Now, it Amazon.com’s turn with numerous list, some from editors others from customers based on sales.

From the Web Home Page

Amazon.com, Inc. today announced its picks for Best Books of 2009. This annual feature includes the Editors’ Picks for the Top 100 Books of the Year, Top 100 Customer Favorites, Top 10 lists for both editors and customers in nearly two dozen categories, including Literature & Fiction and Cooking, Food & Wine, as well as videos of the year.

It’s worth noting that twice near the top of the document Amazon.com points out that a “majority” of the titles on their Top 100 Books of the Year list are also available for the Kindle. It will be interesting to see next year at this time how many 2010 books are available for both the nook [coming soon from Barnes & Noble] and Kindle and which titles (if any) will be exclusive to one reader or another. Of course, there are other (with more coming) eReaders out there so we will have to watch closely to see what content is available for each device.

“Our editorial team spends the whole year reading new releases with our Best Books of the Year lists in mind, and every year it proves to be our most popular feature among our customers,” said Tom Nissley, senior editor of Amazon.com Books. “Deciding on our Top 100 Books can often get a little contentious, but [our emphasis] this year our choice for the Best Book of the Year, Colum McCann’s ‘Let the Great World Spin,’ was the closest we’ve ever come to a unanimous pick across the entire Amazon.com Books team. Many readers have already fallen in love with this moving story of New York City in the mid-‘70s, centered around Philippe Petit’s audaciously graceful tightrope walk between the Twin Towers, and we’re looking forward to sharing it with many more.”

Access the Complete List

Categories Include:

+ Top 100 Editors’ Picks

+ Top 100 Customer Favorites

Our top 100 customer favorites are ranked according to customer orders on Amazon.com through October. (Only books published for the first time in 2009 are eligible.)

+ Editors’ Top 10: Literature & Fiction

+ Editors’ Picks: Children’s Books (Picture Books, Middle Readers, Teens)

+ Customers’ Top 10: Mystery & Thrillers

+ Best Books of 2009 on Your Kindle
Editors Picks ||| Customer Favorites

MANY more categories (both “Editors Picks” and “Customer Favorites”) can be found in the left margin of the 2009 list home page. In that same location you’ll find links to lists from 2000-2008.

Source: Amazon.com

This Top 10 list (the first-ever) from Publisher’s Weekly consists of both fiction and non-fiction titles. The books were selected from the 50,000 titles submitted to PW for review in 2009.

Nonfiction

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, by Richard Holmes

Cheever: A Life, by Blake Bailey

A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon, by Neil Sheehan

Stitches: A Memoir, by David Small

Shop Class as Soulcraft, by Matthew Crawford

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, David Grann

Fiction

Await Your Reply, by Dan Chaon

Big Machine, by Victor LaValle

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, by Geoff Dyer

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, by Daniyal Mueenuddin

This link will take you to the PW reviews of these titles.

The complete list of the 100 adult best books of the year, broken down by major categories, as well as 30 best children’s books of 2009, will appear in the November 2 issue of PW.

Source: Publisher’s Weekly

After steadily declining for years, the size of the Top Ten Jury Verdicts rose dramatically in 2008.

The top verdict in 2008 was $388 million, a significant increase over 2007’s top award of $109 million. The average award increased dramatically as well, driven by three verdicts of well over $100 million – including one of nearly $400 million. The average award for 2007 was just shy of $51 million, while the average award for 2008 more than doubled, to $112 million.

The year’s top verdict was awarded to a 70-year-old inventor who claims he was hounded by California tax authorities for the past 15 years. And five of the Top Ten Verdicts stemmed from personal injury cases, including $85 million for a medical school student who was badly injured after falling into a manhole and $84 million for an elderly man struck by a U-Haul with a faulty parking brake. Interestingly, there were no medical malpractice cases in the Top Ten.

Source: Lawyers USA

Source: Amazon.com

Eventful…today released its second annual ‘Most Eventful Cities’ report, which ranks U.S. cities according to the number and diversity of local events for residents and visitors. Eventful derives the rankings from its database of local events, which contains the world’s largest selection of information on what’s happening in cities throughout the world. The report provides a unique insight into the character of U.S. cities and the interests and activities of their residents, with some interesting and unexpected results.

