{"id":3242,"date":"2005-12-31T12:53:44","date_gmt":"2005-12-31T18:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/archives\/2005\/12\/girlreaction-reads-favorites-of-2005.html"},"modified":"2025-03-31T17:15:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T22:15:32","slug":"girlreaction-reads-favorites-of-2005","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/archives\/2005\/12\/girlreaction-reads-favorites-of-2005.html","title":{"rendered":"GirlReaction Reads: Favorites of 2005"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>My Top 5 books of 2005 were (in this order)<\/b>:<\/p>\n<ul type=\"square\">\n<li>Paradise, by A.L. Kennedy<\/li>\n<li>History of Love, by Nicole Krauss<\/li>\n<li>Mothers &amp; Other Monsters, by Maureen McHugh<\/li>\n<li>Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson<\/li>\n<li>The Closed Circle, by Jonathan Coe<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Yes, to those of you who saw that list before, I switched the order a little.<br \/>\n<b><\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Runners Up were<\/b>:<\/p>\n<ul type=\"square\">\n<li>Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell (does what Ghostwritten tried to do, but so much better)<\/li>\n<li>An Unfinished Season, by Ward Just<\/li>\n<li>Specimen Days, by Michael Cunningham (can he write a bad book? Seriously?)<\/li>\n<li>Old School, by Tobias Wolff<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>My favorite new discovery in 2005<\/b> was: A.L. Kennedy. Everything I read by her took my breath away. And there&#8217;s still a couple books waiting in the wings. Can&#8217;t wait!<br \/>\nThose were my top five, but I read sooooo many good books this year.<br \/>\n<b><\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>I read good OLD books<\/b>:<\/p>\n<ul type=\"square\">\n<li>To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee<\/li>\n<li>Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak<\/li>\n<li>The Way by Swann&#8217;s, by Marcel Proust<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>I read a truly shocking (for me) amount of non-fiction<\/b>:<\/p>\n<ul type=\"square\">\n<li>Sixpence House, by Paul Collins<\/li>\n<li>A Girl Named Zippy, by Haven Kimmel<\/li>\n<li>The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls<\/li>\n<li>The Lives of the Muses, by Francine Prose<\/li>\n<li>Wine &amp; War, the French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France&#8217;s Greatest Treasure, by Don &amp; Petie Kladstrup<\/li>\n<li>Foreign Babes in Beijing, by Rachel DeWoskin<\/li>\n<li>Travels with a Tangerine, by Tim MacKintosh-Smith<\/li>\n<li>Why Are We at War?, by Norman Mailer<\/li>\n<li>Silent Bob Speaks, the Collected Writings of Kevin Smith<\/li>\n<li>The Universe and the Teacup: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty, by K.C. Cole<\/li>\n<li>In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>I read historical fiction that only added more things to my &#8216;must&#8217; lists<\/b>:<\/p>\n<ul type=\"square\">\n<li>Author, Author, by David Lodge (must go back and read some Henry James. Haven&#8217;t read any since undergrad!!)<\/li>\n<li>Neighboring Lives, by Thomas Disch and Charles Naylor (need to read some pre-Raphaelites again. And look at their paintings. It&#8217;s been ages&#8230;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My Top 5 books of 2005 were (in this order): Paradise, by A.L. Kennedy History of Love, by Nicole Krauss Mothers &amp; Other Monsters, by Maureen McHugh Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson The Closed Circle, by Jonathan Coe Yes, to those &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/archives\/2005\/12\/girlreaction-reads-favorites-of-2005.html\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,63,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-67","category-all-faves","category-favebooks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3589,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3242\/revisions\/3589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}