Best nonfiction 2006

The Prince of the Marshes, by Rory Stewart (Harcourt, $25)

As a member of the coalition forces, a young Scotsman tackles the government of a province in the Iraqi marshlands and narrates his experiences with both disturbing insight and rueful humor. (8/8/06)

The Looming Tower, by Lawrence Wright (Knopf, $27.95)

From New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright, a thorough, accessible, and compelling account of some of the people, politics, and roiling theology behind Islamic terrorism. (9/5/06)

There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children, by Melissa Fay Greene (Bloomsbury, $25.95)

National Book award nominee Melissa Fay Greene wonderfully chronicles the true story of an Ethiopian woman who took in AIDS orphans. (9/19/06)

Tigers in Red Weather, by Ruth Padel (Walker & Co., $26.95)

Ruth Padel, poet and great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin, gorgeously writes of her hunt for wild tigers. (10/03/06)

The Shakespeare Wars, by Ron Rosenbaum (Random House, $35)

With humor and insight, journalist Ron Rosenbaum examines the impassioned debates that rage between scholars over the works of Shakespeare. (10/17/06)

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas Ricks (Penguin, $27.95)

The Washington Post's senior Pentagon reporter offers a detailed and devastating portrait of the run-up to and conduct of the war in Iraq. (10/17/06)

State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III, by Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster, $30)

The man sometimes called America's dean of journalism uses his remarkable access to continue his chronicle of the George W. Bush administration and the war in Iraq. (10/24/06)

Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York, by Adam Gopnik (Knopf, $25)

This charming collection of essays by New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik focuses on life in New York City, with a particular interest in urban parenting. (10/31/06)

The Architecture of Happiness, by Alain de Botton (Pantheon, $25)

The wide-ranging Alain de Botton turns his attention to architecture in this superb examination of buildings and how they make us feel. (11/14/06)

Operation Yao Ming, by Brook Larmer (Gotham Books, $26)

This well-crafted biography of basketball great Yao Ming is also a compelling tale of globalization. (Reviewed1/3/06)

Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power (Knopf, $27.50)

A British scholar offers a penetrating view of Abraham Lincoln and his peculiar gifts as a politician. (1/24/06)

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