Rankings Include:

+ Top cities for Wheelers & Dealers (The most conferences)

+ Top cities for Night Crawlers (The most bar and club events)

+ Top cities for Music Lovers (The most music events)

+ Top cities for Pet Lovers (The most pet-related events)

+ Top cities for Bookworms (The most literary events)

+ Top Cities for the Outdoors

+ Top Cities for the Performing Arts

+ Top Cities for Singles

+ Top Cities for Sports

Complete rankings also available here.

Source: Eventful.com Database

The list contains the top ten quotations. Here are the top three from the list. Review the complete list here.

1. “I can see Russia from my house!” — Sarah Palin on her foreign-policy credentials, as satirized by Tina Fey, NBC “Saturday Night Live” broadcast, Sept. 13, 2008

2. “All of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.” — Sarah Palin responding to Katie Couric’s asking her to specifically name newspapers or magazines she reads, CBS News interview, Oct. 1, 2008

3. “We have sort of become a nation of whiners.” — Phil Gramm on Americans concerned about the economy, quoted in Washington Times, July 10, 2008

Source: Yale University Press

As economies imploded, unemployment soared, companies went bust, and so-called experts threw up their hands and admitted they hadn’t a clue, one could be forgiven for thinking that 2008 was unremittingly bleak. Not so. Though it’s ending on a sour note, the year had plenty of highs that round out the lows. For a reminder, kick back with this BusinessWeek list of the best and worst in just about everything—from global economics and sports to design and entertainment, from advertising and food to medicine and efforts to go green.

Source: BusinessWeek

Source: Time

The editors of the Book Review have selected these titles from the list of 100 Notable Books of 2008.

Fiction
1. Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories (Steven Millhauser)
2. A Mercy (Toni Morrison)
3. Netherland (Joseph O’Neill)
4. 2666 (Roberto Bolaño)
5. Unaccustomed Earth (Jhumpa Lahiri)

Nonfiction
1. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals (Jane Mayer)
2. The Forever War (Dexter Filkins)
3. Nothing to be Frightened of (Julian Barnes)
4. The Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (Drew Gilpin Faust)
5. The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul (Patrick French)

Source: The New York Times

Maybe all our refined, enlightened interests are lost in the long tail, because Britney Spears once again was the most popular search subject in 2008 on Yahoo.

For Yahoo, Spears wasn’t the only pop-culture icon in Yahoo’s top 10 searches. Also on the list were Miley Cyrus at No. 4, Jessica Alba at No. 6, Lindsay Lohan at No. 7, and Angelina Jolie at No. 9.

Apparently a lot of people are curious about World Wrestling Entertainment, because WWE was No. 2. The online game RuneScape was No. 5, anime series Naruto was No. 7, and American Idol finished in 10th place on Yahoo’s list.

Yahoo also broke down searches for various other subjects. For economic searches, the top 10 list started with IRS stimulus checks, then followed with oil prices, gold prices, gas prices, Dow Jones, Sallie Mae, stock market, AIG, foreclosures, and debt consolidation. The list reveals that people use general-purpose searches for everything ranging from how-to advice to the latest news.

In the people of politics, President-elect Barack Obama led the list. Next came Sarah Palin, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, Ron Paul, John Edwards, Mike Huckabee, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Mitt Romney.

See also: AOL Search – 2008 Year End Hot Searches
See also: Ask Top 2008 Searches

Source: CNET News

Book sales tracked by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) for the month of December saw a slight decrease of 1.8 percent for the month; however yearly sales were up with an increase of 7.4 percent.

The Adult Hardcover category was down by 19.5 percent in December with sales of $128.1 million; year-to-date sales were up by 7.8 percent. Adult Paperback sales rose 10.1 percent for the month ($116.1 million); sales were up by 0.2 percent for the year. The Adult Mass Market category rose by 46.8 percent for December with sales totaling $81.2 million; sales were down by 2.0 percent year-to-date. The Children’s/YA Hardcover category saw an increase of 16.7 percent for the month with sales of $52.6 million; sales year-to-date were also up by 46.4 percent. The Children’s/YA Paperback category was up by 10.0 percent in December with sales totaling $39.6 million; sales were up by 6.5 percent for the year.

