The Best Books I Read in 2005 (not in any real order)
Discover the best books I read in 2005—a curated list of top reads across genres. Explore these must-read titles for inspiration and your next great literary adventure!
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The Power of the Dog
by Thomas Savage
"A pitch-perfect evocation of time and place" (Boston Globe) for readers of East of Eden and "Brokeback Mountain." This new edition, with an afterword by Annie Proulx, marks the return of one of the most powerful and distinctive voices in the literature of the American West. Set in 1920s Montana, this compelling domestic drama tells the story of two brothers -- and of the woman and young boy, mother and son, whose arrival on the brothers' ranch shatters an already tenuous peace. From the novel's startling first paragraph to its very last word, Thomas Savage's voice -- and the intense passion and cruelty of his characters -- holds readers in thrall. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, and Paul Dano.
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Rebecca
by Daphne Du Maurier
"Last Night I Dreamt I Went To Manderley Again." So the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter remembered the chilling events that led her down the turning drive past ther beeches, white and naked, to the isolated gray stone manse on the windswept Cornish coast. With a husband she barely knew, the young bride arrived at this immense estate, only to be inexorably drawn into the life of the first Mrs. de Winter, the beautiful Rebecca, dead but never forgotten...her suite of rooms never touched, her clothes ready to be worn, her servant -- the sinister Mrs. Danvers -- still loyal. And as an eerie presentiment of evil tightened around her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter began her search for the real fate of Rebecca...for the secrets of Manderley.
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Other Voices, Other Rooms
by Truman Capote
Truman Capote’s first novel is a story of almost supernatural intensity and inventiveness, an audacious foray into the mind of a sensitive boy as he seeks out the grown-up enigmas of love and death in the ghostly landscape of the deep South. “Intense, brilliant . . . . Capote has an astonishing command . . . a magic all his own.” —The Atlantic At the age of twelve, Joel Knox is summoned to meet the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at the decaying mansion in Skully’s Landing, his father is nowhere in sight. What he finds instead is a sullen stepmother who delights in killing birds; an uncle with the face—and heart—of a debauched child; and a fearsome little girl named Idabel who may offer him the closest thing he has ever known to love.
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Johnny Got His Gun
by Dalton Trumbo
For use in schools and libraries only. The powerful story of a young boy and his tragic fate in World War I makes a terrifying statement on the horrors of war and a compelling plea for peace.
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Awakening
by Kate Chopin
"She grew daring and reckless. Overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out. Where no woman had swum before."
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The Hound of the Baskervilles
by Arthur Conan Doyle
When Sir Charles Baskerville is found mysteriously dead, Sherlock Holmes looks into the case.
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Horseman, Pass By
by Larry McMurtry
Told from a 17-year-old's point of view, Hud emerges as ruthless, cold and mean.
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Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust
by Nathanael West
Two classic short stories, one about a male reporter who writes an advice column, and the other, about people who have migrated to California in expectation of health and ease.
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Native Son
by Richard A. Wright
Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.
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Three Men in a Boat
by Jerome K. Jerome
"I had the general symptoms, the chief among them being a disinclination to work of any kind." So begin the hilarious misadventures of a merry, but scandalously lazy band of well-to-do young men-and a plucky and rather world-weary fox terrier named Montmorency-on an idyllic cruise along the River Thames. Feeling seedy, muses one of them dreamily, "What we want is rest." What they find instead is one hapless catastrophe after another. Soggy weather, humiliating dunkings, the irritating behavior of small boats and the "contrariness of teakettles" are just a few of the barbarisms our genteel heroes are forced to endure. But which a delighted reader can only sing, Hooray! First published in 1889, Three Men in a Boat was an instant success, and Jerome has been compared to comic master P.G. Wodehouse.
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The Old Man and the Sea
by Ernest Hemingway
Traditional Chinese edition of The Old Man and The Sea edited for young adults. The story is told with text and graphics and accompanied with Zhuying (phonetic annotation). A reading guide of this Hemingway classic helps young readers develop their writing skills. In Traditional Chinese. Distributed by Tsai Fong Books, Inc.
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The Sun Also Rises
by Ernest Hemingway
A group of expatriates travel from Paris to the Pamplona bullfights.
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