Were you better off four years ago than you are today? It's a question typically posed by politicians seeking the presidency, and as Election 2012 heats up, it's as opportune a moment as any to return to 2008, when President Obama wasn't yet in the White House, for a survey of great nonfiction published that year. It's impossible for any list of this sort to be all inclusive, but every selection is an exceptional read, and a reminder of what American writers were working on during the last months of the Bush era, as the financial crisis began.