Books of the year: The titles selected by critics as the best of 2007

1. Legacy of Ashes

by Tim Weiner

(Doubleday, $28)

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Tim Weiner's "masterfully reported" history of the CIA would be an important book even if it weren't "compulsively readable," said Laura Miller in Salon.com. At a time when the agency's reputation has been seriously undermined by intelligence failures, Weiner's impeccably sourced chronicle demonstrates that our pre-eminent spooks probably never did deserve the fear and awe that they once inspired. Reviewing a full half-century of CIA ineptitude, this "superb journalist" seems to leave no lie unexposed, "no bungled assassination unsung," said Sam Coale in The Providence Journal. Weiner's objective is to inspire an overhaul of the organization that runs America's intelligence operations. Until Washington is ready to heed him, his "riveting, fact-drenched page-turner" will stand ready to "disgust, appall, amaze, stun, and enthrall" many a mere citizen.

A caveat: Weiner gives too little attention to forces outside the agency that contributed to some of its blunders, said Coale.

2. Brother, I'm Dying

by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf, $24)

This "fierce, haunting book" creates an indelible portrait of a family riven by history, said Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times. The brothers alluded to in the title are Edwidge Danticat's late father and Uncle Joseph, the latter of whom raised her to age 12 in Haiti after her parents immigrated to America in the early 1970s. The two men were nearly reunited one final time in Brooklyn. But the 81-year-old Joseph, on his way to his younger brother's deathbed, was detained in Miami by U.S. officials and died in their custody. Danticat's writing is always "cool and taut on the surface," said Michael Upchurch in The Seattle Times. She "comes head-on" at this complex two-generation family tragedy, and the result is "both eloquent and devastating."

A caveat: Brother, I'm Dying lacks the "intense focus of the best books about loss," said Jennifer Reese in Entertainment Weekly.

3. The Rest Is Noise

by Alex Ross (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, $30)

New Yorker critic Alex Ross has "an almost uncanny gift for putting music into words," said The Economist. That talent, plus his curiosity, open-mindedness, and nose for "telling vignettes and notable anecdotes" make him the ideal writer to undertake a comprehensive history of 20th-century classical music and its myriad outgrowths. In his first book, he "succeeds magnificently" in using music to cast fresh light on the broader cultural history of the era. Though audiences fled when composers began experimenting with atonality, said Kevin Berger in Salon.com, Ross almost convinces you that those experiments are worth seeking out today. Not just a delightful reading experience in itself, The Rest Is Noise ranks as "the biggest cultural boost classical music could hope to receive."

A caveat: The flow of Ross' book is occasionally interrupted by profiles that seem to have been pulled directly from The New Yorker, said Berger.

4. Schulz and Peanuts

by David Michaelis (HarperCollins, $35)

David Michaelis' "superb" biography of the late Charles Schulz is almost dangerously insightful, said Roger K. Miller in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. While fans of the world's most popular comic strip might wish that the creator of Peanuts had lived the life of a saint, Michaelis' study reveals instead a self-centered homebody stubbornly unwilling to let go of the injured pride that served as the wellspring of his art. Michaelis never met Schulz, but his book "feels written from the inside," said Carlo Wolff in The Boston Globe. If the story it tells saddens some readers, that's only fitting. Peanuts itself was "deeply American in its wistfulness."

A caveat: Michaelis plays backyard psychiatrist a few too many times, said Scott McLemee in Newsday.

5. The World Without Us

by Alan Weisman

(Thomas Dunne, $25)

This brilliant work appears gimmicky at first glance, said Chauncey Mabe in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. But journalist Alan Weisman doesn't just ask readers to imagine what would happen on Earth if human beings disappeared overnight. He presents a portrait of our wounded but resilient planet that is vividly described and rigorously reported, making The World Without Us "one of the most satisfying environmental books in recent memory." Our cities apparently would crumble sooner than most readers would guess, said Jennifer Schuessler in The New York Times. Far more enduring would be our poisons, our plastics, and our pre-1982 pennies. Nature would be the big winner, though. By showing us how it would erase most of the fruits of human industry, Weisman has created "a Hollywood-worthy slow-motion disaster spectacular and feel-good movie rolled into one."

A caveat: Weisman breaks the spell he's created when he adds a couple of questionable recommendations about limiting human population growth,

said Schuessler.

How the books were chosen

We tabulated critics' choices from The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times, the National Book Critics Circle, New York, The New York Times, Salon.com, The Seattle Times, Time, The Village Voice, and The Washington Post.