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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
From a coming-of-age story set in Japan to the biography of a legendary crooner, we pick the most pleasurable reading experiences of 2005.
Dec 19, 2005 | This was the year that Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul, at the urging of the New York Times Book Review, declared that fiction is dead. And we must admit that at the beginning of the eye-blearing process of picking the year's 10 best books we were almost inclined to agree. Late releases and previously overlooked gems renewed our faith, though, and in the end we decided to do something we've never done before: let two short story collections -- one by a young writer with a cult following and the other by an unjustly under-celebrated veteran -- tie for the fifth fiction slot. The two collections struck us as remarkably similar in spirit and impeccable in craft and well, we just couldn't make up our minds.
We must admit, though, that when we closed the door behind the final 11 titles, there was a lot of great nonfiction left clamoring outside. Our criteria in choosing our five favorite nonfiction titles have always been a little idiosyncratic. Instead of "definitive" doorstops, we prefer to single out the kind of books we can't wait to get back to -- the ones we schlep into the kitchen with us so we can keep reading while we brew that fourth pot of coffee. The titles on our nonfiction lists often deal with weighty historical subjects and urgent issues, but first and foremost they're the books that kept us up all night instead of lulling us to sleep.
This year saw the publication of many stellar memoirs, but in the end we only picked one (and not the one you're thinking of, either). History, especially American history, captivated us in 2005, and we couldn't help noticing that the most horrifying, inspiring and fascinating American stories often center around race. It was only by the thinnest of hairs that two outstanding 2005 titles -- "Bury the Chains," Adam Hochschild's account of the intellectual origins of abolitionism, and "Bound for Canaan," Fergus M. Bordewich's history of the Underground Railroad (the first book of its kind devoted to the subject) -- didn't make our top five. We still recommend that you check them out.
As for fiction, it's certainly not dead, but it has undergone a sea change since the days when Naipaul was coming up. This year's crop impresses us with its breadth of imagination and close attention to emotional truths. These books took us to places and showed us things no nonfiction title ever could. We're grateful for the trip, and hope that you will be, too.
