In the arts, (aka: books) this year’s crop is completely unknown to me:
Fiction: “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” by Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books)
Drama: “August: Osage County,” by Tracy Letts
History: “What Hath God Wrought: the Transformation of America, 1815-1848,” by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press)
Biography: “Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father,” by John Matteson (W.W. Norton)
Poetry: “Time and Materials,” by Robert Hass (Ecco/HarperCollins) and “Failure,” by Philip Schultz (Harcourt)
General Nonfiction: “The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945,” by Saul Friedlander (HarperCollins)
I guess I read more than the average person, but not one of these crossed my lap in 2007.