Book-Blog's Best Reads of 2005

Here is book-blog.com's third annual best-reads-of-the-year list. These books weren't necessarily published in 2005--though many of them were--but I read them all this year and liked each of them enough to rate it five stars. For a complete list of books reviewed at the book-blog, visit the archives.

A Son Called Gabriel by Damian McNicholl "Damian McNicholl's A Son Called Gabriel is written in the first person and reads like a memoir. As such it will inevitably be compared to Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes. Remarkably, McNicholl's novel does not suffer from the comparison. It is so well written, and the author's portrayal of Gabriel is so vivid, that readers will be hard-pressed to remember they're holding a piece of fiction in their hands." (Read the complete review.)

Whiteout by Ken Follett "Follett never fails to fashion characters one wants to root for, and he is adept at keeping the good guys forever in the thick of some horrific danger. Whiteout, like its predecessors in the author's shelf-full of bestsellers, is a great read." (Read the complete review.)

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe "...Defoe's Pirates is a hilarious read filled with some extremely clever writing. Not for nothing has Monty Python's Eric Idle blurbed it as "destined to become a classic of pirate comic fiction." You'll want to read this one." (Read the complete review.)

Deception by Denise Mina "Denise Mina's novel Deception purports to be a transcription of a diary written by Lachlan Harriot, the 29-year-old husband of convicted murderess Dr. Susie Harriot. ...In the course of the period covered by his diary, Lachlan eventually comes to understand the riddle of Gow's murder and of his wife's strange, secretive behavior. It is a mystery that will keep readers engrossed and guessing until the book's final pages. Mina's Deception is a smart, well-written thriller." (Read the complete review.)

Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors "In his marvelous debut novel Beneath a Marble Sky author John Shors has taken what is known of the historical circumstances of the mausoleum's construction and created from that bare-bones account a rich, gripping narrative. ...[B]ecause Beneath a Marble Sky is not only engaging and  beautifully written but also tied intimately to a cultural monument, I think that it will live in its readers' imaginations far longer than most books, its story called to mind whenever one encounters references to or pictures of the Taj Mahal. Shors does a service in breathing life into the mausoleum and the  historical figures and circumstances that created it. And he's done it beautifully." (Read the complete review.)

The Last Duel by Eric Jager "...Eric Jager provides a fascinating account of a feud that erupted in the late 1370s between two friends and culminated some years later, in December of 1386, in the disputants' trial by combat, the last judicial combat ever to be sanctioned by the Parlement of Paris. ...[His] account is not only informative, it is downright riveting. Because the author has so carefully described the antecedents to the fight and the harsh consequences for the combatants...riding on the battle's outcome, readers will have their emotions and intellect invested in the story by the time they arrive at Jager's blow-by-blow account of the fight: I defy anyone to put the book down during its penultimate chapter." (Read the complete review.)

Small Town Odds by Jason Headley "Like Richard Russo, the Pulitzer-winning author of Empire Falls with whom he has been compared, Headley offers readers a charming exploration of life in small-town America, where the cast of characters tends to remain unchanged, and people bump into one another's lives at various points, passing time together and sharing histories and resentments: the sort of aging that makes for complex relationships. And like Richard Russo, Headley is able to create from these elements some very fine fiction indeed." (Read the complete review.)

Paranoia by Joseph Finder "Finder's novel is an exciting, well-written, fast read. Though filled with corporate speak and technical jargon, the book is never weighed down by it. And the corporate world to which Finder introduces us, with its petty politics and hierarchical struggles, is fascinating. The story's various twists and the increasingly impossible position in which Cassidy [the protagonist] finds himself will keep readers riveted." (Read the complete review.)

The Torment of Others by Val McDermid "Val McDermid's The Torment of Others, the fourth book in her series featuring profiler Tony Hill, is a solid police procedural and simply a very good read: well-written, with likeable but flawed good guys, creepy bad guys, and a plot that will keep you guessing until Tony himself starts putting the pieces together. And once he does that, some 60 pages from the book's close, readers will be hard pressed indeed to put this one down." (Read the complete review.)

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed by Alan Alda "There's simply nothing wrong with this book. In prose that flows so smoothly you'll want to down the whole of it in one sitting Alan Alda, whose TV personae most of us will have admired for years, shows himself to be in real life an affable, intelligent, intellectually curious, normal, nice guy. Who can write well." (Read the complete review.)

The Bitch Posse by Martha O'Connor "We are made to understand early on in the story that some terrible event occurred--or rather, that the girls [O'Connor's protagonists] were responsible for something terrible happening--at the end of their senior year in high school, in 1988. ...O'Connor's story builds inexorably to a description of the dramatic event that so marked the girls. But in fact it is not so much the terrible thing they did that comes as a surprise, but what they did next, how they responded to the event. That's what makes their actions in the future explicable, and that's what adds complexity to O'Connor's story, making it a natural for discussion groups that are willing to sink their collective teeth into some difficult subject matter. The Bitch Posse is not a light read, but it is certainly gripping, and well worth the read." (Read the complete review.)