Every year Google posts it's year-end zeitgeist. Here's 2008!
I'm always amazed at how general some of the queries are (i.e. "how to write," "what is love," "what is art," etc.) and some of the relationships between the top two queries in various categories (i.e. in Fastest Rising US Searches, the top two are "obama" and "facebook," respectively, or in Fastest Rising Google News, the top two are "sarah palin" and "american idol," respectively).