2009
Book by Book, Michael Dirda; How Proust Can Change Your Life, Alain de Botton; Antarctica, Yves Paccalet and Patrick de Wilde; They Call Me Naughty Lola, David Rose, editor; Fast Fiction, Roberta Allen; Mind Games, Michael Powell; Einstein's Dream, Alan Lightman; Eat, Memory, Amanda Hesser, editor; Proust, William Sansom; Mozart, Peter Gay; Flash Fiction, James Thomas, Denise Thomas, Tom Hazuka, editors; The World's Shortest Stories, Steve Moss, editor; The Food Snob's Dictionary, David Kamp and Marion Rosenfeld; James Joyce, Edna O'Brien; Keep Your Brain Alive, Lawrence C. Katz and Manning Rubin; The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, Dr. Seuss; Ourika, Claire de Duras; Dime-Store Alchemy: the Art of Joseph Cornell, Charles Simic; A Journey to the End of the Russian Empire, Anton Chekhov; The Places We Live, Jonas Bendiksen; Life & Times of Michael K., J. M. Coetzee; Investigating Murder Mysteries, Paul Dowswell; Wishbones, Carolyn Haines; 237 More Reasons to Have Sex, Denise Duhamel and Sandy McIntosh; At Large and at Small, Anne Fadiman; Mutual Life & Casualty, Elizabeth Poliner; The Madonnas of Leningrad, Debra Dean; Snark, David Denby; A Dangerous Age, Ellen Gilchrist; Pelican Road, Howard Bahr; Fresh Frozen, Darden North; Things That Make Us [Sic] , Martha Brockenbrough; Yazoo Blues, John Pritchard; Shoot Out the Lights, Hayden Childs; Where the Line Bleeds, Jesmyn Ward; Readings, Michael Dirda; The Other, Ryszard Kapuscinski; Unrecounted, W. G. Sebald and Jan Peter Tripp; Leonardo da Vinci, Sherwin Nuland; The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler, Raymond Chandler; The Quantum Zoo, Marcus Chown; The Accidental Masterpiece, Michael Kimmelman; Distant Star, Roberto Bolano; The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton; Last Night at the Lobster, Stewart O'Nan; Juice Up the True Say, Kim Bradley, editor; Pioneers in the Study of Motion, Susan Briante; Green Soldiers, John Bensko; The Little Book of Plagiarism, Richard Posner; Evil, Rennie Sparks; 13 Things That Don't Make Sense, Michael Brooks; Telegrams of the Soul, Peter Altenberg; The Crime of Sheila McGough, Janet Malcolm; Moon Pie:Biography of an Out-of-This-World Snack, David Magee; A Fight in the Doctor's Office, Cary Holladay; Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges; The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, Corinne May Botz; The Gashlycrumb Tinies, Edward Gorey; Status Anxiety, Alain de Botton; Usher, B. H. Fairchild; Death Scenes, Katherine Dunn and Sean Tejaratchi; Last Evenings on Earth, Roberto Bolano; Rock Crystal, Adalbert Stifter; Monroe and West Monroe Louisiana, Ouachita Parish Historical Interest Group; Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov; The Martini, Barnaby Conrad III; Betrayal and Betrayers, Malin Akerstrom; Principals of Personal Defense, Jeff Cooper; By Night in Chile, Roberto Bolano; Thinking About Memoir, Abigail Thomas; 500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late, Jane and Michael Stern; Everything You Pretend to Know About Food And Are Afraid Someone Will Ask, Nancy Rommelmann; The Early Posthumous Work, Steve Barthelme; Coffeehouse Meditations, Nina Romano; Nobody Move, Denis Johnson; Darkness Visible, William Styron; Death in Venice, Thomas Mann; The Truth About Muhammad, Robert Spencer; America's Best BBQ, Ardie Davis and Chef Paul Kirk; The Motel Life, Willy Vlautin; The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging, The Editors of the Huffington Post; Kitten Taming, David Taylor; Walking with the Devil, Michael W. Quinn; New Liberal Arts, Snarkmarket; Love and Summer, William Trevor; Affirmations for Artists, Eric Maisel; The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, Alain de Botton; Little Pockets of Alarm, Kat Meads; Foyle's Philavery, Christopher Foyle; Shannon, Campbell McGrath; Cheap, Ellen Ruppel Shell; Brush Up Your Pidgin, Dorgan Rushton; Where Men Win Glory, Jon Krakauer; As I Crossed the Bridge of Dreams, Lady Sarashina; After Nature, W. G. Sebald: Brazil, Jesse Lee Kercheval; You Have Time for This, edited by Mark Budman and Tom Hazuka; Conquest of the Useless, Werner Herzog; Slamming Open the Door, Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno; The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, George Johnson; Varieties of Disturbance, Lydia Davis; Mama Rides Shotgun, Deborah Sharp; From Away, David Carkeet; My Stroke of Insight, Jill Bolte Taylor; The Ocean Liner's Wake, Ellen Wehle; The True Believer, Eric Hoffer; Reading Turgenev, William Trevor; Bo Bartlett, Charles T. Butler, et. al.. Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate, Terry Eagleton; Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds, Michael Hauge; Mary Ellen Mark: American Odyssey, Mary Ellen Mark; Writing the TV Drama Series, Pamela Douglas; Man Overboard, Sandy Mason; A Wound in the Mind, Francis J. Partel; What the Dog Saw, Malcolm Gladwell; Too Much Happiness, Alice Munro; The Rest Is Noise, Alex Ross; The End of the Book: Writing in a Changing World, Damon, Graff, et. al.; Obsolete, Anna Jane Grossman; ReBecoming, J. R. Maxon; My House in Umbria, William Trevor
2010:
The Lonely Polygamist, Brady Udall; Don McGullin, Thames & Hudson Profile; Who's Your Daddy?, Geoffrey Philp;The Interrogative Mood, Padgett Powell; A Travel Guide for Reckless Hearts, N. M. Kelby; 179 Ways to Save a Novel, Peter Selgin; Montooth and the Canfield Witch, Robert Jay; Memoir: a History, Ben Yagoda; Talking About Detective Fiction, P. D. James; The Test, Patricia Gussin; Boca Knights, Steven M. Forman; The Original of Laura, Vladimir Nabokov; Spirit Horses, Alan S. Evans; The Art of War, Sun Tzu; Marielitos, Balseros and Other Exiles, Cecelia Rodriquez Milanes; Double Exposure, Michael Lister; Zen in the Art of Archery, Eugen Herrigel; The Last War, Ana Menendez; Good Things I Wish You, A Manette Ansay; The Surrendered, Chang-Rae Lee; Bridge of Sand, Janet Burroway; Fire Angels, Joseph Richardson; My Life Among the Serial Killers, Helen Morrison; Blasted, Sarah Kane; Maps of the Imagination: the Writer as Cartographer, Peter Turchi; Summertime, J. M. Coetzee;How to Write Like Chekhov, Piero Brunello and Lena Lencek; Nine Stories, J. D. Salinger; The Sociopath Next Door, Martha Stout; American Salvage, Bonnie Jo Campbell; Behind Our Memories, Michael Hettich; A Memory of Solferino, Henry Dunant; From Hardtack to Home Fries, Barbara Haber; Elizabeth Rex, Timothy Findley; The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia, Mary Helen Stefaniak; The Unknown Darkness, Gregg O. McCrary; Skylark, Dezso Kosztolanyi; Script & Scribble, Kitty Burns Florey; Lists: To-Dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists' Enumerations, Liza Kirwin; Love Poems of Ancient Egypt, tr. Ezra Pound and Noel Stock; Can It Really Be Taught?: Resisiting Lore in Creative Writing Pedagogy, Ed. Kelly Ritter and Stephanie Vanderslice;Letters to a Young Chef, Daniel Boulud; The Lining of Our Souls, Rolando Perez; Ignore Everybody, Hugh MacLeod; Food Rules, Michael Pollan; Theatre, David Mamet; Alphabet Juice, Roy Blount Jr.; Here, Bullet, Brian Turner; High Windows, Philip Larkin; Working in the Shadows, Gabriel Thompson; How Not to Write a Novel, Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman; True and False, David Mamet; The Shallows, Nicholas Carr; The Evil B.B. Chow, Steve Almond; Secret Lives of Great Authors, Robert Schnakenberg; Amor Eterno, Patricia Preciado Martin; Methland. Nick Reding; A Coney Island of the Mind, Lawrence Ferlinghetti; A Writer's Commonplace Book, Rosemary Friedman; Inside the Onion, Howard Nemerov; The Star-Spangled Banner, Denise Duhamel;What We Believe But Cannot Prove, John Brockman, ed.; The Sorrow Dance, Denise Levertov; The Spot, David Means; Preliminary Report, Jon Davis; Burning Man, Ed Falco; Mentor, Tom Grimes; etre the cow, Sean