《紐約時報》榜單推薦：年度十大好書
《紐約時報》書評版編輯發佈了“2012年度百部圖書” 榜單，並精選出“2012年度十大好書”，小說類與非小說類各五冊。其中既有布克文學獎、美國國家圖書獎獲獎作品，也有《衛報》首作獎得主；既有反映戰爭的現實故事，也有新奇討巧的卡通圖書；既有關於“存在”之意義的跨領域探討，也有反映亞洲底層社會的紀實類文學。
FICTION
小說類
BRING UP THE BODIES
By Hilary Mantel.
《提堂》 作者：希拉里·曼特爾
Taking up where her previous novel, “Wolf Hall,” left off, Mantel makes the seemingly worn-out story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn newly fascinating and suspenseful. Seen from the perspective of Henry’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, the ruthless maneuverings of the court move swiftly to the inevitable executions. Both this novel and its predecessor were awarded the Man Booker Prize. Might the trilogy’s forthcoming conclusion, in which Cromwell will meet his demise, score Mantel a hat trick?
作爲曼特爾2009年作品《狼廳》的續作，曼特爾在本部小說中將亨利八世與安妮·博林老掉牙的故事有趣而充滿懸疑地重新呈現了出來。小說採用亨利的首席大臣托馬斯·克倫威爾的視角，講述了宮廷殘酷的體制迅速演變至不可避免的死刑。本部小說和《狼廳》一樣，均榮獲了英國布克文學獎。曼特爾有望續寫第三部終結版，屆時克倫威爾將以死亡告終。曼特爾能否上演“帽子戲法” 呢？
BUILDING STORIES
By Chris Ware.
《大樓故事》作者：克里斯·韋爾
Ware’s innovative graphic novel deepens and enriches the form by breaking it apart. Packaged in a large box like a board game, the project contains 14 “easily misplaced elements” — pamphlets, books, foldout pages — that together follow the residents of a Chicago triplex (and one anthropomorphized bee) through their ordinary lives. In doing so, it tackles universal themes including art, sex, family and existential loneliness in a way that’s simultaneously playful and profound.
韋爾以分體形式昇華並豐富了這部新穎的圖畫小說。作品是在一個類似棋盤遊戲盒子裏盛有14個“極易放錯的小玩意兒”（包括小冊子、書籍以及摺疊卡片），這些小玩意兒一起構成了一棟芝加哥大樓（類人化的蜂窩）居民的日常生活。通過這種方式，韋爾寓教於樂地闡述了藝術、性、家庭以及存在主義的孤獨等普遍主題。
A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING
By Dave Eggers
《國王的全息圖》 作者：戴夫·埃格斯
In an empty city in Saudi Arabia, a ¬middle-aged American businessman waits day after day to close the deal he hopes will redeem his forlorn life. Eggers, continuing the worldly outlook that informed his recent books “Zeitoun” and “What Is the What,” spins this spare story — a globalized “Death of a Salesman” — into a tightly controlled parable of America’s international standing and a riff on middle-class decline that approaches Beckett in its absurdist despair.
在沙特阿拉伯一座空城裏，一名中年美國商人日復一日等待交易結束，希望挽救他孤寂絕望的生活。在這部被譽爲“世界版《推銷員之死》”的小說中，埃格斯繼續了他在近作《澤圖恩》和《什麼是什麼》中的俗世觀，緊湊的寓言式故事折射出美國的國際處境及其中產階級的衰退，其荒誕而絕望的手法堪比貝克特。（譯註：貝克特·塞繆爾爲《等待戈多》的作者）
NW
By Zadie Smith.
《西北》 作者：扎迪·史密斯
Smith’s piercing new novel, her first in seven years, traces the friendship of two women who grew up in a housing project in northwest London, their lives disrupted by fateful choices and the brutal efficiency of chance. The narrative edges forward in fragments, uncovering truths about identity and money and sex with incandescent language that, for all of its formal experimentation, is intimate and searingly direct.
史密斯這部新銳小說講述了倫敦西北角的一個小鎮裏一起成長的兩個女性之間的友誼。她們的生活因命運般的抉擇和殘酷的機緣而各自紛擾。史密斯用卓越的筆調以片段式敘述方式觸及了身份、金錢及性別等方面，密切又無不直白地揭示了嚴肅的課題。
THE YELLOW BIRDS
By Kevin Powers.
《黃鳥》 作者：凱文·鮑爾斯
A veteran of the Iraq war, Powers places that conflict at the center of his impressionistic first novel, about the connected but diverging fates of two young soldiers and the trouble one of them has readjusting to life at home. Reflecting the chaos of war, the fractured narrative jumps around in time and location, but Powers anchors it with crystalline prose and a driving mystery: How did the narrator’s friend die?
作爲伊拉克戰爭的退役兵，鮑爾斯在他第一部印象小說中再現了戰爭的衝突。小說講述了兩名年輕士兵的故事，他們密切相連卻又漸行漸遠，其中一人甚至難以適應回家以後的生活。小說再現了戰爭的混亂，敘述片段化，時空交錯跳躍。不過小說行文乾淨純粹，而且鮑爾斯還留下一個引人遐思的謎團：故事敘述者的朋友究竟是怎麼死的呢？
NONFICTION
非小說類
BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS
Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity.
By Katherine Boo.
《永恆美麗的背後：孟買地下城的生命、死亡與希望》 作者：凱瑟琳·布
This National Book Award-winning study of life in Annawadi, a Mumbai slum, is marked by reporting so rigorous it recalls the muckrakers, and characters so rich they evoke Dickens. The slum dwellers have a skillful and empathetic chronicler in Boo, who depicts them in all their humanity and ruthless, resourceful glory.
這份榮獲國家圖書獎的報告記錄了孟買貧民窟Annawadi的生活。報告極其寫實的風格使人想起狄更斯筆下的各色下層人物和角色。凱瑟琳·布嫺熟且入木三分地刻畫了貧民窟的居民，展現了他們的悲天憫人、冷漠無情以及足智多謀。
FAR FROM THE TREE
Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity.
By Andrew Solomon.
《背離親緣：父母、兒童與自我尋求》 作者：安德魯·所羅門
For more than a decade, Solomon studied the challenges, risks and rewards of raising children with “horizontal identities,” traits that they don’t share with their parents. As he investigates how families have grown stronger or fallen apart while raising prodigies, dwarfs, schizophrenics, transgendered children or those conceived in rape, he complicates everything we thought we knew about love, sacrifice and success.
數十載來，安德魯一直在用“橫向自我”概念研究撫養子女的挑戰、困難和回報，以及子女不願與父母分享的特性。作者涉及面十分廣泛，在探索撫養神童、侏儒兒、精神分裂症患兒、變性患兒的家庭或所謂的強姦懷孕家庭的分離聚合時，安德魯告訴讀者：愛、犧牲與成功遠比我們想象的複雜。
THE PASSAGE OF POWER
The Years of Lyndon Johnson.
By Robert A. Caro.
《走向權力的通道：林登·約翰遜的歲月》 作者：羅伯特·A·卡羅
The fourth volume of Caro’s prodigious masterwork, which now exceeds 3,000 pages, explores, with the author’s signature combination of sweeping drama, psychological insight and painstaking research, Johnson’s humiliating years as vice president, when he was excluded from the inner circle of the Kennedy White House and stripped of power. We know what Johnson does not, that this purgatory is prelude to the event of a single horrific day, when an assassin’s bullet placed Johnson, and the nation he now had to lead, on a new course.
本書爲卡羅的“約翰遜總統傳記”系列第四卷，這部卷帙浩繁鉅作共有三千多頁。作者以包羅萬象的戲劇手法、心理學洞察力以及細緻艱辛的調查展現了約翰遜作爲副總統的風雨歲月。彼時，約翰遜受肯尼迪政府內部排擠，同時還被剝奪了權力。今天看來，約翰遜當時絲毫不曾料到會遇上那個可怕的日子——刺客的槍口頂着約翰遜，他所領導的國家正翻開新的篇章。
THE PATRIARCH
The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy.
By David Nasaw.
《開天闢地：老約瑟夫·P·肯尼迪時代的輝煌與動盪》 作者：戴維·納索
Nasaw took six years to complete this sprawling, arresting account of a banker-cum-speculator-cum-moviemaker-cum-ambassador-cum-dynastic founder. Joe Kennedy was involved in virtually all the history of his time, and his biographer persuasively makes the case that he was the most fascinating member of his large, famous and very formidable family.
納索花了六年時間才完成這部煌煌鉅著。喬·肯尼迪身兼銀行家、投機商、電影製作人以及大使等職，同時還是整個肯尼迪家族的創始人。他完全就是那個時代的歷史風雲人物，而他的傳記作者則令人信服地將其視爲整個龐大出名且強盛的肯尼迪家族中最具魅力的人物。
WHY DOES THE WORLD EXIST?
An Existential Detective Story.
By Jim Holt.
《世界爲何存在：一個關於存在的偵探故事》 作者：吉姆·霍爾特
For several centuries now, thinkers have wondered, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” In search of an answer, Holt takes the reader on a witty and erudite journey from London to Paris to Austin, Tex., as he listens to a varied cast of philosophers, scientists and even novelists offer solutions that are sometimes closely reasoned, sometimes almost mystical, often very strange, always entertaining and thought-provoking.
幾個世紀以來，思想家們一直在思索：“世界爲何存在？”爲解答這一問題，霍爾特將讀者引入一段智慧博學的旅程；從倫敦、巴黎到奧斯汀及德克薩斯州，作者走訪了各個領域的哲學家、科學家乃至小說家，得出或合理或神祕的答案，有些答案很奇怪，卻也很有意思、引人深思。
