Top 5 Books “Chronic City,” Jonathan Lethem (Doubleday) “War Dances,” Sherman Alexie (Grove Press) “Generosity: An Enhancement,” Richard Powers (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux) “Ruins,” Achy Obejas (Akashic Books) “Inherent Vice,” Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press) —Tom Lynch
Top 5 Local Books “Ruins,” Achy Obejas (Akashic Books) “Her Fearful Symmetry,” Audrey Niffenegger (Scribner) “How to Hold a Woman,” Billy Lombardo (OV Books) “The Way Through Doors,” Jesse Ball (Vintage) “The Adventures of Cancer Bitch,” S.L. Wisenberg (University of Iowa Press) —Tom Lynch
Top 5 Honorable Mention Local Books “The Amateurs,” Marcus Sakey (Dutton Adult) “The Great Perhaps,” Joe Meno (W.W. Norton & Company) “Love and Obstacles,” Aleksandar Hemon (Riverhead) “Ballads of Suburbia,” Stephanie Kuehnert (MTV Books) “The Blindfold Test,” Barry Schechter (Melville House) —Tom Lynch
Top 5 Film Books “Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber,” Manny Farber (Library of America) “Robert Altman: The Oral Biography,” Mitchell Zuckoff (Knopf) “Conquests of the Useless,” Werner Herzog (Ecco) “Screen Epiphanies: Filmmakers on the Films That Inspired Them,” Geoffrey Macnab (British Film Institute) “The Making of Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Wes Anderson (Rizzoli) —Ray Pride
Top 5 Literary Come-Ons Nice boots In college I won the campus literary prize for creative nonfiction Hello, meet the master of Chicago poetry I love your blog I’m starting an online literary magazine and currently looking for submissions —Fred Sasaki
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