And so we come to the end of 2008. The news outlets, this one included, will do a more satisfying job of recalling the big stories of the year than I possibly could, so I won’t even bother to try. Suffice to say, however, that I am beyond happy that the Election Year We Thought Would Never End finally did, and with a result that gives me hope for the future, though it’s truly unfortunate that we’ve had to experience just how bad it could get along the way.

The recession has wreaked havoc in all sectors of the business world, including the book business. Borders Books and Music is fighting hard to stay in the game, publishing giant Random House has announced major restructuring, and a couple of the houses have closed their transoms to new acquisitions for the foreseeable future. It’s turning into a rough time for books themselves, as the Internet and the advent of e-readers are starting to leach customers away from old-school paper-and-ink.

So, while we can still get them, here are my recommendations for books I enjoyed this year but didn’t get into the regular column:

The Hardest Working Man: How James Brown Saved the Soul of America by James Sullivan (Penguin): The day after the assassination of Martin Luther King in April 1968, cities across the country were aflame with some of the worst race-rioting in our history. After all, many felt, if the enemies of black America could kill MLK, it was open season on anyone. In an especially hard-hit Boston, James Brown, the undisputed king of soul, wrestled with the decision of whether or not to go through with his sold-out show at the Garden that night. It would either be a triumph of black solidarity or touch off a catastrophic powder-keg. Not only did Brown take the stage that night, but a last-minute decision to televise the concert resulted in one of the most electrifying performances of Brown’s career and one of the most important events in the history of popular music. Sullivan covers the singular event from all sides - from Brown’s struggle of conscience, to the fights in City Hall to hold the city together, to the turbulent streets themselves - with even-handed but suspenseful reportage. Highly recommended.

American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA - When FDR Put the Nation to Work by Nick Taylor (Random House): Much has been made of Barack Obama’s emulation of Abraham Lincoln in gathering former rivals around him to offer honest and contentious counsel, but upon taking office Obama will be getting his FDR on. The President-elect has proposed a massive public-works and infrastructure package designed to create jobs, just as Roosevelt did with the far-reaching and controversial Works Progress Administration in 1935. Besieged by critics howling socialism and throwing itself against the seemingly unstoppable tide of the Great Depression, the WPA resulted in some of the nation’s most celebrated landmarks, the modernizing of the rural South, and the employment of millions of Americans eager to do something, anything. Taylor does a remarkable job of relating the spirit of the times and exploring every facet of Roosevelt’s wide-ranging network of programs and its ramifications which are still being felt today.

Lyrics 1964-2008 by Paul Simon (Simon & Schuster): Back when he had a late-night talk show, Bob Costas once asked Paul Simon if he believed his lyrics could stand alone as poetry. Simon said no. This collection of Simon’s lyrics, from his first collaborations with Art Garfunkel (as “Tom and Jerry”) to the present day, puts the lie to his answer. Though a master craftsman of musical hooks, Simon has always been a wordsmith first - just read the lyrics to such pieces as “Hearts and Bones,” “America,” “Graceland” or “Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After the War” - and the depth of his ability is clear. To many listeners Simon’s music may have become as ubiquitous as wallpaper over the years, but a fresh look at his lyrics reminds us of why he’s been consistently one of the best American songwriters of the past half-century.

Annie Leibovitz at Work by Annie Leibovitz (Random House): Though Disney and the tabloids tried to slam her this year for her cheesecakey photo of Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair, Annie Leibovitz is utterly critic-proof. Inarguably one of the most influential photographers of our time, Leibovitz’s uncanny knack for staging and shooting celebrities in ways that cut through the veneer and bring out their inner selves is matched by her ability to capture drama and power in unstaged shots. Her work is iconic, a word that should be bandied about less than it is but is absolutely true here, and in her new book Leibovitz tells about how she got those amazing photos and forged an unparalleled career. Fans and photographers alike will be pleased with this lavishly illustrated and unflinchingly candid memoir.

