'The 10 Best Years That Are Books'

Laurence Hughes, writing in the December 18, 2009 Huffington Post, chose these:

1. "1421: The Year China Discovered The World" – by Gavin Menzies

2. "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" – by Charles C. Mann

3. "1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare" – by James Shapiro  

4. "1603: The Death of Queen Elizabeth I, the Return of the Black Plague, the Rise of Shakespeare, Piracy, Witchcraft, and the Birth of the Stuart Era" – by Christopher Lee

5. "1776" – by David McCullough

6. "1855: A History of the Bordeaux Classification" – by Dewey Markham, Jr.

7. "1984" – by George Orwell

8. "1989: Bob Dylan Didn't Have This to Sing About" – by Joshua Clover

9. "2001: A Space Odyssey" – by Arthur C. Clarke

10. "2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl" – by Daniel Pinchbeck