2008, 2008, 2008, 2008, 2008, 2008, 2008, 2008, 2008, 2008... There, that should do me fine for now -- hope you don't mind me using the space for the "new year check-writing and what-not" practice. Oh, very well — here's a list of new books, too:

NONFICTION: 

Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Hegel to Whole Foods by Jonah Goldberg

Since the rise and fall of the Nazis in the mid-twentieth century, fascism has been seen as an extreme right-wing movement, with liberals playing fast and loose with assumptions and accusations, hurling the term quite cavalierly at their conservative opponents. But fascism isn't a right-wing phenomenon at all, argues National Review editor-at-large Jonah Goldberg in this provocative corrective as he contends that liberals — from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton — have promoted policies notably comparable to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.

Goldberg goes on to claim that "political correctness" on campuses reflects the Nazis' suppression of free speech and that liberals, like their fascist antecedents, reject the democratic process when it yields results they dislike, and increasingly seek to insert the authority of the state in our private lives — from bans on smoking to gun control. Delving into such issues as health care, morality, anti-Semitism, and science versus religion, he audaciously demonstrates parallels between the opinions advanced by Hitler and Mussolini and many current views of the Left, citing the easy inclination with which the latter has always succumbed to "the totalitarian temptation."  

Memo to the President Elect: How to Restore America's Reputation and Leadership by Madeleine Albright, Bill Woodward

The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan

This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust

Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George

Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal by Randall Kennedy

Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern Conservatism by William A. Link

The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy by Robert Leleux

FICTION:

The Deportees and Other Stories by Roddy Doyle

The author of eight novels, including The Commitments and the 1993 Man Booker Prize winner Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha presents, in a collection of stories with a focus on the effects of immigration on contemporary Irish culture, eight amusing and poignant tales told from the perspective of "someone born in Ireland [who] meets someone who has come to live" there. It's a wide array of subjects and imagination displayed by Roddy Doyle, too. In "Black Hoodie" a taciturn teen discovers his passion for civil rights and a Nigerian girl, while "New Boy" chronicles an improbable friendship between a nine-year-old African immigrant and two small, angry Irish boys. But in a more humorous vein, "57% Irish" sees a man devise a test of Irishness by measuring reactions to three things: Riverdance, the song "Danny Boy," and Robbie Keane's goal against Germany in the 2002 World Cup.

The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly

Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich

Runemarks by Joanne Harris

Renegade's Magic by Robin Hobb

The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller

The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte, Margaret Sayers Peden, Margaret Sayers Peden (Translator)

Blasphemy by Douglas Preston

Homecoming by Bernhard Schlink, Michael Henry Heim (Translator)

Chameleon's Shadow by Minette Walters