From elves to shelves

Our critics' holiday list of great reads would fill a sleigh

Patti Thorn, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 4, 2004 at midnight

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All of Santa's elves couldn't have kept track of the thousands of books that came out in 2004. There were books about war and books about how to make peace, stories of adventure, history and faraway villas.

The variety, as always, was daunting. But let's face it, this year was all about politics. And the biggest trend in books was the political tomes that poured in faster than you can say America's cultural divide. If you think books are for reasonable, peace-loving, retiring sorts, think again. These were tough tomes that sometimes hit below the belt and occasionally scored a knockout punch.

For today's holiday books guide, we looked back on these rough and tumble reads and the copious other titles of 2004, sorting the forgettable from the standouts to offer you the best of the bunch. Inside these pages, you'll find the books News reviewers loved last year, those that received "A" grades from our critics. You'll find our favorites in fiction, nonfiction and children's, as well as 10 no-miss picks specially chosen by our staff from the scores of glossy coffee-table books that have been released in recent months.

It amounts to a gift-buying guide better than anything the elves could cobble together. Turn inside for season's readings you won't want to miss.

Fiction

Selected and condensed from reviews by News critics that have run throughout the year.

A Hole in the Universe, by Mary McGarry Morris (Viking, $24.95). This gritty, compelling tale revolves around the homecoming of Gordon Loomis, a shy man who's just completed a 25-year murder sentence. With a wild, contrasting cast of characters, McGarry Morris explores issues of poverty, racism and the slippery slope of morality.

Aloft, by Chang-rae Lee (Riverhead, $24.95). A gracefully written story of a suburban man whose girlfriend buys him a flying lesson for his 56th birthday. As he avoids the "flotsam" of daily life by flying a half-mile up, his personal life begins falling apart.

The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn, by Janis Hallowell (William Morrow, $23.95). When a homeless man has a vision of teenager Francesca as the Holy Virgin, Francesca's life is turned upside down and events sprial toward inevitable tragedy. The novel asks poignant emotional questions, striving to define reality and redemption in a troubled world.

Buying A Fishing Rod For My Father, by Gao Xingjian (HarperCollins, $17.95). A superb collection of the Nobel Prize winner's short stories, which subtly register an unspoken regret about the change time's passage brings.

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell (Random House, $14.95). In this stunning novel, Mitchell links six different tales that move from 18th century South Pacific to contemporary London and into the future. The way the stories come together, through time and cultures, is astonishing.

Colors Insulting to Nature, by Cintra Wilson (Fourth Estate, $24.95). With a verve few writers can match, this first novel from the pop-culture commentator centers on Liza Normal, a young woman who desperately wants to become a star, despite limited talent. Smart, funny and filled with so much breathless ridiculousness, you'll marvel that the author never runs out of satiric ammunition.

Dark Matters, by Paul M. Levitt (University of New Mexico, $24.95). Set in Colorado and New Mexico against the backdrop of McCarthyism, Levitt's story revolves around Ben Cohen, a veteran of the Korean War with socialist leanings who enrolls at the University of Colorado, where he becomes embroiled in the campus political struggle.

The Dark Tower VII, by Stephen King (Donald Grant/Scribner, $35). The final installment of King's Gunslinger cycle is as tightly constructed and poetic as the first. Both as entertainment and literature, the series is as good as it gets.

The Daydreaming Boy, by Micheline Aharonian Marcom (Riverhead, $23.95). An adult living in Beirut in the 1960s tries to put his Armenian past, and the genocide of his people, behind him in this stunning, luminous portrait of war's bleak inheritance.

The Dick Cheney Code, by Henry Beard (Simon & Schuster, $9.95). A biting, humorous parody of the Da Vinci Code, featuring Vice President Cheney as guardian of an age-old secret that, if exposed, could topple the presidential election.

Emma Brown: A Novel From the Unfinished Manuscript by Charlotte Bronte, by Clare Boylan (Viking, $25.95). With sympathetic characters and convincing dialogue, Boylan builds on a 20-page story fragment Bronte left behind upon her death in 1855. The novel focuses on a child brought to a boarding school by a distinguished-looking gentleman, only to be abandoned and eventually turned out into the streets.

Eventide, by Kent Haruf (Alfred A. Knopf, $24.95). Haruf returns to fictional Holt, Colo., and the intersecting lives of its townspeople, reprising some of his characters from his National Book Award nominee Plainsong. With his pitch-perfect dialogue and descriptions of small-town life, Haruf proves that there is no one who writes better fiction set in Colorado today.

The Falls, by Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco, $26.95). This mesmerizing tale opens as a man commits suicide at Niagara Falls on his honeymoon and goes on to examine the effects on his bride. A work of haunting beauty, marked by Oates' commentary on the painful emotions at the center of family life.

Field Study, by Rachel Seiffert (Pantheon, $19.95). Written by one of Granta's best young British novelists of 2003, this collection of short stories, primarily set in East Germany and western Poland after the fall of the Berlin Wall, highlights the loneliness in human relationships in spare, powerful prose.