Audio Book sales posted a decrease of 13.1 percent for December compared to last year’s figures, with sales totaling $11.9 million; sales for the whole year were up by 19.8 percent. E-books sales rose by 2.4 percent for the month ($3.0 million); the category also posted an increase of 23.6 percent for the year. Religious Books saw a decrease of 7.5 percent for the month with sales of $45.8 million; sales were up by 5.2 percent for the year.

Source: American Association of Publishers

The average temperature for the contiguous U.S. in 2007 is officially the tenth warmest on record, according to data from scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The agency also determined the global surface temperature last year was the fifth warmest on record.

Source: NOAA

This year’s survey of Global Traveler readers was conducted from Feb. 1 to Aug. 31, 2007. The open-ended questionnaires appeared in subscriber copies of the magazine and online at www.globaltravelerusa.com/survey, and were also distributed by direct mail and email to GT readers. Counting only those questionnaires in which more than 50 percent of the questions were answered, we received a record 15,828 individual questionnaires. The tabulated results of those questionnaires determined the rankings in each category.

Categories include:
+ Best Aircraft Type
+ Best Frequent Flyer Program
+ Best International Hotel Chain
+ Best Hotel Chain in Asia
+ Best Domestic Business City
+ Best International Golf Resort
+ Best Transatlantic Airline
+ Best Airline in North America
+ Best Airline for Business Class
and MANY more categories.

Source: Global Traveler
+

Source: GT

+ Direct to Scorecard

Source: Hoover’s

We’ve posted a number of year end lists and rankings on ResourceShelf. You can find them listed here.

Source: Infoplease.com

The wordsmiths at Lake Superior State University are giving back to English speakers everywhere with their 33rd annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness.

On Dec. 31, 1975, former LSSU Public Relations Director Bill Rabe and his colleagues cooked up an idea to banish overused words and phrases and issue a list on New Year’s Day. Much to the delight of language enthusiasts everywhere, the list has stayed the course into a fourth decade.

This year’s list derives from more than 2,000 nominations received through the university’s website, www.lssu.edu/banished. Word-watchers target pet peeves from everyday speech, as well as from the news, education, technology, advertising, politics, sports and more. A committee makes a final cut in late December. The list is released on New Year’s Day.

Current list:

• Perfect storm
• Webinar
• Waterboarding
• Organic
• Wordsmith/Wordsmithing
• Author/Authored
• Post 9/11
• Surge
• Give Back
• ‘BLANK’ is the new ‘BLANK’ or ‘X’ is the new ‘Y’
• Black Friday
• Back in the day
• Random
• Sweet
• Decimate
• Emotional
• Pop
• It is what it is
• Under the bus

Source: Lake Superior State University

There is no ranking of these egregious activities, rather the following list outlines CREW’s new annual study on the past year’s on-going scandals:

• No new enforcement mechanisms for congressional ethics;
• Ted Stevens still sitting on Senate Appropriations;
• Senate Ethics Committee looking into Sen. Craig, but not Sen. Vitter;
• Millions of missing White House emails still unaccounted for;
• Rep. Murtha’s abuse of the earmarking process remains unchecked;
• Lurita Doan remains chief of GSA despite illegal conduct;
• White House covering up its role in the firings of the U.S. Attorneys;
• No Child Left Behind funds directed to Bush fundraisers who provide inadequate reading materials for kids;
• Court decision regarding search of Jefferson’s office limits ability of DOJ to investigate other corrupt lawmakers; and
• FEMA knowingly let Katrina victims live in hazardous trailers

Source: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)

Read our top 52 weekly stories of the year, chronicling the major cases and events of 2007, including the Minneapolis bridge collapse and the Fort Dix terrorism plot.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation

Slide Show Tour

Source: Forbes