The Best Books You Have Read This Year...

[Aurora Ariel]

I would like to hear what are the best books you have read so far this year?
There are so many good ones, and personally, I find it hard to put just a few, but I would love to hear all your favourite reads for 2005!:)


The Best books of 2005:What are your favourite books you have read this year?...............

[Wendigo_49]

Some of my favorites that I have read this year are Narcissus and Goldmund,Light in August,Barrabus, Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, but the my two favorites I've read this year are The Glass Bead Game and Samuel Beckett's trilogy:Molloy,Malone Dies, and The Unnamable.

[Nightshade]

Time travellers wife, The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime, The Hyperion Cantos...

there were others but these are the ones I can think of that are definetly 2005 :D

[Pensive]

Actually the craze of reading books has gripped me this year thats why my favourite books are those which i read this year specially Mill on the floss, Wuhtering Heights, Bridge to Terabithia, Vanity Fair and Pride and Prejusdist. (on some places I did not like it but it was good)

[adilyoussef]

This year I have not done so much readings. The best ones are: 'A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' by Joyce, 'The Day after Tomorrow' by Allan Folson, 'A Farewell to Arms' by Hemingway.

[mono]

Yikes, difficult to say . . .

Fiction books: Anna Karenina and War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Middlemarch by George Eliot, The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence, The Black Sheep by Honoré de Balzac, Diary Of A Dope Fiend by Aleister Crowley, and, what I read now, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, I can see as one of my favorite books of the year (if not one of my favorites of all time).

Non-fiction books: The Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre, Art Objects by Jeanette Winterson, Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals by Immanuel Kant, and Sex, Time, and Power and Art and Physics by Leonard Shlain.

As for poetry, the list would extend too far.

[Lady19thC]

My favourite reads for this year, so far, were:

Girl with a Pearl Earring-Tracy Chevalier
The Age of Innocence-Edith Wharton
Frenchman's Creek-Daphne DuMaurier
Rebecca-Daphne DuMaurier
The Ghost Writer-John Harwood
The Enchanted April-Elizabeth Von Arnim
House of the Seven Gables-Nathaniel Hawthorne
Where Angels Fear to Tread-E.M Forster

And all my usually beloved classics, by the 19th century Brits!

[EAP]

Tamsin - Peter S. Beagle
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
Amber Chronicles - Roger Zealzny
My Antonia - Willa Cather
Circle of Friends - Maeve Binchy
The Giver - Louis Lowry
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
Bridge to Terebithia - Katherine Patterson

[subterranean]

I have to say that Sons and Lovers is one of the best books I have read so far this year.

[mono]

I have to say that Sons and Lovers is one of the best books I have read so far this year.
Bless your heart, sub!
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence I would have to call one of my favorite novels of all time!
This calls for a dancing banana - :banana:

[EAP]

Sons and Lovers was an interesting book. I loved the 'son' parts but the 'lover' parts bored me to tears. I am thinking of giving the 'lover' parts a retry since I read the book nearly three years ago and my tastes have evolved a great deal over that time.

[becca2389]

Favourite books of the year? Hmmm......there's been too many!

Off the top of my head

Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
A Passage to India - EM Forster
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
The Jewel in the Crown - Paul Scott
Life Isn't all Ha Ha Hee Hee - Meera Syal
Birdsons - Sebastien Faulkes
Poems of Christina Rossetti

[subterranean]

Why, thank you Mono. Indeed it's a great novel :nod:



Bless your heart, sub!
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence I would have to call one of my favorite novels of all time!
This calls for a dancing banana - :banana:

[Natalie]

A Passage to India

Life of Pi

[Eliza]

Complete Novels of Carson McCullars. My favorite was The Clock Without Hands followed closely by The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

[Rocket618]

Eldest by Christopher Paolini

[mickeymack]

Here's My Top 10 so far in no particular order; Henry James A Life by Leon Edel;Author, Author by David Lodge;The Turn of the Screw by Henry James;The Finishing School by Muriel Spark; As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann; Havoc,In Its Third Year by Ronan Bennet; Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem;The Child That Books Built by Francis Spufford; Ghostwritten by David Mitchell and Last but definitely not least,Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, which deserves to win the Man Booker prize.

[Rachy]

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince- JK Rowling
Wuthering Heights- Bronte
The Da Vinci Code- Dan Brown

[subterranean]

A Passage to India

I have seen the movie, yet have not read the book



Life of Pi

I agree that this is a very fine book :nod:

[Daumann]

Tomas Man - "The Magical Mountain", I don´t know if it is really called like that in Englisch, cause I red t in German, and it is called "Der Zauberberg".
German is by the way not my mother tongue.

[Darlin]

Best books read this year were mostly by Pearl S. Buck.

Dragon Seed (sequel not as great)
Peony
Pavilion of Women
The Living Reed

Also

My Indian family - by Hilda Wernher (simply wonderful)
Zanna's Gift: A Life in Christmases - by Scott Richards (short, sweet, teary)

[rodanho]

from the earth to the moon by jules verne, such a humourous book and the description so vivid!
as well,frankenstein by mary shelley, a fantastic gothic novel with great intensity
and lastly,the hobbit by tolkien. bilbo is such an amusing and funny character!

[AprilT20]

Dracula, Bram Stoker; Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte; The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown; The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, all by H.G. Wells; The Lost World, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; hmmm..... hopefully lots more to come..
Thanks,
April

[Jack_Aubrey]

My Friend Leonard-James Frey

Tropic of Cancer-Henry Miller

[Erna]

? - Life of Pi
Mark Haddon - The curious incident of the dog during night-time
Jules Verne - Journey to the center of the Earth
H.G. Wells - Time Machine

[OedipusReD]

much to my surprise...
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

[YellowCrayola]

I am in love with Jonathan Livingston Seagull (R. Bach), To Kill a Mockingbird (H. Lee) and The Great Gatsby (F.S. Fitzgerald). Lol. http://clicksmilies.com/s0105/liebe/love-smiley-019.gif

[miss_gaskell]

I am on a Murakami kick: Sputnik Sweetheart and Kafka On the Shore top my list from my recent reads. I also enjoyed Wilkie Collins' "The Woman in White." It is one of those fantastic, page-turning mysteries. Ishiguro's latest "Never Let Me Go" was probably one of the most moving books I have ever read. Other enjoyable recent reads:

Ian McEwan's "Saturday" (Good but not of the stature of "Atonement")
Neil LaBute's "The Shape of Things" (A disturbing look at a dysfunctional relationship)
Jonathan Coe's "House of Sleep" (A very strange book about sleep disorders and odd coincidences)

[Scheherazade]

Middlesex by Eugenides

Wise Blood by O'Connor

The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov

The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway

The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood

[mono]

Middlesex by Eugenides

Wise Blood by O'Connor

The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov

The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway

The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood
J.D. Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye never made the list, Scher? ;)

[subterranean]

Jack, I've been wanting to read this book, yet still can't get a copy :(.

How is it in your opinion? I mean I know you considered as one of the best books you ever read, but maybe you can share some of the high points..




Tropic of Cancer-Henry Miller

[Scheherazade]

J.D. Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye never made the list, Scher? ;)Nope. Although it is a good book, I was not very moved by it personally.

Sorry to disappoint! :D

[rachel]

The Giver by Lois Lowry scared me and also gave me hope that through one person others can have a chance at life.The Perilous Land by Tolkien was enchanting and touched deep into my heart. I loved leaf by niggle.


"faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for though not yet beheld" Holy Scripture.

[subterranean]

Regarding my previous post:


Jack, I've been wanting to read this book, yet still can't get a copy

Now I have a copy in my hand and I'll read it fast and see whether it can be included in my list for this year :)

[B-Mental]

Fates Worse Than Death - Kurt Vonnegut

He says what he thinks, and describes his father so sweetly.

[subterranean]

By the way, anyone care to share about F Scot Fiztgerald (sp)? I know that some of his works are included in the list of best novel ever written.

[melee82]

Hands down I'd have to say Anna Karenina. I can't even remember what all I've read this year though! And that was my fifth read thru on AK, I think everyone should read it!

[Aurora Ariel]

********************************************

[A Hard Rain]

Old man and the sea,
As i lay dying,
huck finn,
the sound and the fury,
diary of anne frank, (surprisingly)
the things they carried,
hocus pocus,
slaughter house 5,
ham on rye

and innumerous short stories.

[Natalie]

I'm going to have to add to the two I posted about earlier as I've read more since and they would def be included on my "best books I've read this year" list:

Girl With a Pearl Earring
The Traveler

Both fantastic books - I had seen the movie for Girl with a Pearl Earring and still thoroughly enjoyed the book - outstanding - and The Traveler just deals with such interesting privacy issues that it's a stand-out to me.

Just had to add those!

