NY Times: TEN BEST BOOKS OF 2005 and 100 most notable books

[Nothing Without Hope]

At the linked page, all of the NYT "ten best" book descriptions have capsule descriptions and links to reviews; many also have links to a first chapter posted online; I will give only the title/author/price/publisher here. There is a link to a slide show for the DeKooning book, and most books have additional information on the author and/or a Q & A session with him/her. The NYT "ten best" are neatly divided into five fiction and five nonfiction books, which does lead me to wonder if some of the choices are a bit contrived to get the "right" numbers. Still, it's an interesting list.

I'll be interested to see your comments on these books if you've read them and also suggestions of other books that you think SHOULD be on the list.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/books/review/tenbest.html?ex=1149570000&en=06c11513d856b649&ei=5087&nl=ep&emc=ep

The 10 Best Books of 2005

Published: December 11, 2005

FICTION:

KAFKA ON THE SHORE
By Haruki Murakami.
Alfred A. Knopf, $25.95.

ON BEAUTY
By Zadie Smith.
Penguin Press, $25.95.

PREP
By Curtis Sittenfeld.
Random House, $21.95. Paper, $13.95.

SATURDAY
By Ian McEwan.
Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $26.

VERONICA
By Mary Gaitskill.
Pantheon Books, $23.

NONFICTION:

THE ASSASSINS' GATE: America in Iraq
By George Packer.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.

DE KOONING: An American Master
By Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan.
Alfred A. Knopf, $35.

THE LOST PAINTING
By Jonathan Harr.
Random House, $24.95.

POSTWAR: A History of Europe Since 1945
By Tony Judt.
The Penguin Press, $39.95.

THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING
By Joan Didion.
Alfred A. Knopf, $23.95.

The NYT "100 most notable books of 2005" list appeared a week ago. Each entry on the list has a one-sentence summary and a link to more info in addition to the title/author/price/publisher. Two categories, "Fiction & Poetry" and "Nonfiction," both begin on the first of the three pages of the full list, and there are a lot more in the former category than in the latter.

To give an idea of the format, I'll give as an example one of the entries and a link to the first page of the full list. (My choice of the Harry Potter book is to show that this young-adult book is included.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/books/review/notable-books2005.html?ex=1134622800&en=a5eb14b94a0859a6&ei=5070

100 Notable Books of the Year

Published: December 4, 2005

(snip - the 100 books are listed in alphabetical order)

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE. By J. K. Rowling. Illustrated by Mary GrandPré. (Arthur A. Levine/ Scholastic, $29.99.) In this sixth volume of the epic series, the Dark Lord, Voldemort, is wreaking havoc throughout England and Harry, now 16, is more isolated than ever.

(snip)

[XemaSab]

1. Harry Potter!!!!

:woohoo:

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. I second that!

:bounce:

[blitzen]

3. The list is "interesting"...What interests me is how lame it is...

At least half the books are in some sense biographies of "great men." Virtually none deal in any way with any kind of innovative thinking. A completely individualist, elitist, and dilettantish view of what counts. The good news is that history will remember few of these books, while many of the now-marginalized writers whose works don't appear in the NYT's narrow list of acceptable and mainstream publishing houses will stand the test of time.

Sorry for the rant...but the pseudo-intellectual NY literati always gets my goat.

[Nothing Without Hope]

5. Yes, it's the choosing process that's the most interesting and one reason

I posted this. Everyone will have a different "top ten" list, and each individual list will reveal a great deal about the chooser. The NYT list is, as you say, revealing of the mindset of that group. I find this interesting, though I don't share their taste in what makes a "best" book.

The second reason I posted this was so that people might post books that they though should be on the list. Here I am hoping to hear of books that I would enjoy but about which I am currently ignorant.

[XemaSab]

6. They're the people who changed the bestseller list

To keep a certain author from totally dominating...

...as she should have! :D

[Nothing Without Hope]

7. Yes, I remember that. So funny that if it were done "fairly" the Potter

books would have dominated the list. The ability to use "New York Times Bestseller" or "New York Times Top Ten" has such a powerful impetus on sales, it's no wonder that the bequeathal of these coveted declarations has been politicized. The incident you mention demonstrated this very clearly.

The New Yorker also has prestigious reviews and also has a viewpoint different from mine. I still enjoy their reviews - it's one of the few magazines I read in print - because I always learn something interesting from them. After years of reading the New Yorker, I can also sort of extrapolate from what is said and not said to get some idea of what I might think of the book. Same approach works for their movie reviews. (Though my main tool for that is http://www.rottentomatoes.com .)

[XemaSab]

8. Though you have to wonder what impact that really has on sales

JK's laughing all the way to the bank.

[Nothing Without Hope]

9. Oh, I think it was the deafening whining from OTHER book publishers

that convinced the NYT editors to make that change. I do like to think that the legion of whiners included the ones that had turned down the first Potter book when the author was still an impoverished unknown.
:evilgrin:

[XemaSab]

11. Didn't she get shot down by like, 4 publishers?

And her current publisher made her go as JK so she'd appeal to boys?

[Nothing Without Hope]

13. That sounds about right. And every one of them must be ruing the day.

Goes to show just how politicized the whole publishing process is. It's who you know, who vouches for you, whether the author has connections and a history. The quality of the manuscript is way, way down on the list.

That first Potter book was riveting from the start. Surely anyone who knows children and read it would realize its appeal. So either the publishers didn't really know children - entirely possible - or else her "nobody" status shut the door immediately with no reading at all. Either way, arrogance and bias took precedence over a real taste for good writing.

Does make you wonder what great books are never published or, if published, never promoted.

But I do savor the comeuppance that those cold-shouldered publishers got for their decision to shut the door on the Potter books.

[XemaSab]

16. Another book I seem to recall almost didn't get published

was "Confederacy of Dunces."

O'Toole's mom really had to hound the publisher to read it.

[Yupster]

10. What jumped out at me was

the prices.

Book prices have just gone up enormously in the last 20 years or so. It's a shame.

[AgadorSparticus]

4. I have to disagree about the Joan Didian book. I really wanted to

like it but it fell short on so many ways. It was actually a little pointless and I am dealing with a devastating death this year. What a disappointment. I can think of other books dealing with the subject of death that are far superior.

[BlueIris]

12. Thanks for the tip. I love Didion, but when she's "off,"

she is off. Lights are on, but no one's home kinda off. Because the person who normally lives in the place with lights just had to beat a deadline and didn't care about writing anything meaningful.

[kliljedahl]

14. I received that E-mail today, clicked on the link & said

:wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf:
:wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf:
:wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf:



Keith’s Barbeque Central

[newyawker99]

15. kick

:kick: