《纽约时报》每年都会发布当年的最佳好书推荐榜。前日《纽约时报》书评版编辑评出了“2012年度百部图书” 榜单，并精选出“2012年度十大好书”，小说类与非小说类各五册。其中既有布克文学奖、美国国家图书奖获奖作品，也有《卫报》首作奖得主；既有反映战争的现实故事，也有新奇讨巧的卡通图书；既有关于“存在”之意义的跨领域探讨，也有反映亚洲底层社会的纪实类文学。说不定哪一天我们就能看到这些好书的中文译本。
FICTION 小说类
BRING UP THE BODIES By Hilary Mantel. 《提堂》 作者：希拉里·曼特尔 作为曼特尔2009年作品《狼厅》的续作，曼特尔在本部小说中将亨利八世与安妮·博林老掉牙的故事有趣而充满悬疑地重新呈现了出来。小说采用亨利的首席大臣托马斯·克伦威尔的视角，讲述了宫廷残酷的体制迅速演变至不可避免的死刑。本部小说和《狼厅》一样，均荣获了英国布克文学奖。曼特尔有望续写第三部终结版，届时克伦威尔将以死亡告终。曼特尔能否上演“帽子戏法” 呢？
Ware’s innovative graphic novel deepens and enriches the form by breaking it apart. Packaged in a largebox like a board game, the project contains 14 “easily misplaced elements” — pamphlets, books, foldoutpages — that together follow the residents of a Chicago triplex (and one anthropomorphized bee) throughtheir ordinary lives. In doing so, it tackles universal themes including art, sex, family and existentialloneliness in a way that’s simultaneously playful and profound.BUILDING STORIES By Chris Ware. 《大楼故事》作者：克里斯·韦尔
韦尔以分体形式升华并丰富了这部新颖的图画小说。作品是在一个类似棋盘游戏盒子里盛有14个“极易放错的小玩意儿”（包括小册子、书籍以及折叠卡片），这些小玩意儿一起构成了一栋芝加哥大楼（类人化的蜂窝）居民的日常生活。通过这种方式，韦尔寓教于乐地阐述了艺术、性、家庭以及存在主义的孤独等普遍主题。
A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING By Dave Eggers 《国王的全息图》 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 thedeal he hopes will redeem his forlorn life. Eggers, continuing the worldly outlook that informed his recentbooks “Zeitoun” and “What Is the What,” spins this spare story — a globalized “Death of a Salesman” — intoa tightly controlled parable of America’s international standing and a riff on middle-class decline thatapproaches Beckett in its absurdist despair. 在沙特阿拉伯一座空城里，一名中年美国商人日复一日等待交易结束，希望挽救他孤寂绝望的生活。在这部被誉为“世界版《推销员之死》”的小说中，埃格斯继续了他在近作《泽图恩》和《什么是什么》中的俗世观，紧凑的寓言式故事折射出美国的国际处境及其中产阶级的衰退，其荒诞而绝望的手法堪比贝克特。（译注：贝克特·塞缪尔为《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 ahousing project in northwest London, their lives disrupted by fateful choices and the brutal efficiency ofchance. The narrative edges forward in fragments, uncovering truths about identity and money and sex withincandescent language that, for all of its formal experimentation, is intimate and searingly direct. 史密斯这部新锐小说讲述了伦敦西北角的一个小镇里一起成长的两个女性之间的友谊。她们的生活因命运般的抉择和残酷的机缘而各自纷扰。史密斯用卓越的笔调以片段式叙述方式触及了身份、金钱及性别等方面，密切又无不直白地揭示了严肃的课题。
THE YELLOW BIRDS By Kevin Powers. 《黄鸟》 作者：凯文·鲍尔斯
A veteran of the Iraq war, Powers places that conflict at the center of his impressionistic first novel, aboutthe connected but diverging fates of two young soldiers and the trouble one of them has readjusting to lifeat home. Reflecting the chaos of war, the fractured narrative jumps around in time and location, but Powersanchors it with crystalline prose and a driving mystery: How did the narrator’s friend die? 作为伊拉克战争的退役兵，鲍尔斯在他第一部印象小说中再现了战争的冲突。小说讲述了两名年轻士兵的故事，他们密切相连却又渐行渐远，其中一人甚至难以适应回家以后的生活。小说再现了战争的混乱，叙述片段化，时空交错跳跃。不过小说行文干净纯粹，而且鲍尔斯还留下一个引人遐思的谜团：故事叙述者的朋友究竟是怎么死的呢？
