I don't know how hidden this is but the best book I read in 2008, I think, is Beneath A Marble Sky by John Shors. I absolutely loved that book and didn't want it to end.

I just finished "gods in Alabama" and totally loved it. Not at all what I was expecting...in a very good way! It had been sitting in my TBR pile for the longest time. I wish I'd read it much sooner.

If you're looking for "Southern fiction", I highly recommend it.

The best book I read in 2008 was The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl. (again, dont know how hidden it is). If you like intellectual historic mysteries, I definately reccomend it.

I think my pick of 2008 is something of a hidden gem: Yarrow by Charles de Lint.  Artfully done mix of fantasy and the modern world.  With the popularity of urban fantasy I'd think he'd get more recognition, but I don't know of anyone else who's read that book.

My Hidden Gem, that I just finished would be "Eight Women, Two Model T's, and the American West, by Joanne Wilke.  It's a true story of 8 women, who back in 1924, drive across the U.S. in 2 model T's.  It's an easy read, and I didn't know that it was mainly gravel and muddy roads back then, and that the tires would get flats almost every day.  I totally enjoyed this book. It's also a story interwoven, about the author's life, and her going back to her grandparents in northeast Iowa every summer, and how that affected her life, in a good way.

Chris

Mudbound by Hilary Jordan. Not sure if it's a hidden gem because the author won the Barbara Kingsolve Bellweather Prize for Literature on social change, but I am not sure it had the sales & reception it deserved.