This has been a superior year for superior books. Diarmaid MacCullough’s “Reformation” is history at its best, and Steven Englund’s book on Napoleon has much to say, and beautifully, on a subject seemingly exhausted a century ago. Amos Oz’s “A Tale of Love and Darkness,” though, was our unanimous choice for Book of the Year. It is the story of a family finding refuge in Jerusalem from the fierce anti-Semitism of pre-World War II Europe and the immense cultural richness that the Jews brought to the land that became Israel. It is a book that is difficult to put down, a marvel of physical detail, evocative anecdotes, and proverb. Mr. Oz’s description of what he learned from S.Y. Agnon is a telling admonition for his own book: “To cast more than one shadow. Not to pick the raisins from the cake. To rein and polish pain. And one other thing, that my grandmother used to say in a sharper way than I have found it expressed by Agnon: ‘If you have no more tears left to weep, then don’t weep. Laugh.'” We read no more beautiful book this year. – The Editors