The Year in Books

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The Year in Books

Debut
Mischa Berlinski, Fieldwork
Berlinski’s novel is a smart, engaging thriller about anthropologists and missionaries in Thailand that occasionally gets lost in jungles of digression. Honorable mention to Ellen Litman’s charming The Last Chicken in America, about Russian immigrants in Pittsburgh.

Stinker
The Almost Moon, by Alice Sebold
Lots of big names underwhelmed us this year: Amis, DeLillo, Roth, Rowling. But Sebold, whose debut novel, The Lovely Bones, was the best-selling book of 2002, went above and beyond—or below and behind. Her wandering story of matricide is both implausible and uncompelling: The voice is wrong, the characterization is off, the pacing is set on shuffle.

Architecture: From Green Roofs to Glass Houses	Art: Kara Walker Terrified While Richard Prince Tanked
Books: Danticat Delivered What Sebold Did Not	Classical and Dance: The Out-of-Towners Shake Things Up
Movies: Clooney, Bardem, Schnabel, and More	Pop: Who Got Their Groove Back and Who Lost Their Cool
Theater: Revivals and Musicals Take Center Stage	TV: The Big Stars on the Small Screen
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp Talk Sweeney Todd	A Preview of the Culture Apocalypse 2008
The Culturati Caucus: Notable Insiders Weigh In	The Year-End Approval Matrix