This episode of BookerView is supported by Chanel, the legendary fashion house founded by Gabriela Chanel,

a visionary woman who created on her own terms and continues to inspire women today,

discover her story at insidechanel.com.

This is a special live edition of the New York Times Book Review podcast we are here in the time

center talking about our 10 best books of the year. This podcast was recorded live in front of an

audience on Friday, November 22nd.

Thank you all for being here. I am going to quickly introduce the rest of the people on stage here.

Tina Jordan is an editor at the BookerView. Greg Cole is the senior editor of the BookerView.

Emily Aiken and editor at the BookerView. John Williams, who you know from the podcast,

what we're reading segment and a staff writer and editor of the critics of the New York Times.

Barry Goon, a 30-year veteran of the New York Times BookerView as a preview editor.

Gull Beckerman, who is currently on Bookleave, but came in because we could not keep him away.

And Elizabeth Egan, another editor at the BookerView. Not here on stage is our colleague Lauren

Christensen, who had an emergency and couldn't be here. So we'll be speaking a little bit on her

behalf as well as several other colleagues of ours at the BookerView who prefer to remain firmly

off stage. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about the 10 bests and the history and how we do

things and then the rest of it you can save for questions at the end. The 10 best books

dates to 2004 under my predecessor. Before that we always had best books of the year.

Sometimes it was nine or eight, sometimes twelve, but everyone assumed that there were 10 best.

And so we just decided finally to deliver on their expectations. We now keep it at 10 and we

also very strictly keep it to five fiction and five nonfiction. This helps us even as it frustrates

us some years where we think maybe nonfiction is a little bit stronger or the opposite.

...