by JULIET WATERS

If you’re looking for the best books of the year, a quick Google search will turn up lists that will probably include Ian McEwan’s Saturday, Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep and Kazuo Ishigiro’s Never Let Me Go. Here, however, is the Mirror’s more eclectic take on the year behind us:

Books on the brain: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell’s elegant, if debatable, theory of how the mind works, hit the top of the bestseller list the first weeks of January and never left. Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment by Gregory Berns supplied some interesting material on how the neurotransmitter dopamine works to give our life a sense of purpose. Jay Ingram’s Theatre of the Mind attacked the problem of consciousness from a broader perspective.

Trend that must end: The Pornoir. Whether the author is a French critical theorist or a 17-year-old Italian sado-masochist, there’s something inevitably icky about these books by women remembering their sexual exploits. This year’s contribution, I’m No Saint, by New York Times style writer Elizabeth Hayt, had its moments, but wasn’t much of an exception.

Trend we can only wish for: Autobiographies by has-been celebrity monsters. Me Write Book by Bigfoot, with some help from Graham Roumieu, smashes just about every cliché of ’80s celebritydom in its wake. Bret Easton Ellis’s meta-fictional sort-of-memoir Lunar Park almost makes it into this category, but wasn’t nearly as entertaining.

Novels by women about men: Emerging cult author Lydia Millet published two provocative contributions to this genre, Everyone’s Pretty, about a pornographer with a messianic complex, and Oh Pure and Radiant Heart about the three inventors of the atom bomb. Lisa Selin Davis’s Belly, about an ageing ex-con returning to his old haunts in Saratoga Springs, was another notable contribution.

Novels by men about women: Toby Litt’s parody of chick lit, Finding Myself, was way better than most chicklit, and an interesting solution to the problem male writers face writing saleable books in a market dominated by women readers. Now if we could just get him to re-write the 18th-century classic pornoir Fanny Hill, we could still save that trend.

Best high-end chicklit: Elizabeth Crane’s first novel All This Heavenly Glory fulfills the promise of her short story collection, When the Messenger is Hot. And User I.D. by Jenefer Shute was both an enlightening look at identity theft and a great story about two women, grifter and victim, with more in common than they realize.

Smelliest non-fiction: Garbage Land, Elizabeth Royte’s pilgrimage through America’s worst dumping grounds was a quirky fascinating picaresque worthy of a Charlie Kaufman adaptation.

Best work lit: The Twins of Tribeca by Rachel Pine was a fun, if dated, tell all about working at Miramax. Job Hopper, Ayun Halliday’s bad-job memoir, will make anyone feel good about even the worst jobs. Paula Fox’s memoir about life as a reporter in post WWII Europe was the most literate contribution to this category.

Best anti-diet book: Julie and Julia, Julie Powell’s memoir of her year launching a hugely successful blog project: cooking the butter-mad recipes from Julia Child’s classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, introduced a new genre, the Blogoir.

Most promising new writer: Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap. This short story collection by a 20-something writer who has spent his life moving back and forth between the U.S. and Southeast Asia has everything you could ask for. Massive talent, fun stories, great locations. If he’s this good now, it’s hard to imagine how good he’ll be years from now.

Best graphic novel: Epileptic by French bedist David B. An intensely brilliant memoir of life with his epileptic brother and crazy intellectual bohemian parents.

Best stocking stuffer: Christmas Days by Derek McCormack, “designed and decorated” by Seth, is a sophisticated, no-fail X-mas present.