Here's my personal list of the five best books about - or of value for - public relations students and practitioners published in 2010. Notes and further discussion follow at the end.
1. Mediactive by Dan Gillmor (Lulu.com / Kindle / Online)
Had this book been published traditionally, it would have had a 2011 publication year. In the event, Dan Gillmor (author of We The Media) chose to self-publish as he wanted to make his ideas available more widely through a Creative Commons licence.
Since his topic is the pressing need for change in the media industries, this is an example of the medium being the message. Nor does he pretend this book is complete, as is usually expected from published works. He describes it as a work in progress - Mediactive 1.0 - supported by the updates and discussion at the mediactive.com website, where the full text is freely available.
Gillmor begins with a critique of traditional journalism and an analysis of the evolving media ecosystem and moves on to provide a manifesto for media literacy ('mediactivism') suitable for the new media age.
Though he barely mentions public relations, his thoughts apply to all media consumers and media content creators (ie to all of us) and core concepts such as trust and transparency are central to public relations practice.
Gillmor now teaches entrepreneurial journalism and educators like me will find his ideas applicable to their teaching (there's a chapter on 'Teaching and Learning Mediactivity').
UPDATE: I've reviewed Mediactive for Behind the Spin.