Each year, The New York Times names its 100 Notable Books. Then, they short­en the list and name their top ten.

The Times pub­lished 100 Notable Books of 2008 last week­end, and now we have The 10 Best Books of 2008. We’ve list­ed the books below, along with links to the first chap­ter of most works. For more insight into what the book review team found spe­cial about each book, just click here.

Fic­tion

• Dan­ger­ous Laugh­ter: Thir­teen Sto­ries by Steven Mill­hauser (Excerpt)
• A Mer­cy by Toni Mor­ri­son (First Chap­ter)
• Nether­land by Joseph O’Neill (First Chap­ter)
• 2666 by Rober­to Bolaño (Excerpt)
• Unac­cus­tomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (Excerpt)

Non-Fic­tion

• The Dark Side: The Inside Sto­ry of How the War on Ter­ror Turned Into a War on Amer­i­can Ideals by Jane May­er
• The For­ev­er War by Dex­ter Filkins (First Chap­ter)
• Noth­ing to be Fright­ened Of by Julian Barnes (First Chap­ter)
• This Repub­lic of Suf­fer­ing by Drew Gilpin Faust (First Chap­ter)
• The World Is What It Is: The Autho­rized Biog­ra­phy of V. S. Naipaul (First Chap­ter)

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Indig­na­tion is Philip Roth’s 29th book and his third nov­el in the past three years. Pret­ty good for a writer work­ing at 75. In this extend­ed inter­view with Michael Kras­ny (iTunes — Feed — MP3), Roth talks about Indig­na­tion, which takes read­ers back to the Kore­an War and col­lege life in con­ser­v­a­tive Amer­i­ca.

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Pen­guin asked its sta­ble of writ­ers what books they plan to give friends dur­ing the hol­i­days, and what books they’d hope to receive. Here’s a quick sam­pling. And if you want to list your own gift ideas, feel free to add them to the com­ments below.

Khaled Hos­sei­ni, author of The Kite Run­ner and A Thou­sand Splen­did Suns, is giv­ing The Brief Won­drous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. And so, too, is Michael Pol­lan (The Omni­vore’s Dilem­ma). It won the Pulitzer after all.

Michael Lewis (Liar’s Pok­er) not so secret­ly hopes to wind up with a copy of Mal­colm Glad­well’s new book Out­liers: The Sto­ry of Suc­cess. He’s not the only one, to be sure.

Friends of Eliz­a­beth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) will be get­ting The Prin­ci­ples of Uncer­tain­ty by Maira Kalman. And, in turn, they may be giv­ing her biogra­phies of great adven­tur­ers like Cap­tain Cook and Ernest Shack­le­ton. (Per­son­al­ly, I’d rec­om­mend Endurance: Shack­le­ton’s Incred­i­ble Voy­age. Great read.)

Last­ly, Nick Hor­by (High Fideli­ty) is offer­ing up Mark Har­ris’ Pic­tures at a Rev­o­lu­tion.

For more book ideas, vis­it the full list and also see our read­er-cre­at­ed list: Life-Chang­ing Books.

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Mal­colm Glad­well, the author of The Tip­ping Point and Blink, has a new book out. And it’s almost guar­an­teed to be anoth­er best­seller. Out­liers: The Sto­ry of Suc­cess takes on an idea at the cen­ter of Amer­i­can mythol­o­gy, the con­cept of the “self-made man.” For Glad­well, suc­cess sto­ries aren’t large­ly the prod­uct of smarts and hard work, as we’re repeat­ed­ly told. More often, they’re “the prod­uct of hid­den advan­tages and extra­or­di­nary oppor­tu­ni­ties and cul­tur­al lega­cies that allow [suc­cess­ful indi­vid­u­als] to learn and work hard.” And, as you’ll hear in this inter­view (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), good tim­ing (includ­ing the month and decade of your birth), cir­cum­stance, and luck also play a fair­ly impor­tant role. You can buy the new book in print here, or down­load the audio book from Audi­ble for as lit­tle as $7.49.

As a quick aside, The Leonard Lopate show (where we found this inter­view) appears in our Ideas & Cul­ture Pod­cast col­lec­tion, which you think­ing types might enjoy.

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Philip Roth’s lat­est is out. And, as one review­er described it, the nov­el, like his last two, is “ruth­less­ly eco­nom­i­cal and relent­less­ly death­bound.” You can read the first chap­ter of Indig­na­tion here for free. Or, buy the nov­el here.

The news of David Fos­ter Wal­lace’s sui­cide came as a shock. 46, supreme­ly tal­ent­ed, and gone. We’re not left with much. His books, his essays, and the under­stand­able desire to find some link between his writ­ing and his end. Here’s a line that caught my atten­tion from David Stre­it­feld’s blog. (He’s a for­mer books edi­tor at The Boston Globe, and now a reporter for The New York Times.)

Fic­tion, [DFW once said], is “one of the few expe­ri­ences where lone­li­ness can be both con­front­ed and relieved. Drugs, movies where stuff blows up, loud par­ties — all these chase away lone­li­ness by mak­ing me for­get my name’s Dave and I live in a one-by-one box of bone no oth­er par­ty can pen­e­trate or know. Fic­tion, poet­ry, music, real­ly deep seri­ous sex, and, in var­i­ous ways, reli­gion — these are the places (for me) where lone­li­ness is coun­te­nanced, stared down, trans­fig­ured, treat­ed.” Maybe he asked too much of fic­tion. Maybe it failed him in the end, and there was noth­ing left.