Let’s face it: if you’re left cold by Olympic sport and televised ballroom dancing, 2008 wasn’t a great year for culture. However, it did produce a spate of books written by lawyers, former lawyers, or with a legal theme.

So, if you’re hunting down a last-minute gift for a legally minded friend or rellie, here are Obiter’s suggestions for legal books of the year.

First up, inevitably, are two autobiographies by lawyers who have achieved fame outside the profession. Cherie Booth’s Speaking for Myself caused a stir earlier this year, but is not as toe-curlingly awful as the newspaper extracts suggest. Politically minded readers, however, recommend Barack Obama’s Dreams from my Father, originally published in 1995 but enjoying a revival.

On a lighter note, John Grisham’s The Appeal returned to a familiar stomping ground of seedy lawsuits and seedier politicians. ‘A bit of a disappointment,’ said the only one of Obiter’s colleagues to admit to reading it.

Overall, Gazette journalists’ choices for book of the year show impressively eclectic tastes.

One colleague went for Animal’s People by Indra Sinha, which tells of life in the Indian city of Bhopal after ‘that night’ in 1984 when 27 tons of toxic gas leaked from a chemicals factory, smothering the inhabitants in corrosive brown fog and killing 20,000 to date. ‘Not a laugh-a-minute, but neither is it an embittered rant.’

Another has a soft spot for Blackstone’s Criminal Practice 2009. ‘We’ve read every one of its 3,396 pages and at around 18 pence a page, think it’s a cracking good read. It also works very nicely as a handy paperweight or doorstop.’

Blogging and Other Social Media: Exploiting the Technology and Protecting the Enterprise, by solicitors Alex Newson, Deryck Houghton and Justin Patten, gets a rave review for explaining what this web 2.0 thing is all about.

Tellingly in these interesting times, our city reporter recommends Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s Freakonomics: ‘It’s less about money and more about social economics, like match fixing in sumo wrestling and the pyramid scheme that is crack cocaine dealing’.

As for Obiter’s editor, he’s gone for Gangland Soho by James Morton. ‘A prurient pleasure,’ he growls, with just a hint of menace.

Obiter’s choice is an ideal gift for personal friends and colleagues who are being insufferably smug about still having plenty of work. Richard Susskind’s The End of Lawyers should wipe the grins off their faces.