Bowling Across America: 50 States in Rented Shoes by Mike Walsh (St. Martin’s Press): After his larger-than-life father keeled over dead while playing handball, Chicago ad exec Walsh experienced what he describes as a midlife crisis at 27. Discovering that his dad’s unfulfilled goal was to play his favorite sport in all 50 states, Walsh quit his job, borrowed his mom’s Honda Civic, and set out on his own cross-country quest. Not being a handball player, however, Walsh decided to bowl at least one game in every state in the union. As Walsh drives from state to state, crashing on couches and scrambling for any kind of publicity and corporate sponsorship to keep him in gas and nachos, he encounters a wide variety of his fellow Americans - young and old, champions and amateurs, a blind bowler, a convention of Big Lebowski fans in costume, bowling groupies, and people whose lives were saved by the sport. Part travelogue, part road comedy, and part memoir about finding oneself among the strangest of companions, Walsh’s book is a solid read. And it’ll make you want to bowl.

And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs (Grove/Atlantic): Last year saw the 50th anniversary of Kerouac’s seminal Beat novel On the Road, and this year has produced a similar edition of The Dharma Bums (which is actually a better novel) and the release of a facsimile edition of Burroughs’ only surviving notebook (by Ohio State University Press). It’s fitting, therefore, that Grove has also released this never-before-published collaboration between the two men. Written before either writer had a career to speak of, it is a hard-boiled fictional account of their arrest as accessories to the murder of their friend David Kemmerer by the writer Lucien Carr. Long dismissed as a failure by both Kerouac and Burroughs, the book took on its own life as a grail for fans and collectors of the Beats’ work, and while the novel is far from either writer’s best work, it’s entertaining enough, dry and funny and smartassed as its authors could be. A must-have for Beat completists and for anyone else who’d like a glimpse into the early workings of Jack and Bill’s vital fictive minds.

The Rock Bible: Unholy Scripture for Fans & Bands by Henry Owings, et al. (Quirk Publishing): While I love indie-rock and writing about music, I tend to avoid most indie-rock magazines like the plague, filled as most are with the self-indulgent posturing of guys who’ve mistaken their ability to retain trivia for actual scholarship, but I have a soft spot in my heart for our own Chunklet. This book, written and packaged in quasi-Biblical form, is distilled and condensed wisdom, gleaned by Owings and Company from seeing hundreds of ego-driven, poorly staged, ill-behaved and just plain bad bands, and a valuable guide to avoiding becoming one of them. Virtually every directive and commandment in the book rings true, and if you know a drummer who aspires to sing, a bass player who aspires to solo, a guitar player who has more effects pedals than limbs, or a groupie who thinks she’s in the band, get this book into their hands immediately.

Hot Chicks with Douchebags by Jay Louis (Simon & Schuster): If you’ve ever borne witness to the sight of beautiful, well-heeled young ladies on the arms of narcissistic trogs dressed for summer camp and wondered What the hell?, this book is for you. In chapter after chapter, with illustrated examples throughout, Louis explores the taxonomy of the subspecies of self-loving male clubrat, from popped collars and fauxhawks to Armani Exchange t-shirts and fake hip-hop bling, from that morass of grease, tan-in-a-can and dripping hair gel on the forehead to the noxious cloud of Tag Bodyspray emanating from this walking Superfund site. The 10-degree baseball cap tilt. The ubiquitous barbed-wire tatts that needle-jocks now do in their sleep. Suburban white boys flashing gang signs and pouting like rock stars. The horrors are endless and yet, as Louis snarls in teeth-gnashing prose, women seem obliviously drawn to them. It flies in the face of natural selection and common sense, and that is the core of Louis’ book. Sour grapes, sure, and really the book is an excuse to mock people in terribly unflattering photos, but as fans of the late-great Vice magazine (whose scathingly funny “Fashion Dos and Don’ts” column this book strongly resembles) know, there are underlying truths behind the humor about our obsession with image in our post-“Real World” world. And as an added bonus, there are many, many inventive combinations of various terms for the male genitalia used to describe the men in these photos - my personal favorite is “scrotewank” and I look forward to using it in conversation soon.

One other item that escaped my notice until it was too late was the passing in November of Studs Terkel, collector of oral histories and the author of the amazing books The Good War and Working. One can learn about history by following the actions of political and military leaders, tracing the major battles and migrations and legislative milestones. But one experiences history through the words of ordinary people caught up in it, and Terkel’s gift to all of us was his commitment to recording their stories for posterity. If you’ve never read Terkel’s books, go find them now. And if you have, then read them again. I can’t think of a better way to start 2009.

John G. Nettles