Best Fiction I Read in 2005
Discover the best fiction books of 2005 with this curated list of top reads. Explore captivating stories, acclaimed authors, and must-read novels from a standout year in literature.
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The Nine Tailors
by Dorothy Leigh Sayers
Bell strokes toll out the death of an unknown man, and summon Lord Wimsey to East Anglia to solve the mystery.
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To Say Nothing of the Dog
by Connie Willis
âWillis effortlessly juggles comedy of manners, chaos theory and a wide range of literary allusions [with a] near flawlessness of plot, character and prose.ââPublishers Weekly (starred review) From Connie Willis, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, comes a comedic romp through an unpredictable world of mystery, love, and time travel. Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. Heâs been shuttling between the twenty-first century and the 1940s in search of a hideous Victorian vase called âthe bishopâs bird stumpâ as part of a project to restore the famed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid. But then Verity Kindle, a fellow time traveler, inadvertently brings back something from the past. Now Ned must jump to the Victorian era to help Verity put things rightânot only to save the project but also to prevent altering history itself.
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The Little Prince
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An aviator whose plane is forced down in the Sahara Desert encounters a little prince from a small planet who relates his adventures in seeking the secret of what is important in life. Howard's new translation of this beloved classic beautifully reflects Saint-Exupery's unique, gifted style. Color and b&w illustrations.
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The House of Mirth
by Edith Wharton
A portrait of American manners and morals at the turn of the century offers the saga of Lily Bart, a beautiful heroine who lacks one important requirement for marrying well in New York society, her own money. Reissue.
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Gramercy Park
by Paula Cohen
"Gramercy Park" is a haunting, mesmerizing debut novel of murder, obsession, and revenge, set in turn-of-the-century New York City. When Mario Alfieri, the world's greatest tenor, arrives in the city in May of 1894, a chance meeting in a Gramercy Park mansion kindles a love as swift as it is unexpected, entangling him in an intrigue stretching back two decades.
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The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
by Alexander McCall Smith
NATIONAL BESTSELLER ⢠Fans around the world adore the bestselling No. 1 Ladiesâ Detective Agency series and its proprietor, Precious Ramotswe, Botswanaâs premier lady detective. In this charming series, Mma Ramotsweâwith help from her loyal associate, Grace Makutsiânavigates her cases and her personal life with wisdom, good humor, and the occasional cup of tea. This first novel in Alexander McCall Smithâs widely acclaimed The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series tells the story of the delightfully cunning and enormously engaging Precious Ramotswe, who is drawn to her profession to âhelp people with problems in their lives.â Immediately upon setting up shop in a small storefront in Gaborone, she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. But the case that tugs at her heart, and lands her in danger, is a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by witchdoctors. The No. 1 Ladiesâ Detective Agency received two Booker Judgesâ Special Recommendations and was voted one of the International Books of the Year and the Millennium by the Times Literary Supplement.
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The Eyre Affair
by Jasper Fforde
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ⢠The first novel in the renowned Thursday Next series, which âcombines elements of Monty Python, Harry Potter, Stephen Hawking, and Buffy the Vampire Slayerâ (The Wall Street Journal). âA literary wonderland [that] recalls Douglas Adamsâ Hitchhiker series [and] the works of Lewis Carroll.ââUSA Today Meet Thursday Next, âpart Bridget Jones, part Nancy Drew, and part Dirty Harryâ (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times), a literary detective without equal, fear, or boyfriendâand welcome to a surreal version of Great Britain, circa 1985, where time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wadsworth poem, militant Baconians heckle performances of Hamlet, and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday, renowned Special Operative in literary detection, until someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature. When Jane Eyre is plucked from the pages of BrontĂŤâs novel, Thursday must track down the villain and enter a novel herself to avert a heinous act of literary homicide. Donât miss any of Jasper Ffordeâs delightfully entertaining Thursday Next novels: THE EYRE AFFAIR ⢠LOST IN A GOOD BOOK ⢠THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS ⢠SOMETHING ROTTEN ⢠FIRST AMONG SEQUELS ⢠ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING ⢠THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT
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Drop City
by T.C. Boyle
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ⢠NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST ⢠From the awardâwinning author of The Tortilla Curtain comes a âgorgeously crafted epicâ (People) about a band of hippies who attempt to establish themselves deep in the wilderness of Alaska. âNot only an entertaining romp through the madness of the countercultural â70s, but a stirring parable about the American dream as well.ââThe New York Times It is 1970, and a down-at-the-heels California commune devoted to peace, free love, and the simple life has decided to relocate to the last frontierâthe unforgiving landscape of interior Alaskaâin the ultimate expression of going back to the land. Armed with the spirit of adventure and naĂŻve optimism, the inhabitants of âDrop Cityâ arrive in the wilderness of Alaska only to find their utopia already populated by other young homesteaders. When the two communities collide, unexpected friendships and dangerous enmities are born as everyone struggles with the bare essentials of life: love, nourishment, and a roof over oneâs head. Drop City is a surprising story that reveals human behavior at its rawest, most tender, and most compelling. It is also a rich, allusive, and unsentimental look at the ideals of a generation and their impact on todayâs radically transformed world. Above all, itâs an epic and gripping novel infused with the lyricism and take-no-prisoners storytelling for which T.C. Boyle is justly famous.
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Doomsday Book
by Connie Willis
Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering, and the indomitable will of the human spirit. âA tour de force.ââThe New York Times Book Review For Kivrin, preparing to travel back in time to study one of the deadliest eras in humanityâs history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received. But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrinâbarely of age herselfâfinds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of historyâs darkest hours.
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Have His Carcase
by Dorothy L. Sayers
Recovering from an unhappy love affair, a mystery writer seeks solace on a barren beach--deserted but for the body of a young man with his throat cut. A Lord Peter Wimsey mystery.
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Busman's Honeymoon
by Dorothy L. Sayers
Murder is hardly the best way for Lord Peter and his bride, the famous mystery writer Harriet Vane, to start their honeymoon. It all begins when the former owner of their newly acquired estate is found quite nastily dead in the cellar. All too quickly, what Lord Peter had hoped would be a very private and romantic stay in the country has turned into a most baffling case, with a misspelled "notise" to the milkman at its center and a dead man who's been discovered in a most intriguing condition: with not a spot of blood on his smashed skull and not a penny less than six hundred pounds in his pocket.
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Cordelia Underwood
by Van Reid
A colorful, comic, and touching novel of old Maine that "seems designed for long afternoons in the hammock" ("The New York Times Book Review"). When the lovely Cordelia Underwood unexpected inherits a large parcel of land during the idyllic summer of 1896, she discovers that it holds an irresistible secret.
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My Ăntonia
by Willa Cather
The reminiscences of a New York lawyer, Jim Burden, about his boyhood in Nebraska, particularly a young Bohemian girl named Antonia Shimerda, are set against the backdrop of the American assimilation of immigrants.
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Cold Comfort Farm
by Stella Gibbons
When a well-educated young socialite in 1930s England is left orphaned and unable to support herself at age twenty-two, she moves in with her eccentric relatives on their farm