The New York Times named its 10 best books of 2009, noting that "after so many years, and so many lists, you might think the task of choosing the 10 Best Books would get easier. If only. The sublime story collections alone created agonies of indecision. So did the superb literary biographies we read--and deeply admired. But in the end the decisions had to be made."
This year's top 10:
Fiction
Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy (Riverhead)
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem (Doubleday)
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (Knopf)
Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls (Scribner)
A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert (Scribner)
Nonfiction
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes (Pantheon)
The Good Soldiers by David Finkel (Sarah Crichton Books/FSG)
Lit: A Memoir by Mary Karr (Harper)
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed (Penguin)
Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life by Carol Sklenicka (Scribner)
* Shelf Awareness
