My Books-of-the-Year

Note: This is my annual list, published online for the first time. Books under consideration are those the blogger has read in 2005, regardless of date published. Books the blogger has read in previous years and then read again, are ineligible for "Books-of-the-Year" consideration.

1. TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, by Ernest Hemingway
I wouldn't call myself a Hemingway fan, but he is considered one of the great American novelists and I am fascinated by his life and travels, so I have made it my goal to read each of his books. To Have and Have Not is my book of the year and it, along with The Old Man and the Sea and A Farewell to Arms--are the best of the five Hemingway novels I have read. I enjoyed the rich texture of To Have and Have Not, and Harry Morgan, the salty figure we follow through the tale. Morgan is a boat captain, whose last years are chronicled as he finds himself getting deeper and deeper into trouble--financially and otherwise.

2. BREAK IN, by Dick Francis
Having first read an abridged version of one of Dick Francis' books while in high school, I decided to read him anew after hearing about his death this year. Knowing that he was an author who wrote all of his novels through the lens of horseracing, and not being a fan of the sport myself, I never gave him much thought. To my surprise, Dick Francis is a marvelous novelist who paints very warm portraits of his characters. His Kit Fielding is a true hero, and one of my favorite liteary characters of recent years. This book was so good, that I also read its sequel, Bolt.


3. JUST ONE LOOK, by Harlan Coben
My first Harlan Coben book inspired me to keep reading his works, and so I quickly devoured Gone for Good and No Second Chance. Just One Look was cunningly delicious with twists and turns and lots of fun. The mystery behind a photograph carries this thriller far. Coben also has a talent for creating intriguing and humorous minor characters. For a full review of this book, read my post of September 10. My one knock on Coben is the premise and unlikely coincidences of his books are very similar, making each ensuing read less and less unique.

4. THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES, by Agatha Christie
This was a year of firsts when it came to authors--and believe it or not, before "The Mysterious Affair" I had never read an Agatha Christie novel before. I was not disappointed. This was actually Christie's first book--published when she was just 24--and it introduced her most famous character to the world, Hercule Poirot. What amazes me about this very rich and interesting novel is its length--just 124 pages--compare that to the worst book I read this year, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which took nearly 500 of its 870 total pages, to get to the story! The Potter book was the worst book I finished, but probably the worst book I attempted to read this year was John Irving's Until I Find You, a meandering vanity project of which I could only stomach about 200 pages out of a total of 848.

5. THE TEAMMATES, by David Halberstam
This was the only non-fiction book to make my list this year, and fittingly so, as it was the send-off book to the late, great Ted Williams. The story picks up with the final voyage of Williams' teammates: Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio, and Bobby Doerr as they took a road trip from New England to Florida to visit their ailing buddy. The book is a poignant reflection on friendship, youth and old age, and on a player who was one of the best to ever play the game of baseball. I was also thrilled to read brief biographies and player capsules of each of his teammates, who retired long before I was born.