Kenniff;Vida, Patricia Engel; Cookie & Me, Mary Jane Ryals; Plato's Promise, James G. Tauber; The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson; Quantum Leaps, Jeremy Bernstein; How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly, Connie May Fowler; This Will Kill You, HP Newquist and Rich Maloof; The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, David Grann; The Tapestry Shop, Joyce Elson Moore; Flying Fish, Vern Hobbs; Handing One Another Along, Robert Coles; Dub Wise, Geoffrey Philp;Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey: a Biography, Alberto Manguel; Hint Fiction, Robert Swartward, ed.;Photobooth, Barbette Hines; Accidental Ambition, Rhett Vane and Robert W. McKnight; Florida Gothic Stories, Vicki Hendricks; Milk Eggs Vodka, Bill Keaggy; Protecting the Cittern, John Cammalleri; The Glass Madonna, Donna Meredith; Hitchcock, Francois Truffaut; Flaubert in Egypt, Gustave Flaubert; Nights at the Alexandra, William Trevor; Unrequited Loves and Other French Kisses, Cara Nusinov; Hapgood, Tom Stoppard; Bullet, Christopher J. Pumphrey; Alternative Lives, Constance Urdang; Directions to the Beach of the Dead, Richard Blanco; Damaged Goods, Kal Rosenberg; The Art of Reading Poetry, Harold Bloom; This Is Water, David Foster Wallace; Lunch Poems, Frank O'Hara; The Little Hiptionary, Ruth Cullen
2011
The Glamour of Grammar, Roy Peter Clark; Heaven & Earth Holding Company, John Hodgen; My Grandfather Singing, Jesse Millner; Shake It and It Snows, Gailmarie Pahmeier; The Gendarme, Mark T. Mustian; How to Write a Sentence, Stanley Fish; Local Hope, Jack Heflin; Once Upon a River, Bonnie Jo Campbell; Clear Eye Tea, Mary Bonina; The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow; That Went Well, Terrell Harris Dougan;Encyclopedia of the Exquisite, Jessica Kerwin Jenkins; Sleights of Mind, Stephan L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde with Sandra Blakeslee; At Home, Bill Bryson; Laura Rider's Masterpiece, Jane Hamilton; The Book of 1,001Trivia Questions, Campbell, Jenkins, McKay; Selected Stories, William Trevor; The Memory Chalet, Tony Judt;Halls of Fame, John D'Agata; Hard Ground, Michael O'Brien and Tom Waits; And the Pursuit of Happiness, Maira Kalman; Hustle, Jason Skipper; Monsieur Pain, Roberto Bolano; The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise, Georges Perec; Freak Nation, Kate Stevens; Reality Hunger, David Shields; Caravaggio, Painter of Miracles, Francine Prose;Criminal Mentality, Gerald Locklin; Confessions of a Young Novelist, Umberto Eco; The Mind's Eye, Oliver Sacks;Dirty Sign Language, Evan Wondolowski, et.al.; Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer; Collections of Nothing, William Davies King; For the Time Being, Annie Dillard; Heber Springs Portraits, Toba Pato Tucker; Travels With Herodotus, Ryszard Kapuscinski; Go the Fuck to Sleep, Adam Mansbach; Sanctuary, Ken Bruen; I'm the One with the Blue Cap On, Jeffrey Knapp; The Guards, Ken Bruen; I is an Other, James Geary; Tao Te Ching, Lau Tzu; Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Roddy Doyle; The Mutations of Rollerball, William Harrison; Art & Artifice, Jim Steinmeyer; Go Fish, Mr. Fish; The Lexicon of Real Ameican Food, Jane and Michael Stern; Hollywood, Florida, C. Richard Roberts;Philosophy A Beginner’s Guide to the Ideas of 100 Great Thinkers, Jeremy Harwood; Tropicalia, Emma Trelles; The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien: Wicked Good Words, Mim Harrison; Another Way of Telling, John Berger and Jean Mohr; Coyote v. Acme, Ian Frazier; Hoops, Major Jackson; The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist, Orhan Pamuk;Missed Connections, Sophie Blackall; The View from Castle Rock, Alice Munro; To-do List, Sasha Cagen; Letters from People Who Hate Me, Steve Almond; The Outlaw Album, Daniel Woodrell; The Measured Breathing, Michael Hettich; Keep It Real, Lee Gutkind, ed.; The Animals Beyond Us, Michael Hettich