Each year for the past four years we've conducted a survey allowing visitors to our website to vote for the Top Ten non-fiction books about the Second World War published in that calendar year. Each year the Top Ten has attracted more voters, more nominations, and more ballots, and it's always a fascinating process to watch the votes pour in and the year's titles move up and down in the standings.

At the beginning of the new year with a certain amount of fanfare we announce the Top Ten winners. At the beginning of the new year we also receive without fail messages from perplexed voters -- and disgruntled authors -- who want to know why their favorite books didn't finish atop the standings, and why some less worthy titles -- at least in their eyes -- managed to garner so many votes.

Well, there's no accounting for taste. One reader's favorite is another reader's discard, and critical acclaim is no guarantee of popular success. That's why we run the Top Ten voting and let the readers pick the books themselves.

This year, however, we decided to institute a companion to the Top Ten books of the year: the Editor's Choice Awards. This allows us at Stone & Stone to select and acknowledge the titles we rate as the most important new releases of the year, especially ones that were passed over in the Top Ten voting.

Mind you, these awards are in their own way just as subjective and imperfect as the Top Ten. We can only read so many books in twelve months, and we have our own tastes and preferences about specific topics and about what makes a good book. But -- hey! -- this is our website, so we get to have a little fun once in awhile!

Without further ado, the Stone & Stone Editor's Choice Awards for non-fiction books about World War II published in 1999, in alphabetical order by author:

Boog, Forster, Hoffmann, Klink, et al. Germany and the Second World War, volume IV: The Attack on the Soviet Union. London: Oxford University Press. Were we selecting books according to weight or page count, this title (1364 pages plus a separate map volume) would be a shoo-in. It's still a sure bet when measured for its overall importance. The team at the Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt has done an incredible job in analyzing such a wide spectrum of political, economic, and military factors. Not an operational/tactical account and not a casual read, but -- like the other volumes in the series -- a tome of enduring scholarly significance.

Cornwell, John. Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII. New York: Viking. Readers need not agree with Cornwell's controversial perspectives to find value in this book. Unfortunately, it appears that too many readers have taken the author's inflammatory opinions personally and rejected every word he writes. In the case of Pius XII Cornwell never produces a smoking gun, but for those who can view this topic as dispassionately as they might view the role of the High Priest of the Egyptians during the Pharaohs campaigns of conquest, there is much to be learned about how even the most sacred can be placed in an uncomfortable position by the evils of war.

Fischer, Bernd J. Albania at War, 1939-1945. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. Sixty years and more after the beginning of the Second World War it might be thought that every single aspect of the conflict has already been thoroughly researched and written. Not so. For proof, Bernd Fischer in 1999 produced a phenomenally informative and interesting book about Albania. The story of this country, one of the shadowiest corners of Europe, and its experience of war from the Italian invasion in April 1939 through the Battle of Tirana and the final German withdrawal in early 1945, has never been completely told in one English-language book, and is unlikely to be told so well ever again.

Frank, Richard B. Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. New York: Random House. Frank tackles a subject as fraught with controversy as Cornwell's and emerges with another meticulously documented work of fact and analysis, although his book still proves unpalatable to some who espouse opposing views on the use of the atomic bombs against Japan. Reliable, level-headed investigations of the bombing campaign, defensive preparations, plans for invasion, the role of signals intelligence, and the stances of the opposing governments. Given a topic as disputable as this, Frank's will not be the last work on the subject, but it will remain one of the most thoughtful, enlightening, and wise.

Glantz, David and Jonathan House. The Battle of Kursk. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. Glantz detoured into uncharted and critically murky waters with unusual stylistic devices in his previous book, but with Jonathan House assisting he found his way back to the mainstream of top-notch operational/tactical writing for this one. These two authors have produced the definitive account of one of the most interesting and critical battles of the war, and they've done so with more facts, more details, and more panache than any other book on the topic. For the blow-by-blow account of battalions, regiments, brigades, and divisions maneuvering and colliding on the field of battle, this was the most engrossing book of the year.