Best Reads of 2005

Crack a book, and the life you save may be your own. When the world is wild and seems a shade too dark, a book may tell you why or might just light the world a different way.

2005 has now delivered its gift of books. This hour, we open these presents again and see who likes which best and why. We hear from editors, book sellers, and you on Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore," Herman Melville brought to life again, Joan Didion's transcendent woe and Geraldine Brooks' great "March."

And we hear again from authors who have talked this year with us: from Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie and more.

Carol Horne selects:
"The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Dideon
"Saturday" by Ian McEwan
"The Lost Painting" by Jonathan Harr
"Rereadings" edited by Ann Fadiman
"A Little History of the World" by E.H. Gombrich
"The Complete New Yorker"
"The Planets" by Dava Sobel
"The Encyclopedia of New England" edited by Burt Finetuch and David Waters

Guests:

Charlotte Abbott, Senior Editor at Publisher's Weekly

Marie Arana, Editor of The Washington Post's Book World

Carol Horne, Senior Buyer at the Harvard Bookstore, an independent bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Jack Beatty, On Point News Analyst, senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly