100 Notable Books of the Year - New York Times 2005
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16/12/13 100 Notabl e Book s of the Year - New Yor k Ti mes www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/books/review /notabl e- book s2005.html? r=0&pagew anted=print 1/5 Decemb er 4, 2 005 Hol iday Books 100 Notable Books of the Year TheBook Rev iew has selected this list from books reviewed since the Hol iday B ooks issue of Dec. 5, 2004. Fiction & Poetry BEYOND BLACK.By Hilary Mantel. (John Macrae/Holt, $26.) Neurotic, demanding ghosts haunt a British clairvoyant in this darkly comic novel. A CHANGED MAN.By Francine Prose. (HarperCollins, $24.95.) A neo-Nazi engages a Jewish human rights leader in this morally concerned novel, asking for help in his effort to repent. COLL ECT ED POE MS, 1943-2004.By Richard Wilbur. (Harcourt, $35.) This urbane poetry survived the age of Ginsberg, Lowell and Plath. EMPIRE RISING.By Thomas Kelly. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) A muscular historical novel in which the Irish erect the Empire State Building in a cheerfully corrupt New York. ENVY.By Kathryn Harrison. (Random House, $24.95.) A psychoanalyst is unhappy but distant until Greek-tragedy things start happening in this novel by an ace student of sexual violation. EUROPE CENTRAL. By Will iam T. Voll mann . (Viki ng, $39.9 5.) A novel, mostly in stories, of Middle Europea n fanatici sm and resistance to it in the World War II period. FOLLIES: New Stories.By Ann Beattie. (Scribner, $25.) This keen observer of the surface of life now slows down for an occasional epiphany. HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE.By J. K. Rowling. Illustrated by Mary GrandPré. (Arthur A. Levine/ Scholastic, $29.99.) In this sixth volume of the epic series, the Dark Lord, Voldemort, is wreaking havoc throughout England and Harry, now 16, is more isolated than ever. HOME LAND.By Sam Lipsyte. (Picador, paper, $13.) Lipsyte's antihero, a loser but unbowed, asserts in endless letters to his alumni magazine that all the others are losers too. THE HOT KID.By Elmore Leonard. (Morrow, $25.95.) Many seek fame in this rendering of America's criminal landscape in the 1930's; the title character, a killer lawm an, achieves it. HOW WE ARE HUNGRY: Stories.By Dave Eggers. (McSweeney's, $22.) A shining miscellany peopled by characters in close touch with childhood. IN CASE WE'RE SEPARATED: Connected Stories. By Alice Mattison. (Morrow/HarperCollins, $23.95.) The stories concern a family whose members couldn't lose each other if they tried. INDECISION.By Benjamin Kunkel. (Random House, $21.95.) This postmodern, posteverything, fresh and funny novel by a young writer seems to develop a nonironic social conscience. KAFKA ON THE SHORE.By Haruki Murakami. (Knopf, $25.95.) Two characters alternate in this dreamish novel: a boy fleeing an Oedipal prophecy and a witless old man who can talk to cats. LUNAR PARK.By Bret Easton Ellis. (Knopf, $25.) A novel starring a brat named Bret Easton Ellis, who knows everybody and has more fun than everhappens to real peop le. MAPS FOR LOST LOVERS.By Nadeem Aslam. (Knopf, $25.) Unhappy Pakistani exiles in a cold, hard Britain populate this intricate novel. THE MARCH.By E. L. Doctorow. (Random House, $25.95.) Characters in this absorbing novel are transformed by distress and destruction as Sherman march es to the sea in 1864. MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES.By Gabriel García Márquez. (Knopf, $20.) A strange and luminous novel whose elderly hero pays for sex but finds love. MIGRATION: New and Selected Poems.By W. S. Merwin. (Copper Canyon, $40.) Half a century's work, from archaic allegories to unpointed lyrics to secular prophecy and wisdom verses. MISSING MOM.By Joyce Carol Oates. (Ecco/ HarperCollins, $25.95.) This novel peers into the void left by a woman's sudden absence. MISSION TO AMERICA.By Walter Kirn. (Doubleday, $23.95.) In his new novel, Kirn invents a religion whose believers hit the road to recruit. MOTHER'S MILK.By Edward St. Aubyn. (Open City, $23.) In this novel an ancient family's sins are visited on its offspring, who repeat them.
