Best novel

Until January 2005 James Meek, the Guardian's former man in the former Soviet Union, was best known for his reporting from Moscow, Guantanamo and Baghdad. But The People's Act of Love, an exquisitely written fable of religious extremism in Siberia during the Russian revolution, generated a (deserved) Pavlovian critical slaver. The misadventures of a castration cult, displaced Czech sadists and a homicidal Gulag escapee delighted discerning readers everywhere.

What the critics said: "It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that I was blown away" (Irvine Welsh)

"What is most startling about The People's Act of Love is the sheer quality of the writing" (Maggie Gee, Sunday Times)

What you should think: Contains the year's

finest prose and, be warned, the year's finest cannibalism and castration scenes. Almost as good as Dostoevsky, nyet?

Most over-discussed novel

In recent years, Ian McEwan has arguably inherited the Best British Novelist mantle from Martin Amis, making any book by him an "event". Saturday, set on the day of the big Iraq anti-war march, records 24 hours in the life of the neurosurgeon Henry Perowne. A measure of how much UK reviewers loved it was that just about its strongest critic was the Evening Standard's Londoner's Diary, which pointed out that McEwan had blundered on the details of Perowne's Mercedes S500 (in real life the car is automatic, not shift-stick). Critics in the US were less wowed. In the New York Review of Books John Banville wrote a scene-by-scene demolition, calling Saturday "dismayingly bad". A pity that Banville hadn't familiarised himself with the finer details of McEwan's plot. Far from "winning" his squash game, as he claimed, Perowne loses it following a disputed let call.

What the critics said: "A liberal polemic gone wrong (John Banville)

"Profound and urgent" (Tim Adams)

What you should think: Are characters as self-satisfied as this really interesting?

Most right-on professor

In What Good Are the Arts? John Carey continues his crusade against the elitism that permeates the arts, which elevates Parsifal over Crossroads and causes "resentment and confusion" among the right-thinking masses. Film, dance, "posh buildings" and fine art are vacuous instruments of oppression wielded by Nazis or Chris Smith. At least literature, the former Merton Professor of English at Oxford concludes, "can explore concepts". Otherwise, you'd be better off stopping in for Strictly Come Dancing.

What the critics said: "He has a ruthlessly logical mind" (David Lodge, Observer)

"I adore John Carey, admiring him both as a critic and a great democratic champion of the arts" (Sarah Crompton, Telegraph)

What you should think: Your Tate Modern membership and Christmas visit to Covent Garden are symptoms of your Nietzschean disgust for your fellow man. Cancel them, and subscribe to E4 instead.

Grumpiest old man

The most talked-about literary bust-up came when John Irving's latest novel, Until I Find You, was slated in the Washington Post by Marianne Wiggins. Nothing very remarkable about that. Irving, however, complained to the Post, pointing out that he had known Wiggins when she was married to Salman Rushdie. The Post apologised, admitting that running the piece had been a "misstep". All of which made a mockery of Irving's claim on the Today programme that "I'm not really concerned about book reviewers".

What the critics said: "If the Post agreement were to achieve widespread adoption in the UK, it would paralyse literary London" (Nicholas Clee, New Statesman)

"Hideously overstuffed . . . a tedious, self-indulgent and cruelly eye-glazing read" (New York Times)

What you should think: Writers inevitably review each other's books, because writers tend to know each other; Irving was just miffed that his book got panned.

Hipster read

Since the success of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point a few years ago, publishers can't get enough of works of broad-ranging synthesis by hip young intellectuals. Two published this year were Gladwell's latest, Blink, and Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt, "rogue economist". Blink is all about the "power of intuition" - or "thin slicing", as Gladwell calls it. Freakonomics overturns conventional wisdom by connecting seemingly unrelated events - most notoriously the legalisation of abortion in 1973 and the drop in crime in the 1990s.

What the critics said: "Wonderful" (Edwina Currie, NS, on Blink). "Far more intelligent, orthodox and modest than it pretends" (Economist, on Freakonomics)

What you should think: Freakonomics is genuinely interesting, but Blink is essentially the obvious posing as the profound.