Wilson. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 336 pages; $30. Faber and Faber; £18.99

William Wordsworth's sister, Dorothy, is usually thought of as sentimental and stodgy, a lover of daffodils and the healthy outdoors, but ultimately rather dull. Frances Wilson shows just how wrong this view is.

Direct Red: A Surgeon's Story. By Gabriel Weston. Harper; 205 pages; $22.99. Jonathan Cape; £16.99

Surgery stimulates the senses, both physical and metaphysical. It is rare for a doctor to be able to communicate this experience in writing—and to do it so well.

History

The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War. By Andrew Roberts. Allen Lane; 768 pages; £25. To be published in America in 2011

A British historian argues that Hitler lost the war for the same reason that he unleashed it—because he was a Nazi. A highly readable addition to the history of the second world war.

Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814. By Dominic Lieven. Allen Lane; 672 pages; £30. To be published in America by Viking in April 2010

Mr Lieven's work will transform your view of 1812, especially if you have been relying on “War and Peace”. A landmark book, elegantly written.

The Arabs: A History. By Eugene Rogan. Basic; 553 pages; $35. Allen Lane; £25

Inspired by the work of Albert Hourani, this is a traditional history that focuses on the interplay of powers and the march of events to set the Arab story in a modern context.

The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective. By Robert C. Allen. Cambridge University Press; 334 pages; $27.99 and £16.99

A fine analysis of why Britain became the first industrial country, by an American professor of economic history at Oxford University.

1688: The First Modern Revolution. By Steve Pincus. Yale University Press; 664 pages; $40 and £28

How the glorious revolution that overthrew the English king, James II, and replaced him on the throne with the Dutch Stadtholder, William of Orange, was every bit as radical as the revolutions of 1789 in France and 1917 in Russia.

Economics and business

Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial Systems—and Themselves. By Andrew Ross Sorkin. Viking; 624 pages; $32.95. Allen Lane; £14.99

A riveting fly-on-the-wall account of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and what came afterwards.

Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World. By Liaquat Ahamed. Penguin Press; 564 pages; $32.95. Heinemann; £20

A history of the generation that invented the modern central banker. Winner of this year's Financial Times/Goldman Sachs business book of the year award.

How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities. By John Cassidy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 416 pages; $28. Allen Lane; £25

A sharp look at the roots of the financial crisis that turns into an excellent history of economic thought, by a British writer at the New Yorker.

Poorly Made in China: An Insider's Account of the Tactics Behind China's Production Game. By Paul Midler. Wiley; 256 pages; $24.95 and £16.99

A useful analysis by a consultant who advises Western companies on what to do about China's manufacturing problems. Many laboratories protect their reputation by hiding, rather than revealing, what they test and whistle-blowing is punished rather than rewarded.

Science and technology

Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. By Mike Hulme. Cambridge University Press; 432 pages; $28.99 and £15.99

How global warming has been transformed from a physical phenomenon that is measurable and observable by scientists into a social, cultural and political one, by a professor of climate change at the (now controversial) University of East Anglia. In the crowded and noisy world of climate-change publications, this book will stand out.

Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origin of Species. By Sean B. Carroll. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 352 pages; $26. Quercus; £16.99

A professor of molecular biology and genetics at the University of Wisconsin brings to life two centuries of expeditions and discoveries that inspired and expanded one of the greatest ideas of modern science: evolution.

The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom. By Graham Farmelo. Basic; 560 pages; $29.95. Faber and Faber; £22.50

Paul Dirac's equations predicted the existence of antimatter. His insights were so astonishing and so counter-intuitive that it is hard to imagine anyone else devising them. This excellent biographer demonstrates how he was probably the best British theoretical physicist since Isaac Newton.

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. By Richard Wrangham. Basic; 320 pages; $26.95. Profile; £15

A startling and persuasive analysis of the evolutionary role of cookery, arguing that you really are what you eat.

