To celebrate the end of 2010, Life.com asked various celebrities and media personalities — including Andy Richter, Harry Benson, Khaled Hosseini, Alan Cumming,  Salman Rushdie, Brian Williams, Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Wales, Arianna Huffington, Terry McDonell and Fareed Zakaria — to choose their personal favorite images from among Life‘s 2010 Pictures of the Year. Life.com has the final list of photos, including each person’s explanation for why, exactly, each specific image resonated for him or her.

Pictured here is author Salman Rushdie’s choice, “Heavenly Bodies,” a striking image of the Carina Nebula region taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Rushdie explains why he selected this particular image: “The universe creates beauty on the most gigantic of scales, humbling us by reminding us of our smallness, and simultaneously lifting our hearts by showing us so much glory.”

Industry conventions spawn together strange bedfellows. For instance, BookExpo America featured a Saturday breakfast with Stephen Colbert and Khaled Hosseini. Both have new books to promote: Hosseini (The Kite Runner) and his new bestseller A Thousand Splendid Suns and Colbert’s new I Am America (And So Can You): “Colbert introduced Hosseini by stating that he had not read The Kite Runner, a million-selling novel about two Afghani boys and the tragic recent history of their country, and assumed it was a book about a boy who loves kites. ‘I loved yo-yos, so I can relate,’ Colbert said, who then referred to A Thousand Splendid Suns by groaning, ‘Great, another book about global warming.’”

Colbert’s book and a companion DVD are slated for pre-Christmas release.