Books I Read 2005 Part 2
Explore Part 2 of my 2005 reading journey with this curated list of books I read that year. Discover titles, genres, and insights from my personal literary adventure.
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A Journal of the Plague Year
by Daniel Defoe
âThe surprise âmust-readâ for people facing the Covid-19 epidemic.â âThe Telegraph In 1665 the plague swept through London, claiming over 97,000 lives. Daniel Defoe was just five at the time of the plague, but he later called on his own memories, as well as his writing experience, to create this vivid chronicle of the epidemic and its victims. A Journal (1722) follows Defoe's fictional narrator as he traces the devastating progress of the plague through the streets of London. Here we see a city transformed: some of its streets suspiciously empty, someâwith crosses on their doorsâoverwhelmingly full of the sounds and smells of human suffering. And every living citizen he meets has a horrifying story that demands to be heard. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Book
The Education of Henry Adams
by Henry Adams
Originally published: Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1918.
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The Book of Evidence
by John Banville
Returning to Ireland to reclaim a painting that is part of his patrimony, a thirty-eight-year-old man commits a ghastly and motiveless murder, which he confesses in a novel-length narrative.
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The Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption, and it is also about the power of fathers over sonsâtheir love, their sacrifices, their lies. The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner tells a sweeping story of family, love, and friendship against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, bringing to mind the large canvases of the Russian writers of the nineteenth century. But just as it is old-fashioned in its narration, it is contemporary in its subject-the devastating history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years. As emotionally gripping as it is tender, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful debut.
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Book
The Quiet American
by Graham Greene
An eager American envoy is mysteriously assigned to Saigon during the French occupation of Indochina.
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To Live
by Yu Hua
Originally banned in China but later named one of that nationâs most influential books, a searing novel that portrays one manâs transformation from the spoiled son of a landlord to a kindhearted peasant. âA work of astounding emotional power.â âDai Sijie, author of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress From the author of Brothers and China in Ten Words: this celebrated contemporary classic of Chinese literature was also adapted for film by Zhang Yimou. After squandering his familyâs fortune in gambling dens and brothels, the young, deeply penitent Fugui settles down to do the honest work of a farmer. Forced by the Nationalist Army to leave behind his family, he witnesses the horrors and privations of the Civil War, only to return years later to face a string of hardships brought on by the ravages of the Cultural Revolution. Left with an ox as the companion of his final years, Fugui stands as a model of gritty authenticity, buoyed by his appreciation for life in this narrative of humbling power.
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The Comfort of Strangers
by Ian McEwan
A vacationing English couple find more than they bargained for, in this inventive and unsettling novel from the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement. Visiting an unnamed city, Mary and Colin attract the interest of Robert, a charismatic older man with a story to tell. But the more they get to know Robertâand his disabled wife, Carolineâthe more apparent it becomes that thereâs something not quite right about their new friends. A shocking work of violence and obsession, The Comfort of Strangers is Ian McEwan at his very best. Donât miss Ian McEwanâs new novel, Lessons.
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Flights of Love
by Bernhard Schlink
Bernhard Schlink brings to these seven superbly crafted stories the same sleek concision and moral acuity that made The Reader an international bestseller. His charactersâmen with importunate appetites and unfortunate habits of deceptionâare uneasily suspended between the desire for love and the impulse toward flight. A young boyâs fascination with an eerily erotic painting gradually leads him into the labyrinth of his familyâs secrets. The friendship between a West Berliner and an idealistic young couple from the East founders amid the prosperity and revelations that follow the collapse of communism. An acrobatic philanderer (one wife and two mistresses, all apparently quite happy) begins to crack under the weight of his abundance. By turns brooding and comic, and filled with the suspense that comes from the inexorable unfolding of character, Flights of Love is nothing less than masterful
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The Painted Bird
by Jerzy Kosinski
A young boy, abandoned by his parents during World War II, wanders alone from one village to another in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe.
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Europe Central
by William T. Vollmann
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD A daring literary masterpiece of historical fiction that weaves together the gripping stories of those caught in the web of authoritarian rule. Through interwoven narratives that paint a portrait of 20th century Germany and the USSR and the monstrous age they defined, Europe Central captures a chorus of voices both real and fictionalâa young German who joins the SS to fight its crimes, two generals who collaborate with the enemy for different reasons, and the tumultuous life of Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich amidst Stalinist oppression. In this magnificent work of fiction, acclaimed author William T. Vollmann turns his trenchant eye on these two authoritarian cultures to render a mesmerizing perspective on human experience during wartime.
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In the Country of Last Things
by Paul Auster
From New York Times bestselling author Paul Auster, a dystopian, post-apocalyptic novel âreminiscent in many ways of Orwellâs 1984â (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution). âPowerful, original, imaginative, and handled with artistry . . . One of the better modern attempts at describing hell.ââThe Washington Post Book World In a distant and unsettling future, the masses are homeless, theft is so rampant it is no longer a crime, and deathâby arranging either a suicide or an assassinationâis the only way out. It is in these circumstances that Anna Blume begins her search for her brother, a one-time journalist who may or may not still be alive, in an unnamed city whose destitute inhabitants dig through garbage and elusive government provides nothing but corruption. In her struggle to survive, Anna becomes a scavenger of objects from the past to sell for food and shelter. But she will also find friendshipâand even loveâin this devastated world. In the Country of Last Things is a tour de force that reaffirms Paul Austerâs stature as one of the most accomplished and singular talents of his generation.
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