:idea:

[lavendar1]

A while back I re-read George Eliot's Middlemarch,and I enjoyed it even more the second time around. Not only are the characters memorable (especially Dorothea, with her romantic idealism), but the novel is also a commentary on the British society of the time. Yes, it's long...around 750 pages, but it's good reading and (in my opinion) Eliot's best writing.

[blp]

'Unending Design - the Forms of Postmodern Poetry' by Joseph M. Conte

'The Faber Book of Science'

[Kiwi Shelf]

I just finished "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey. That was a really good read if I say so myself.

[Vampire Kari]

I've read alot of good books this year but my favorite has been Susan Kay's ~ Phantom. Without a doubt.

[Jay T]

Limiting it to books that were released this year, as I reread a lot and for the purposes of not repeatiing classics everyone has read:

Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie
Vellum by Hal Duncan
Genziah at the House of Shepher by Tamar Yellin
Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land by John Crowley

I also want to mention one book that I did read for the first time this year not published in 2005, and that was Edward Whittemore's sequence The Jerusalem Quartet which was just excellent.

[Squeaky]

I'd have to say The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was my overall favorite. But I also loved Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya, and Picture Bride by Yoshiko Uchida. They were all terrific reads even if I drug my feet on finishing some of them. ;)

[starrwriter]

I'd have to say The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was my overall favorite. But I also loved Lord of the Flies by William Golding ...

It amazes me that a high school freshman can still find "Catcher" a meaningful novel today. It completely blew me away when I read it in 1961 at the age of 17. Six years later the film "The Graduate" did the same thing to me. In my mind there is a weird connection between the book and the film, as if Benjamin was Holden after college. Both found modern life "phony" or "plastic."

I'm a bit surprised you liked "Lord" as well as "Catcher." The two authors have opposite views of young people. To Salinger they are innocent and unspoiled. To Golding they are little beasts kept in check by adult supervision. I agree with Salinger: kids start out perfect until society gets its hands on them.

[strategos]

Books I've read this year that I would rate 9+ out of 10:

Mark Haddon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (9/10)

James A. Michener
Chesapeake (10/10)

Edward P. Jones
The Known World (9/10)

Philip Roth
American Pastoral (9/10)

John Updike
Rabbit Redux (9/10)
Rabbit is Rich (9/10)
Rabbit at Rest (9.5/10)
Rabbit Remembered (9.5/10)

Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Shadow of the Wind (9.5/10)

[Squeaky]

I'm a bit surprised you liked "Lord" as well as "Catcher." The two authors have opposite views of young people. To Salinger they are innocent and unspoiled. To Golding they are little beasts kept in check by adult supervision. I agree with Salinger: kids start out perfect until society gets its hands on them.

It wasn't really about the opposite views although that is definately true. I simply loved how they both expressed their views. Salinger was very subtle in many points in the book about how he expressed what was happening to Holden by telling the story from Holden's point of view, whereas Golding seemed to favor expressing the emotions of his characters in their actions which sometimes seemed like a very dramatic approach. Yes, they had opposite views, but I was more enthralled by their unique styles. They were both interesting to say the least.

As for who I agree with, I would have to say that niether of them are very far off. Children start out innocent and free of corruption until society gets a hold of them, then they become the little beasts that Golding wrote about. Simply not as desperate and abandoned. It's also worth keeping in mind the differences between the settings of the two books. The Lord of the Flies was about children doing their best just to survive. On some level so was the Catcher in the Rye however the circumstances were less extreme in comparison to Lord and as such the behavior of the characters would mirror that difference. Just my opinion, it's something to think about though. Golding might not have been speaking out against the children, but perhaps their condition and the society so that left them unprepared to take care of themselves. Ah, I could debate and discuss those two until the end of time. :)

[Sebastian]

I have tried to keep a link between the books I read in 2005. They are ;-

HOUSE ON THE STRAND by Daphne Du Maurier - Time travel with a difference

NEVER LET ME GO by Kazou Ishiguro - Human cloning & the subjects realisation

BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley - Prophetic & disturbing

In my estimation they all deal with 'CONTROL' and the consequences
on the individual...

[Pensive]

Twins - Caroline Cooney
Middle Sex

These are added to my list.

[bouquin]

I would like to hear what are the best books you have read so far this year?
There are so many good ones, and personally, I find it hard to put just a few, but I would love to hear all your favourite reads for 2005!:)


The Best books of 2005:What are your favourite books you have read this year?...............


Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
In Cold Blood (Truman Capote)
Nine Stories (J.D. Salinger)