Best (overlooked) books 2012

Our contributors nominate the books from 2012 (or, in a few cases cases, late 2011) that didn't get the attention they deserved. Sylvia Lawson reviews the book 'A train in winter: a story of resistance, friendship and survival', by Caroline Moorehead, published by Chatto and Windus, London, 2011; Norman Abjorensen reviews the book 'Twilight of the elites: America after meritocracy', by Christopher Hayes, published by Crown, New York, 2012; Nicholas Gruen reviews the book 'The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion', by Jonathan Haidt, published by Allen Lane, 2012; Andrew Ford reviews the book 'Gunther Schuller: a life in pursuit of music and beauty', by Gunther Schuller, published by University of Rochester Press, Rochester, 2011; Julian Thomas reviews the book 'Merchants of culture: the publishing business in the twenty-first century', by John B. Thompson, published by Polity, Cambridge, 2012; Melissa Sweet reviews the book 'Belonging together: dealing with the politics of disenchantment in Australian Indigenous Policy', by Patrick Sullivan, published by Aboriginal Studies Press, Acton, 2011; Jock Given reviews the book 'Greening the media', by Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller, published by Oxford University Press, New York, 2012; Richard Johnstone reviews the book 'Cheek by jowl: a history of neighbours', by Emily Cockayne, published by Bodley Head, London, 2012; Andrew Leigh reviews the book 'The signal and the noise: the art and science of prediction', by Nate Silver, published by Penguin, Melbourne, 2012; Brian McFarlane reviews the book 'Spirit of progress', by Steven Carroll, published by HarperCollins, Sydney, 2011; Lesley Russell reviews the book 'Five chiefs: a Supreme Court memoir', by John Paul Stevens, published by Little, Brown, New York, 2011; Matthew Ricketson reviews the book 'Leak: why Mark Felt became Deep Throat', by Max Holland, published by University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, 2012; Brett Evans reviews the book 'Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the corruption of Britain', by Tom Watson and Martin Hickman, published by Allen Lane, London, 2012, Michael Gill reviews the book 'Confidence men: Wall Street, Washington, and the education of a president', by Ron Suskind, published by HarperCollins, New York, 2011; Tom Griffiths reviews the book 'A wild history: life and death on the Victoria River frontier', by Darrell Lewis, published by Monash University Publishing, Clayton, 2012; Klaus Neumann reviews the book 'Migrants and strangers in an African city: exile, dignity, belonging', by Bruce Whitehouse published by Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2012; Sara Dowse reviews the books 'The politics of change in Palestine' by Michael Broning, published by Pluto Press, London, 2011, and 'After Zionism: one state for Israel and Palestine', edited by Antony Loewenstein and Ahmed Moor, published by Al Saqi, London, 2012; David Hayes reviews the book 'Autonomy, solidarity, possibility: the Colin Ward reader', edited by Chris Wilbert and Damian F. White, published by A. K. Press, Oakland, 2011; and Kerry Brown reviews the book 'Tombstone: the untold story of Mao's great famine', by Yang Jisheng, published by Allen Lane, London, 2012.