... The best books you read in 2005, regardless of when they were published. For me, not counting re-reads, so far, subject to change, etc: Nonfiction: Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit A Sideways Look at Time by Jay Griffiths One Robe, One Bowl: The Zen Poems of Ryokan trans. John Stevens Passion is a Fashion: A Biography of The Clash by Pat Gilbert Buddhist Third Class Junk Mail Oracle: The Selected Poems of d. a. levy edited by Mike Golden.
This is the thread for me, as I only read one book published in 2005. Everytime I get ready to start a new book and consider heading down to the store for a new release, I always end up chomping at the bit for some great classic I've never read or some less-known work by a favorite author or some novel that somebody I trust completely has recommended to me. I'm frightened I'm going to die without having read all the great novels. It's almost a phobia. With that in mind: Ass's Skin by Balzac The Waves by Virginia Woolf Body of Truth by David Lindsay (maybe the most powerful "genre" novel I've ever read) Tess of the D'ubervilles by Thoma Hardy Morning Girl by Michael Dorris (a great children's book) No Country for Old Men (the one 2005 book I read- McCarthy has "retired" to crime fiction with magnificent results) The Unvanquished by Faulkner (this is often considered as Faulkner's worst novel, but it's only his most straightforward one. If you're wary of Faulkner, start with this one) Great Expectations by Dickens (I read this (an most of Dickens) back in highschool and loved it, but it wasn't until I re-opened it this year that I realized Dickens, despite writing about children, is writing for mature adults. Now I have to go back and re-read all his work.
Probably my two favorites were: John Adams, by David McCullough Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brien I think I've read fewer than a dozen books this year.
Good deal. Even if I purchase a book the year it was published, there's a good chance I won't read it until the following year(s). Fields of Fire by James Webb Jarhead by Anthony Swafford Making the Corps by .. I forget Focault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco The Dog of the Marriage by Amy Hempel oh yeah -- Haunted by Chuck Palahniak And I'm currently reading A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. This too will probably make my fave books list.
Non Fiction: Hardt/Negri: Multitude (publ. 2004) Bürger: Kino der Angst. Terror, Krieg und Staatskunst aus Hollywood (2005) Christoph Biermann: Fast alles über Fussball (2005) Jay Rubin: Haruki Murakami and the music of words (2004?) Fiction: Uwe Thimm: Rot (publ. 2004) Haruki Murakami: After Dark (2005) Jeffrey Eugenides: Middlesex (2004?) T.C. Boyle: Drop City (2004?) Raymond Carver: Cathedral (1993)
I have to update my best Non-fiction to include John Suiter's Poets on the Peaks: Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Jack Kerouac in the North Cascades (2003), which chronicles the time they each spent in the 50s working as fire lookouts for the National forest service. Good stuff on their writing, and some damn fine photographs. Also, The Modern Inquisition: Seven Prominent Catholics and Their Struggles with the Vatican(2004 I think) by Paul Collins. Self explanatory title. For fiction, my top new read would have to be one book that turned 50 this autumn, Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit And from the small library of American soccer fiction. Kirby Gann's 2004 novel The Barbarian Parade; or, The Pursuit of an Un-American Dream
This year? The Letters of Lytton Strachey; The Chosen by Jerome Karabel (a history of the admissions procedures of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton); When the Nines Roll Over and Other Stories by David Benioff. This last title is a real gem.
History of the World in 10 and 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes Atonement by Ian McEwan Pale Fire Nabokov