Colm Tóibín tips Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture, while Harry Clifton was impressed by the “magical” Life on Earth by Derek Mahon. Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, Jim White’s Manchester United and biographies of Thomas Moore, Daniel O’Connell and Gabriel Garcia Marquez are all in there in this year’s selection of books of the year by sundry poets and politicians. So step up and be counted alongside John Gormley, John Connolly, Claire Kilroy and the like, and tell us what the best books published over the course of 2008 were for you. . .