25 Piks & Pans---Advice on what one reviewer read in 2005
Discover the best and worst books of 2005 in this expert reviewer’s curated list. From Elie Wiesel's haunting memoir *Night* to Rick Warren's *The Purpose-Driven Life* and Ayn Rand's *Atlas Shrugged*, explore sharp piks and pans on history, fiction, and economics that defined the year’s must-reads.
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Night
by Elie Wiesel
Presents a true account of the author's experiences as a Jewish boy in a Nazi concentration camp.
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The Mystery of Capital
by Hernando De Soto
In the West we've forgotten that creating this system is also what allowed people everywhere to leverage property into wealth.
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Europe's Last Summer
by David Fromkin
When war broke out in Europe in 1914, it surprised a European population enjoying the most beautiful summer in memory. For nearly a century since, historians have debated the causes of the war. Some have cited the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; others have concluded it was unavoidable. In Europe’s Last Summer, David Fromkin provides a different answer: hostilities were commenced deliberately. In a riveting re-creation of the run-up to war, Fromkin shows how German generals, seeing war as inevitable, manipulated events to precipitate a conflict waged on their own terms. Moving deftly between diplomats, generals, and rulers across Europe, he makes the complex diplomatic negotiations accessible and immediate. Examining the actions of individuals amid larger historical forces, this is a gripping historical narrative and a dramatic reassessment of a key moment in the twentieth-century.
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Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
by Roddy Doyle
Winner of the Booker Prize – Roddy Doyle’s witty, exuberant novel about a young boy trying to make sense of his changing world It is 1968. Patrick Clarke is ten. He loves Geronimo, the Three Stooges, and the smell of his hot water bottle. He can't stand his little brother Sinbad. His best friend is Kevin, and their names are all over Barrytown, written with sticks in wet cement. They play football, lepers, and jumping to the bottom of the sea. But why didn't anyone help him when Charles Leavy had been going to kill him? Why do his ma and da argue so much, but act like everything is fine? Paddy sees everything, but he understands less and less. Hilarious and poignant, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha charts the triumphs, indignities, and bewilderment of a young boy and his world, a place full of warmth, cruelty, confusion and love.
