(Revised 12/06/09)
It's that time of year when the annual best-books lists being to appear.
The First Tycoon appears on some, but hardly all. No shocker there. The least surprising thing about such lists is that no two are alike. In fact, that's a very good thing. It means there are a lot of excellent books being published every year, too many for any two critics to agree upon which handful are the best.
So you won't find me complaining about the lists that have left me out. In fact, I'm as pleased as Dan Rather with a handbook of folksy metaphors to have been picked for the lists I did make. Here they are, so far:
New York Times Book Critic Dwight Garner's
10 Best Books of the Year
New York Times Book Review's
100 Notable Books of the Year
Financial Times's
Best Books of the Year
Barnes & Noble Review's
Best Lives of 2009
Amazon.com's
10 Best Biographies and Memoirs
Christian Science Monitor's
Best Books of the Year
Boston Globe's
8 Best Nonfiction Books of the Year
The New Yorker's
Reviewers' Favorites from 2009 