Culture and society

A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx. By Elaine Showalter. Knopf; 608 pages; $30. Virago; £22.50

A former professor of English at Princeton University blends academic respect and robust judgment with humour and a common touch to create a vibrant survey of women's writing in America, from the Pilgrim Fathers to the present.

When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment. By Mark Kleiman. Princeton University Press; 256 pages; $29.95 and £20.95

America has one prisoner for every hundred adults—a rate unprecedented in American history and unmatched anywhere in the world. Brute-force crime control has been a costly mistake, both socially and financially. Mr Kleiman shows how smarter enforcement strategies are more successful and make existing budgets go further. An important book that deserves a wider readership.

My Paper Chase: True Stories of Vanished Times. By Harold Evans. Little, Brown; 592 pages; $27.99 and £25

A giant of British journalism, now living in America, recalls a time when journalism was in the ascendant and readers were happy to pay for independent reporting. That is not so true now.

The Letters of Samuel Beckett, 1929-1940. Cambridge University Press; 882 pages; $50 and £30

Compulsively readable, these letters from Samuel Beckett's most prolific decade show up all the Irish master's literary virtuosity and playfulness.

Outside of a Dog: A Bibliomemoir. By Rick Gekoski. Constable; 278 pages; £14.99

How a lifetime of reading turned R.A. Gekoski (DPhil), a miserable academic teaching English literature at a provincial British university, into Rick Gekoski, a roly-poly book dealer with a passion for Groucho Marx's motto: “Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read”.

Fiction

Wolf Hall. By Hilary Mantel. Henry Holt; 531 pages; $27. Fourth Estate; £18.99

With a 21st-century sense of evil mixed with irony, Ms Mantel takes us right back into the 16th-century mind. A deserved winner of the Man Booker prize.

American Rust. By Philipp Meyer. Spiegel & Grau; 384 pages; $24.95. Simon & Schuster; £12.99 Set in America's crumbling industrial heartland, Mr Meyer's first novel is a paean to the end of empire—a book that is as painful as it is enjoyable.

Ultimatum. By Matthew Glass. Grove Atlantic; 400 pages; $24. Atlantic Books; £9.99

Politics meets the rising tide of climate change. Copenhagen's hotels should put a copy in every room.

Illustration by Daniel Pudles

Too Much Happiness. By Alice Munro. Knopf; 320 pages; $25.95. Chatto & Windaus; £17.99

The Canadian winner of the 2009 Man Booker International prize is as dark and funny as she was when she started writing short stories nearly 60 years ago.

Love and Summer. By William Trevor. Viking; 224 pages; $25.95 and £18.99

An elegant novel that shows how beautifully and humanely this 81-year-old Irish craftsman still can write.

The Glass Room. By Simon Mawer. Other Press; 416 pages; $14.95. Little, Brown; £16.99

The story of a room with a world-historical view, by a novelist who has an inquisitive, and quite un-English, interest in history and science.

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi. By Geoff Dyer. Pantheon; 304 pages; $24. Canongate; £12.99

Mr Dyer is one of the most interesting young English writers. Every Dyer novel seems to end in a moment of ecstatic transformation. This time, though, there is darkness visible. His fourth novel, this is by far his best.

Your Face Tomorrow: Poison, Shadow and Farewell. By Javier Marías. Translated by Margaret Jull Costa. New Directions; 480 pages; $24.95. Chatto & Windus; £18.99

Mr Marías has seized the spy thriller and turned it into a novel of ideas.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. By Daniyal Mueenuddin. Norton; 249 pages; $23.95. Bloomsbury; £14.99

A remarkable debut by a Punjabi writer who has gained plaudits from Mohsin Hamid and Salman Rushdie. A small book that reveals, in every detail, the extent to which life in Pakistan is dictated as much by whom you know as what you do.

The Winter Vault. By Anne Michaels. Knopf; 352 pages; $25. Bloomsbury; £16.99

Set against the building of the Aswan dam, this is a novel of violence, death and bereavement, and about survivors who are also mourners, by the author of “Fugitive Pieces”.