NONFICTION 非小说类
BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. By Katherine Boo. 《永恒美丽的背后：孟买地下城的生命、死亡与希望》 作者：凯瑟琳·布
This National Book Award-winning study of life in Annawadi, a Mumbai slum, is marked by reporting sorigorous it recalls the muckrakers, and characters so rich they evoke Dickens. The slum dwellers have askillful and empathetic chronicler in Boo, who depicts them in all their humanity and ruthless, resourcefulglory. 这份荣获国家图书奖的报告记录了孟买贫民窟Annawadi的生活。报告极其写实的风格使人想起狄更斯笔下的各色下层人物和角色。凯瑟琳·布娴熟且入木三分地刻画了贫民窟的居民，展现了他们的悲天悯人、冷漠无情以及足智多谋。
FAR FROM THE TREE Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity. By Andrew Solomon. 《背离亲缘：父母、儿童与自我寻求》 作者：安德鲁·所罗门
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 havegrown stronger or fallen apart while raising prodigies, dwarfs, schizophrenics, transgendered children orthose conceived in rape, he complicates everything we thought we knew about love, sacrifice and success. 数十载来，安德鲁一直在用“横向自我”概念研究抚养子女的挑战、困难和回报，以及子女不愿与父母分享的特性。作者涉及面十分广泛，在探索抚养神童、侏儒儿、精神分裂症患儿、变性患儿的家庭或所谓的强奸怀孕家庭的分离聚合时，安德鲁告诉读者：爱、牺牲与成功远比我们想象的复杂。
THE PASSAGE OF POWER The Years of Lyndon Johnson. By Robert A. Caro. 《走向权力的通道：林登·约翰逊的岁月》 作者：罗伯特·A·卡罗
The fourth volume of Caro’s prodigious masterwork, which now exceeds 3,000 pages, explores, with theauthor’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 KennedyWhite House and stripped of power. We know what Johnson does not, that this purgatory is prelude to theevent of a single horrific day, when an assassin’s bullet placed Johnson, and the nation he now had to lead,on a new course. 本书为卡罗的“约翰逊总统传记”系列第四卷，这部卷帙浩繁巨作共有三千多页。作者以包罗万象的戏剧手法、心理学洞察力以及细致艰辛的调查展现了约翰逊作为副总统的风雨岁月。彼时，约翰逊受肯尼迪政府内部排挤，同时还被剥夺了权力。今天看来，约翰逊当时丝毫不曾料到会遇上那个可怕的日子——刺客的枪口顶着约翰逊，他所领导的国家正翻开新的篇章。
THE PATRIARCH The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy. By David Nasaw. 《开天辟地：老约瑟夫·P·肯尼迪时代的辉煌与动荡》 作者：戴维·纳索
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 ofhis time, and his biographer persuasively makes the case that he was the most fascinating member of hislarge, famous and very formidable family. 纳索花了六年时间才完成这部煌煌巨著。乔·肯尼迪身兼银行家、投机商、电影制作人以及大使等职，同时还是整个肯尼迪家族的创始人。他完全就是那个时代的历史风云人物，而他的传记作者则令人信服地将其视为整个庞大出名且强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. 《世界为何存在：一个关于存在的侦探故事》 作者：吉姆·霍尔特
For several centuries now, thinkers have wondered, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Insearch 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 aresometimes closely reasoned, sometimes almost mystical, often very strange, always entertaining andthought-provoking. 几个世纪以来，思想家们一直在思索：“世界为何存在？”为解答这一问题，霍尔特将读者引入一段智慧博学的旅程；从伦敦、巴黎到奥斯汀及德克萨斯州，作者走访了各个领域的哲学家、科学家乃至小说家，得出或合理或神秘的答案，有些答案很奇怪，却也很有意思、引人深思。
