Best Nonfiction Books of 2010: A Literary Mixtape

By Jason Boog 

What’s the best nonfiction book you’ve read this year? Share it in the comments and we’ll add it to our new literary mixtape of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2010.

This GalleyCat editor makes an annual mixtape (CD actually, but the idea is the same) collecting his favorite songs from the year–allowing his friends and family to sample great music. We love reading “Best Books of …” lists, but we want to build a “mixtape” focused exclusively on sample chapters of your suggestions–we’ve started the list below.

Share your favorite novel in the comment section. We’ve already created mixtapes for the Best Novels of 2010, the Best YA Books of 2010, and the Best eBooks of 2010.  Cassette tape photo via The Alieness.

The Possessed by Elif Batuman

Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor by John W. Dower

Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier

Wander the Rainbow by David Jedeikin

A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb by Amitava Kumar

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis

All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera

London Calling by Barry Miles

Writers Gone Wild: The Feuds, Frolics, and Follies of Literature’s Great Adventurers, Drunkards, Lovers, Iconoclasts, and Misanthropes by Bill Peschel

None of Us Were Like This Before by Joshua E. S. Phillips

Insectopedia by Hugh Raffles

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Just Kids by Patti Smith

Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward by Justin Spring

Every Man in This Village Is a Liar: An Education in War by Megan K. Stack

The Black Book by Adlai Stevenson