Best (overlooked) books 2010

Well, not all of them were entirely overlooked, but we definitely read them during 2010. Inside Story contributors nominate the best overlooked books of 2010 - the books you might not have heard about but are worth considering for holiday reading. Nicholas Farrelly reviews the book ' Nothing to envy: love, life and death in North Korea' by Barbara Demick, published by Harper Collins, Sydney, 2010; Sylvia Lawson reviews the book 'Not entitled' by Frank Kermode, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999; Jennifer Doggett reviews the book 'The rational optimist' by Matt Ridley, published by Fourth Estate, London, 2010; Danielle Chubb reviews the book 'The idea of justice' by Amartya Sen, published by Penguin, London, 2010; Andrew Lynch reviews the book 'The flight of the intellectuals' by Paul Berman, published by Scribe Publications, Carlton North, 2010; Nicholas Gruen reviews the book 'Obliquity: why our goals are best achieved indirectly' by John Kay, published by Profile Books, 2010; Julian Thomas reviews the book 'Pirate modernity: Delhi’s media urbanism' by Ravi Sundaram, published by Routledge, 2009; Melissa Sweet reviews the book 'My blood’s country' by Fiona Capp, published by Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2010; Jock Given reviews the book 'The Lady Matador’s Hotel' by Cristina García, published by Scribner, 2010; Jill Kitson reviews the book 'Troubles' by J. G. Farrell, published by Phoenix House, 1993; Ben Eltham reviews the book 'Four fish: the story of fishing and what's left to eat' by Paul Greenberg, published by Penguin, Camberwell, 2010; Richard Johnstone reviews the book 'The flavour thesaurus: pairings, recipes and ideas for the creative cook' by Niki Segnit, published by Bloomsbury, London, 2010; James Scambary reviews the book 'Locus Solus' by Raymond Roussel, published in 1914; Stephanie Younane Brookes reviews the book 'Noah’s compass' by Anne Tyler, published by Chatto & Windus, London, 2009; Peter Mares reviews the book 'Transport for suburbia: beyond the automobile age' by Paul Mees, published by Earthscan, London, 2010; David Hayes reviews the book 'Passport to Peking: a very British mission to Mao’s China' by Patrick Wright, published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010; Graeme Orr reviews the book 'Fields of Glory' by Jean Rouaud, published by Arcade Publishing, New York, 1993; Lesley Russell reviews the book 'My father’s paradise: a son's search for his family’s past' by Ariel Sabar, published by Algonquin Books, 2008; Scott Ewing reviews the book 'When the lights went out' by Andy Beckett, published by Faber & Faber, London, 2009; Peter Browne reviews the book 'The Checklist Manifesto' by Atul Gawande, published by Profile, London, 2010; Glenn Nicholls reviews the book 'Snowed under' by Antje Rávic Strubel, published by Red Hen, 2008; John Langmore reviews the book 'Europe: a history' by Norman Davies, published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996; Terry Lane reviews the book 'Hero: the life and legend of Lawrence of Arabia' by Michael Korda, published by Harper Collins, New York, 2010; Frank Bongiorno reviews the book 'The end of the party' by Andrew Rawnsley, published by Penguin, 2011; Savitri Taylor reviews the book 'The idea of justice' byAmartya Sen, published by Penguin, London, 2010; Norman Abjorensen reviews the book ' They called him Old Smoothie' by Peter Golding, published by Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2009; Sara Dowse reviews the book 'Erasing Iraq: the human costs of carnage' by Michael Otterman, Richard Hil and Paul Wilson, published by Pluto Press, London, 2010; Brian McFarlane reviews the book 'Arguments with England' by Michael Blakemore, published by Faber & Faber, London, 2005; John Besemeres reviews the book 'Reflections on the revolution in Europe: immigration, Islam and the West' by Christopher Caldwell, published by Penguin, London, 2010; Dennis Altman reviews the book 'The end of the World Book' by Alistair McCartney, published by University of Wisconsin Press, 2008; Tom Griffiths reviews the book 'A three-cornered life' by Jim Davidson, published by UNSW Press, Sydney, 2010; Chris Bonnor reviews the book 'More than luck: ideas Australia needs now' edited by Mark Davis and Miriam Lyons, published by the Centre for Policy Development, Sydney, 2010; Christina Crossley Ratcliffe reviews the book 'Against the odds' by Marjolijn Hof , published by Groundwood Books, Toronto, 2009.