The Final Solution: A Story of Detection, by Michael Chabon (Fourth Estate, $23.95). An elegiac, tightly woven story about a touching relationship between a mute Jewish boy scarred by the Holocaust and an elderly English detective whose mental sharpness is beginning to fail him.

A Good Year, by Peter Mayle (Alfred A. Knopf, $24). In this deliciously lighthearted tale, a man who has inherited his late uncle's vineyard enjoys the breathtaking landscape, sunshine and gorgeous notaire handling his estate - until complications threaten to take it all away.

The Green Age of Asher Witherow, by M. Allen Cunningham (Unbridled Books, $24.95). A refreshing revival of an earlier literary mood, Cunningham creates the fictional memoirs of 19th century boy coming of age during the boom and bust years of a largely Welsh California mining town.

Had A Good Time, by Robert Olen Butler (Grove, $23). Inspired by turn-of- the-century postcards the author collects, Butler imagines the individuals and worlds from which their fleeting missives might have emerged. The result is a story collection that is richly complex and poignant.

Holy Fools, by Joanne Harris (William Morrow, $24.95). With dazzling, magical style, Harris sets her story in the 17th century, focusing on an acrobat, her young daughter and the lover who betrays her, only to reappear years later, wreaking havoc.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury, $27.95). Clarke has produced a work as enjoyable as The Pickwick Papers, with more than a touch of Anne Rice thrown in for good measure in this story of the rivalry of two master magicians in 19th century England.

Ibid: A Life, by Mark Dunn (MacAdam Cage, $22). This clever, offbeat and amusing novel revolves around an unsual conceit: that the biography of a three-legged man who becomes the magnate of a deodorant empire has been lost and only the endnotes have survived. The man's life is detailed through seemingly random notes that eventually complete a puzzle.

The Inner Circle, by T.C. Boyle (Viking, $25.95). At once funny, sad, sordid and profound, Boyle's 10th novel focuses on sex researcher Alfred Kinsey and the bashful virgin male undergraduate he lures into his inner circle.

Ironfire, by David Ball (Delacorte, $24.95). Colorado author Ball serves up history with a hearty helping of bone-crunching realism in this tale of two Maltese siblings who meet different fates, against the backdrop of the 16th century struggle between Muslims and Christians.

Land of Echoes, by Daniel Hecht (Bloomsbury, $24.95). With poetic writing sure to raise goose flesh, Hecht's psychological thriller tells the story of a teenager who appears to be possessed and Cree Black, a psychologist and believer in the paranormal, who attempts to release the boy from the spirit's grip.

Lost Souls, by Michael Collins (Viking, $23.95). Executed with a cynical, yet careful eye for atmosphere and language, this enthralling novel explores the mysterious death of a young girl, and one man's struggle to recover from the painful losses of his past.

The Love Wife, by Gish Jen (Alfred A. Knopf, $24.95). Jen creates the loveable Wong family: an Asian father, WASP mother, two adopted Asian-American daughters, a bio son - and a Chinese nanny who stirs the whole melting pot when she enters the picture. The story sparks with surprises and funny, painful and real characters that will sneak into your heart.

The Lucky Ones, by Rachel Cusk (Fourth Estate, $24.95). Cusk examines the joys and frustrations of motherhood and marriage. with the unforgettable stories of five stay-at-home mothers.

Lux, by Maria Flook (Little, Brown, $23.95). Flook explores the mysteries of the human heart in this multilayered story of a woman whose husband has disappeared and who longs to adopt a child to fill the void in her life.

The Man in My Basement, by Walter Mosley (Little, Brown, $22.95). In a departure from his usual mystery tales, Mosley tells the story of a man who rents his basement out for the summer, only to find that his renter has built his own prison, and expects his landlord to be his warden and guard. What unfolds is an inversion of power that raises provactive questions about morality and redemption.

Mourning Ruby, by Helen Dunmore (Putnam, $23.95). A writer with a gift for graceful, unobtrusive metaphor and gentle irony, Dunmore tells the story of a woman who was abandoned by her mother as an infant and, after the death of her own child, finds herself feeling unmoored.

Oblivion, by David Foster Wallace (Little, Brown, $22.95). A collection of empathy-evoking stories that grapple with the human condition in ways that hit like a blow to the gut.

The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin, $26). In his most intense book to date, Roth reimagines a history in which anti-Semite Charles Lindbergh is elected president in America and transforms the government into a fascist state, all seen through the fearful eyes of the fictional Roth family.

The Psycho-Ex Game, by Merrill Markoe and Andy Prieboy (Villard, $24.98). Two acquaintances launch an e-mail battle dubbed the "Psycho Ex Game," in which their tales of dysfunctional love and psychotic behavior garner points. What starts as friendly sport becomes a road map to an unlikely friendship in this frightening, funny and honest love story.

Resistance, by Barry Lopez (Alfred A. Knopf, $18). These nine linked stories feature characters in a not-distant future whose creative work has prompted rebuke from the "Department of Inland Security." A cunning work that reflects concern about the war on terrorism's threat to individual freedoms.

The Rules of Engagement, by Anita Brookner (Random House, $23.95). With her exquisite, Jamesian prose, Brookner again explores the landscape of the isolated, enervated woman with this story of two London girls, both named Elizabeth, who start school on the same day in 1948 and whose lives are intertwined into adulthood.

Runaway, by Alice Munro (Alfred A. Knopf, $25). Munro proves again that she is a writer who gets to the heart of things with eight stories that feature characters so real, they walk off the page.

Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Penguin, $24.95). At once mystery, historical fiction, romance, suspense, tragedy and humanitarian essay, Zafon's hypnotic story centers on a boy coming of age in Barcelona whose father initiates him into a secret that involves a book shrouded in mystery.

Skinny Dip, by Carl Hiaasen (Alfred A. Knopf, $24.95). Wildly incongruous characters bounce off one another like lottery balls in Hiaasen's latest romp, the story of Chaz Perrone, a man whose money-making scheme aiding an Everglades polluter is threatened when his wealthy wife catches onto him.

Sweet Land Stories, by E.L. Doctorow (Random House, $22.95). The author of Ragtime and other acclaimed novels offers five short stories that showcase his ironic touch and masterful sense of place.

Sunset and Sawdust, by Joe R. Lansdale (Alfred A. Knopf, $22). Readers will feel the Texas heat and hear the author's Southern drawl in this mystery set in Depression-era East Texas. A woman kills her abusive husband and takes over his job as town constable, investigating the murder of a local prostitute.

True North, by Jim Harrison (Grove, $24). Harrison explores themes of environmental destruction and greed, as well as "the miracle that life exists at all" in this bawdy, profound story of a man struggling with the source of his family's wealth - destructive logging and mining - while battling the legacy of his father's crime.

The Tyrant's Novel, by Thomas Keneally (Doubleday, $25). A ruler who closely resembles Saddam Hussein conscripts an author to ghost-write a book - with a deadly caveat: If the author cannot complete the book in one month, the author's close friend also will be held accountable. With gritty realism, rising tension and stifling oppression that all come together in unexpected ways.

An Unfinished Life, by Mark Spragg (Alfred A. Knopf, $23). Another impressive effort by a novelist who embraces a contemporary West of both cowpokes and motorcycles, small-town sheriffs and war memories. The story is told by Griff Gilkyson, who moves with her hard-luck mother to Ishawooa, Wyo., where Griff's gruff grandfather reluctantly takes them in.

Wives & Lovers, by Richard Bausch (Perennial, $12.95). This first-rate collection of novellas will break your heart yet fill you with hope as Bausch looks at the ebb and flow of relationships and his characters' attempts to make sense of their sordid and ordinary lives.

Nonfiction

Selected and condensed from reviews by News critics and wire reports that have run throughout the year.

ADVENTURE

The Big Year, by Mark Obmascik (Free Press, $25). In this rollicking story, Obmascik follows three men as they race to spot the most species of birds in one year during a grand birding competition, dubbed The Big Year.

Hell in High Water, by Peter Heller (Rodale Books, $24.95). A riveting chronicle of the daring and lunatic quest of a group of kayakers to conquer the Tsangpo River Gorge in Tibet, the deepest river gorge in the world.

A Rock and a Hard Place, by Aron Ralston (Atria Books, $26). A mesmerizing story, told in chilling detail, about Ralston's six-day entrapment in the Utah canyonlands, during which he was forced to amputate his arm to free it from a rock.

Shadow Divers, by Robert Kurson (Random House, $26.95). The thrilling story of two deep shipwreck divers who discovered one of the most prized finds in the history of diving: A WWII German U-boat.

BIOGRAPHY/AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow (Penguin, $35). A solid, energetic and engaging look at the man who wrote the Federalist papers, which helped pave the way for the U.S. Constitution, and at an America that was emerging from the blood and turmoil of the Revolutionary War.

His Excellency George Washington, by Joseph Ellis (Alfred A. Knopf,$26.95). Benjamin Franklin was wiser, Alexander Hamilton more brilliant, Thomas Jefferson more intellectually sophisticated - but all three saw George Washington as their superior. In this impressive biography, Ellis details the intangible qualities that made Washington the right person in the right place at the right time.

Osama: The Making of a Terorist, by Jonathan Randal (Alfred A. Knopf, $26.95). A thorough and lucid introduction to the Arab and Muslim world that shows the sometimes openly, sometimes shadowy way bin Laden operated from childhood to the present day.

My Life, by Bill Clinton (Alfred A. Knopf, $25). Although hampered by its chronological framework, which doesn't allow the author to examine key events and decisions in depth, Clinton's account of his life, marked by its introspection, still ranks as the best memoir produced by any modern president.

ESSAYS

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, by David Sedaris (Little, Brown, $24.95). Sedaris offers 22 hilarious, elegant and surprisingly moving tales of ordinary madness, running the gamut from the author's disastrous efforts to win the friendship of a super-popular high school tormentor to his elaborate relations with his adults siblings.

Magical Thinking, by Augusten Burroughs (St. Martin's Press, $23.95). In this savory delivery of 27 true-life, self-deprecating stories, Burroughs obsesses about everything from conjoined twins to slaughtering a mouse to his non-muscular physique. His tales are, at once, sharp, poignant, political - and hysterical.

The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair, by George Plimpton (Random House, $24.95). Reading this book is like having lunch with an old friend who is also a great storyteller. Plimpton's enjoyable light touch is evident on every page of this collection of personal stories, published after his death last year at age 76.

FOOD

Fork it Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater, by Alan Richman (HarperCollins, $24.95). A tasty compilation of reviews and columns by the GQ writer who has won 11 James Beard awards writing about food.

HISTORY

Can't Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age, 1945-2000, by Martin Torgoff (Simon & Schuster, $29.95). A fascinating, complex narrative about the cultural, social and legal history of drug use in America. Including a well-known cast of characters: Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Ken Kesey and others.

The Fighting First: The Untold Story of the Big Red One on D-Day, by Flint Whitlock (Westview, $27.50). Relying largely on the words of veterans of the First Infantry Division, Whitlock tells the riveting and blood-drenched story of the First's march into the slaughterhouse of Normandy's Omaha Beach.

Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today, by Alan Huffman (Gotham Books, $27). When cotton planter Isaac Ross died in 1836, his will stipulated that his plantation be liquidated and the proceeds used to pay for his 200-plus slaves to emigrate to the new African colony of Liberia. Huffman details how this weird repatriation still reverberates today.

Sex With Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry and Revenge, by Eleanor Herman (William Morrow, $25.95). An entertaining look at a time when mistresses were as much a part of the courts of Europe as frocked wigs and as influential as many royal wives.

MEDIA

All I Did Was Ask, by Terry Gross (Hyperion, $24.95). Nearly as pleasing to the mind's eye as to the ear, this collection offers transcriptions of interviews conducted by the host of National Public Radio's Fresh Air, including her legendary verbal fisticuffs with KISS bassist Gene Simmons.

Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film, by Peter Biskind (Simon & Schuster, $26.95). An absurdly entertaining look at the last 15 years of the independent film movement and especially at Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein, who is portrayed as an outsized, egomaniacal bully.

Give Me A Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media, by John Stossel (HarperCollins, $24). Stossel, of ABC's 20/20, writes with bracing honesty about his career and offers a behind-the-scenes look into the network news business that will challenge conservatives and liberals alike.

Operation Hollywood, by David L. Robb (Prometheus Books, $28). The Hollywood journalist exposes the influence the U.S. government exerts on moviemakers when they request U.S. military equipment and personnel for their films. Among the films he examines through a series of candid letters, interviews and anecdotes are: The Right Stuff, Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbor.

MEMOIR

Baby Plays Around, by Helene Stapinski (Villard Books, $23.95). A humorous and poignant exploration of love, sex and survival as seen through the seemingly happy, upper-middle-class author's stint as the drummer in a pop/rock band.

Goat, by Brad Land (Random House, $22.95). A mesmerizing, haunting account of the violence Land endured pledging a fraternity at Clemson Univeristy.

Gods of Tin: The Flying Years, by James Salter (Shoemaker & Hoard, $24). This slim volume packs a forceful punch, offering a skillful blend of acclaimed writer Salter's fiction, creative nonfiction and journal entries, focusing on the author's time as a fighter pilot in Korea.

Fault Line, by Laurie Alberts (University of Nebraska Press, $21.95). With the language skills of a poet, Alberts recounts her relationship with Kim Janik, a Colorado boy who fell in love with her while he was attending Harvard and who was found years later naked and dead on a Wyoming prairie.

Scribbling the Cat, by Alexandra Fuller (Penguin, $24.95). A Wyoming author who grew up in Zambia returns home, forming an unlikely bond with a white Rhodesian war veteran. She details their friendship and their recollections of the war with a rich dialect that resonates, as do the atrocities the African people endured during the brutal war.

So Late, So Soon, by D'Arcy Fallon (Hawthorne, $15.95). Sexy, silly and somber, Fallon's book recounts her search for a place in the world and her struggle with faith as a member of a Christian commune in the woods of California in the 1970s.

When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School, by Sam Kashner (HarperCollins, $25.95). A funny, gossipy airing of beat poet laundry. Kashner takes readers from his first meeting in 1976 with Allen Ginsberg (who greets Kashner wearing nothing but boxer shorts), to his graduation, three years later, from the newly established Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute.

POLITICS

America (The Book), by Jon Stewart (Warner Books, $24.95). In an unnerving political climate, Stewart's book is just what the doctor ordered, a mock-civics textbook that dares to ask questions such as "How many of the nine Supreme Court justices can you name? How many of the nine members of The Brady Bunch can you name? What does that say about you?"

Chain of Command, by Seymour M. Hersh (HarperCollins, $25.95). The Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist traces the decisions of the Bush administration that led the country to war in Iraq, fueled with an old-fashioned muckraker's outrage.

Had Enough? A Handbook for Fighting Back, by James Carville with Jeff Nussbaum (Simon & Schuster, $21). The master of the quick one-liner tears into the Bush administration with the tenacity of a pitbull. Using anecdotes, Cajun recipes, parody and homespun common sense, Carville evaluates how Democrats can repair America.

House of Bush, House of Saud, by Craig Unger (Scribner, $26). In a dispassionate and scrupulously documented narrative, Unger details the long-standing relationship between the Bushes and the Saudi royal family, contending that it stained the 2000 presidential election, retarded our reaction to terrorism and twice influenced our decision to go to war.

The Latino Wave: How Hispanics Will Elect the Next President, by Jorge Ramos (Rayo, $24.95). A sweeping view of the Hispanic vote in America that describes the vast regional, political, linguistic and cultural differences that make up this group.

SCIENCE

Why Things Break: Understanding the World by the Way it Comes Apart, by Mark Eberhart (Harmony Books, $24). Part history lesson, part science lesson and part autobiography, this book by Colorado School of Mines professor Eberhart solves interesting puzzles revolving around the breaking, cracking and general destruction of different types of matierials. You'll never look at that crack in your windshield the same way again.

SOCIAL ISSUES

Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Chlidhood, by Susan Linn (The New Press, $24.95). Linn builds a strong, well-documented case to show that the $15 billion advertising industry is hijacking our children, marketing products to them from the time they are babies.

The Devil's Highway, by Luis Alberto Urrea (Little, Brown, $24.95). Covering several days in May 2001 when 26 men attempted to cross the Sonora Desert along the desolate, ancient pathway that provides the book's title, the book is an unblinking view of what drives so many people to take the perilous journey from Mexico to el norte.

Families Like Mine, by Abigail Garner (HarperCollins, $24.95). As the grown daughter of a gay father, Garner offers a unique perspective on the issue of gay couples raising children, thwarting the idea that these children will grown up gay, as well as the notion that they will grow up to be no different than children of straight parents.

The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age, by Jeffrey Rosen (Random House, $24.95). Rosen's timely narrative contrasts our need for security, post 9-11, with our desire for liberty and privacy, suggesting that we don't have to let our anxieties overrun these prized rights.

The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do, by Marcia Angell (Random House, $24.95). In her insightful and eye-opening book, the former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine blames spiraling prescription drug prices on a corrupt industry more focused on profit than public health.

SPORTS

The Big Horse, by Joe McGinniss (Simon & Schuster, $22.95). The story of horse trainer P.G. Johnson and his horse Volponi, who won the Breeder's Cup classic, only to lag in his final season. A true insider's take on an intriguing, if not always pretty, sport, abounding in colorful personalities and courageous animals.

The Last Best Season: One Summer, One Season, One Dream, by Jim Collins (De Capo Press, $24). An account of one team's summer season in the Cape Cod Baseball League, a league that always attracts the rapt attention of professional scouts. The author's description of the game is flat-out brilliant.

The Match: Althea Gibson & Angela Buxton: How Two Outsiders - One Black, the Other Jewish - Forged a Friendship and Made Sports History, by Bruce Schoenfeld (Amistad, $24.95). The story of two outsiders - a black sharecropper's daughter from Harlem and a Jew from a well- to-do family in north London - who became friends and captured the women's doubles championship at Wimbledon in 1956.

The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Ancient Games, by Tony Perrottet (Random House, $12.95). A fun archaeology of the ancient Greek Olympic Games, during which rivals competed in the truest uniform - their birthday suits.

Swimming to Antarctica, by Lynne Cox (Alfred A. Knopf, $24.95). In a story that builds to a Rocky-like crescendo, Cox details her career as a swimmer who, as a teenager, broke both the men's and women's world records for swimming across the English Channel, and went on to swim the Strait of Magellan, the Cape of Good Hope, Glacier Bay and more.

The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw, by Michael Sokolove (Simon & Schuster, $25). A profound work of journalism focusing on Darryl Strawberry's high school team. Sokolove examines what made the team special, what happened later to the players, including Strawberry, and why the promise baseball extended to these teens ultimately fell flat.

TRAVEL

Lost In My Own Backyard, by Tim Cahill (Crown Journeys, $16). Cahill takes readers on a good-natured tour of Yellowstone National Park, including its predictable sights, such as Old Faithful, as well as the offbeat.

Seasons in Basilicata: A Year in a Southern Italian Hill Village, by David Yeadon (HarperCollins, $25.95). Yeadon brings alive the alluring hill village of Aliano in the Basilicata region of Italy, capturing the colorful people, festivals, grape harvests and unique culinary delights created by friends who make the author and his wife feel at home.

CRIME

Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts, by Julian Rubinstein (Little, Brown, $23.95). More like a farcical Hollywood plot than true crime, this page-turning tale recounts the story of a Transylvanian-born gravedigger/hockey-player who emerged as one of Hungary's most successful criminals and beloved folk heroes.

WORLD EVENTS

America as Empire: Global Leader or Rogue Power?, by Jim Garrison (Berrett-Koehler, $24.95). The author examines America in the context of history's other great empires, arguing that the country must be a "superpartner as much as a superpower" in this era of globalization.

Blinded by the Sunlight, by Matthew McAllester (HarperCollins, $25.95). A chilling account of the U.S. opening campaign of the Iraqi war and the eight days McAllester spent imprisoned at Abu Ghraib.

The Fall of Baghdad, by John Lee Anderson (Penguin, $24.95). One of 16 journalists to remain in Baghdad during the initial phase of America's assault against Iraq, New Yorker writer Anderson offers an eye-opening, non-polemical account of life in pre-and post- "Mission Accomplished" Iraq.

Interrogators, by Chris Mackay and Greg Miller (Little, Brown, $25.95). A fascinating, behind-the-scenes account of the American interrogation of captives in Afghanistan and the moral issues involved.

They Would Never Hurt A Fly: War Criminals on Trial in the Hague, by Slavenka Drakulic (Viking, $22.95). Croatian journalist Drakulic dives into the psyches of those charged as war criminals for their ruthless activities during the Balkans war - with chilling results.

MISCELLANEOUS

Faith Of Our Sons: A Father's Wartime Diary, by Frank Schaeffer (Carroll & Graf, $25). Schaeffer's story of his son's deployment as a Marine to Afghanistan, a candid look at what military families go through having a loved one in harm's way.

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, by A.J. Jacobs (Simon & Schuster, $25). Jacobs recounts his mission to read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica, humorously detailing various items in the encyclopedia, what he learns, the nature of intelligence and his yearlong journey - all leavened with a pastiche of self-mocking.

The Secret Life of Rats, by Robert Sullivan (Bloomsbury, $23.95). After observing rats in a downtown Manhattan alley for a year, Sullivan offers a funny, insightful, comprehensive narrative about the rodents that plague his city.

Best mystery

Selected by News critic Jane Dickinson.

• The Cutting Room, by Louise Welsh (Canongate, $24.) "Some people run from Grandma's house, they long for the bite of the wolf." Thus speaks Welsh's enigmatic and dissolute auctioneer Rilke in explaining the lure of violent pornography for its addicts. In a year of excellent mysteries from lesser-known Brits, Welsh's tour of humanity's dark corners is at the top of a stellar list. Her Glasgow crawls with the unforgiving detail of a Hogarth print, from the bookies and dealers to the smug suburbs to the tranvestites club. Scotland hasn't been this scary since Macbeth.

Best thriller

Selected by News critic Peter Mergendahl.

• Absent Friends, by S.J. Rozan (Delacorte Press, $24). You'd expect a well-written book from an author with as many literary awards as Rozan, but this novel is a step or three above the genre's best. The tale begins in the late 1960s and revolves around a close group of childhood friends on Staten Island who watch the World Trade Center twin towers rise across the water as they grow up. Jimmy, the leader of this group, later dies a hero's death in the collapse of the towers - only to have an ambitious reporter dig into his past, causing upheaval among his surviving friends. I can't remember a book that examines loyalty and friendship - and the consequences of each - quite like this. Rozan's thriller will be remembered by all who remember 9/11.

Best unreal worlds

Selected by the News science fiction/fantasy/supernatural critic Mark Graham.

• Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy, edited by Al Sarrantonio (ROC, $24.95). Even if you have a fear of flying, these are flights you won't want to miss. This collection features new stories by Orson Scott Card, Neil Gaiman, Larry Niven, Joyce Carol Oates, Joe Lansdale, David Morrell, Thomas Disch, Robert Silverberg, Gene Wolfe and 20 others. Among them, Sarrantonio writes, "You'll find plenty of princes and princesses, retold fairy tales, fables - but also strange stories that would have been right at home on The Twilight Zone, and a few stories unlike anything you've read..." Like those in Sarrantonio's horror and science fiction anthologies (999 and Redshift), these stories are uniformly fine.

10 great coffee-table/ gift books

Selected by News staffers.

BEST PICK for science fans

The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman: The Marvel of the Human Body, Revealed, by Alexander Tsiaras; text by Barry Werth (Doubleday, 251 pages, $50). In 2002, Tsiaras offered a cutting-edge look at the development of a human fetus in his book From Conception to Birth. This year, he does the same for the adult anatomy, offering this 3-D look at more than a dozen systems in the body, created with the help of the most advanced medical computer technology available. Tsiaras' virtual camera offers a look at the human body in far more detail and precision than the medical drawings you're used to seeing in textbooks. Almost a work of art, his glossy pictures of humans from the inside out prove that the cliché has been wrong all these years: Turns out beauty is more than skin deep. -Patti Thorn

BEST PICK for Western realists

Western Rider: Views From a Car Window, by Chuck Forsman (Center for American Places, 104 pages, $29.95). Colorado artist Chuck Forsman's work is all about the West. His high-impact paintings give voice to humankind's heavy footprint on the Western landscape, from the impact of damming big rivers to the scars left by mining. In Western Rider, though, Forsman continues his role as eyewitness to "progress," heading out on the road, camera in hand, to shoot scenes of the region through his car window. From a snowplow making sparks on slick highway, to wildlife darting across a back road, to the odd bit of mural on a remote store, Forsman's images evoke the life that lurks behind the loneliness of wide-open spaces.

- Mary Voelz Chandler

BEST PICK for humor sophisticates

The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker, edited by Robert Mankoff, foreword by David Remnick (Black Dog & Leventhal, $60). Fess up. You might read the articles in The New Yorker - or you might not. But you always check out the cartoons. What could be better, then, than 79 years worth of chuckles - without all that intimidating gray text? This gargantuan book is filled with hundreds of cartoons that have run in the magazine since 1925, including mini-retrospectives of prominent New Yorker cartoonists, such as James Thurber, Charles Addams and Saul Steinberg. And for those who feel slighted by the mere 2,004 cartoons in this mammoth collection, the book comes with two CDs featuring all 68,647 cartoons published in the history of the magazine. Now that's no laughing matter.

- Patti Thorn

BEST PICK for map freaks

National Geographic Atlas of the World, Eighth Edition, (National Geographic, $165). It may be a small world, but it takes a big book to tell the story. For map fans, National Geographic's eighth edition Atlas of the World is a bonanza, measuring 181/2 by 121/2 inches and containing 135 pages of neatly organized, colorful maps and graphics. Sure, you can find which island of New Zealand is home to Auckland in this book, but it offers much, much more - the kind of information that would require hours of Googling and wouldn't have that yummy glossy-paper feel and new-glue smell. On page 19, discover just how the world's fisheries are distributed and which countries lead in genetically modified agriculture (no bonus for guessing the United States). On 117, peruse a map of the southern sky - who knew that Sagittarius and Corona Australis were such close neighbors? On 136, you can find airline distances (so useful in calculating those frequent-flier miles). The only drawback: At this size, the atlas isn't exactly reading-in-bed material, unless you like to wake up with a painful groove in your stomach.

- Lisa Bornstein

BEST PICK for pop culture fans

Jim Marshall: Proof, by Jim Marshall (Chronicle Books, $40). You've seen Jim Marshall's rock photography before - that photo of Johnny Cash giving the finger to the camera, the Beatles' final concert, Keith Richards looking like he's about to pass out on his guitar, Janis Joplin looking like she lost her last friend, or Jim Morrison sneaking a smoke. Many have become icons, and on Proof you get to see how they were made. Those classic shots are here, but opposite each one is the proof sheet - the whole roll of film from which the classics are taken. You get to see the before-and-after stories behind dozens of photos, putting each in context.

-Mark Brown

BEST PICK for lovers of natural beauty

Horses, by Yann Arthus-Bertrand; text by Jean-Louis Gouraud (Artisan, $60). You don't have to be a horse lover to appreciate this luminous book, filled with glossy page after glossy page of stunning portraits of horses from around the world. Arthus-Bertrand, who photographed the acclaimed Earth From Above coffee-table book, spent 15 years taking thousands of pictures before culling them down to the regal shots you'll find here, from the Barb horses of the Berbers with their Roman noses to the glorious Lusitano of the Portuguese. "According to an Arab legend, Allah created the horse from a handful of the South Wind," writes Gourand. Arthus-Bertrand has done the impossible: He's pinned that wind down on paper in all its muscled, glistening glory. - Patti Thorn

BEST PICK for sports enthusiasts

Sports Illustrated 50 Years: The Anniversary Book, (Sports Illustrated Books, 304 pages, $29.95). Muhammad Ali taunts the fallen Sonny Liston. Roger Bannister breaks the tape in the first 4-minute mile. Mary Decker sprawls on the Olympic infield. Greg Norman despairs at Augusta. The still image, frozen in time, captures a sports moment like no video highlight ever could. For the past 50 years, many of the more memorable ones have been captured in Sports Illustrated. This tribute to the magazine's half-century includes an introduction by Frank Deford and excerpts from notable stories, but it's the dazzlingly reproduced photographs that convey so many of the defining moments of sport's past 50 years.

BEST PICK for da Vinci devotees

The Da Vinci Code: Illustrated Collector's Edition. Doubleday. 466 pages. $35. If you loved The Da Vinci Code - or you know someone who might -this Illustrated Collector's Edition is two gifts in one. First, of course, it's Dan Brown's exceptionally clever best-seller, recast in slick paper with detailed type and wider margins. It's a dazzling banquet of art, religion and murder, in which a Harvard professor examining the death of a Louvre curator finds himself chasing the Holy Grail. Literally. It's also a short course on the history of European art and architecture, with color photos of paintings by artists from Leonardo da Vinci to Picasso to Hieronymus Bosch, and architectural details ranging from chateaus and cathedrals to London's obscure Temple Church. The 150 photos nicely illustrate Brown's story, lending an immediacy most original readers could only imagine. And since the art, obelisks, locations and secret societies cited in the book are fact-based, the photos add historical heft to a story that is otherwise fabulous fiction.

- Mike Pearson

BEST PICK for Western art lovers

Carl Roters and the Rendezvous Murals, by David M. Burwen and Susan Jo Burwen (Venture Development Group, 149 pages, $125). In the 1950s, John D. Rockefeller Jr. sponsored a competition to create murals for the new Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park. The scale was as big as the surrounding vistas. Carl Roters, who won the commission in 1957, filled the broad walls of the lodge's dining room with scenes informed by Alfred Jacob Miller's sketches made during his trek with a fur-trading supply caravan to the Green River Rendezvous of 1837. Roters' preparatory work and historical background are abundant in this book, but the heart of Carl Roters and the Rendezvous Murals is the murals themselves. There, the Syracuse, N.Y.-based artist went beyond mere representation to interpret life in another era.

- Mary Voelz Chandler

BEST PICK for sports enthusiasts

- Mark Wolfe

BEST PICK for lovers of natural beauty

BEST PICK for architecture lovers

The Architecture Pop-Up Book, by Anton Radevsky; text by Pavel Popov (Universe Publishing, $39.95). Long to find the Taj Majal on your coffee table? Envision Notre Dame in the study, or the Chrysler Building in the bedroom? The most recent entry in the pantheon of pop-up books will fill the bill. Artist Anton Radevsky and architect Pavel Popov don't aim only for star power in their playful Architecture Pop-Up Book, they offer context, too. Each 3-D structure is showcased on pages that, through text and mini-pop-ups, offer a quickie course in architectural history and design through the centuries. In short, this book rises to the occasion. - Mary Voelz Chandler

Coffee-table books of local interest:

• Colorado Moments in Time, by Grant Collier (Collier Publishing, $45).

• Land and Light in the American West, by John Ward (Trinity University, $45).

• Mountain Ranges of Colorado, by John Fielder (Westcliffe, $75).

• Rocky Mountain Rustic: Historic Buildings of the Rocky Mountain National Park Area, by James Lindberg, Patricia Raney, Janet Robertson; edited by John Gunn (The Rocky Mountain Nature Assn., $29.95).

• Western Shirts: A Classic American Fashion, by Steven E. Weil and G. Daniel DeWeese (Gibbs, Smith, $39.95).

10 stellar children's books

Selected by News critic Natalie Soto.

Mama Love, by Kathy Mallat (Walker & Company, $15.95, ages 2 to 6). At the start of the story, an infant chimp says, "My mama loves me. I'm the twinkle in her eye, her heart's pitter-patter, her star in the sky." The story then becomes a telling of his admiration for his mama and all the wonderful things she does to make him feel secure and well-loved. By story's end, it's mama who's the "twinkle in my eye, my heart's pitter-patter, . . . my star in the sky."

Mr. Seahorse, by Eric Carle (Philomel Books, $16.99, ages 2 to 6). Good daddies abound in this intriguing look at the seahorse and other male sea creatures that care for their eggs. Carle's trademark collage art, in which young readers pull acetate off the pages to reveal camouflaged fish, is strikingly gorgeous.

Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, by Mo Willems (Hyperion Books for Children,$15.99, ages 3-5). A pleasant morning errand turns into a tantrum-throwing nightmare for little Trixie and her daddy - until Mommy uncovers the reason for Trixie's distress. Willems' wording is perfect and his expressive cartoon drawings of Trixie, her daddy and passersby are set against black-and-white photos of New York City to create a fun look.

Kiss Kiss!, by Margaret Wild and Bridget Strevens-Marzo (Simon&Schuster Books for Young Readers, $12.95, ages 3-6). Little ones will delight in this sweet story about a Baby Hippo who, in his excitement to get out to play one day, forgets to give his mama a kiss. With bright, appealing paintings by Bridget Strevens-Marzo.

Duck for President, by Doreen Cronin (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, $15.95, ages 3 to 8). The creators of the funny Click, Clack, Moo and its companion, Giggle, Giggle, Quack, revisit that same farm and its troublemaking duck. When Duck wins the election to run the farm, he finds the job isn't as easy as it looks, so he opts to run for governor instead. And once he finds that running a state isn't so easy either, he runs for president. We all know where Duck will end up - but it's fun while it lasts.

Duck, Duck, Goose! (A Coyote's On The Loose!), by Karen Beaumont (HarperCollins Publishers, $15.99, ages 2 to 7). This fun, cumulative tale captivates with rhyme and ridiculously silly farm animals. "Duck, duck goose . . . " the story begins. "A coyote's on the loose!" The duck and goose run from the coyote, only to be joined by the next animal: "Goose, goose pig . . . And he's really really big!" One wide-eyed creature after another joins the hustle. The distinctive artwork by Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey extends the goof quotient, and there's a twist at the end that will make young readers squeal with glee.

Pee-ew! Is That You, Bertie?, by David Roberts (Harry N. Abrams, $14.95, ages 3 - 8). That wild-looking child with the dirty habits in last year's Dirty Bertie is back with another behavior people around him find revolting: "He likes making smells." The book's discussion of flatulence may turn off some parents, but children typically see it as a normal bodily function. The illustrations are wacky and add to the hilarity of this take on toots.

It's Hard to Be Five: Learning How to Work My Control Panel, by Jamie Lee Curtis (Joanna Cotler Books, $16.99, ages 4 to 8). In their sixth book, Curtis and illustrator Laura Cornell focus on a 5-year-old narrator who struggles with issues of self-control, lamenting that his mind says one thing but his mouth says another. Curtis writes in lively rhymes that take the oomph out of the little guy's complaints, and Cornell's witty artwork adds to the humor for adults.

Young adult

Girl, 15, Charming but Insane, by Sue Limb (Delacorte Press, $15.95, ages 10 and up). British teenager Jess lives in the shadow of her seemingly perfect best friend, Flora. One day, before the two go to a party, she enhances her bra with minestrone soup-filled bags with hopes of impressing Ben, her big crush. Things go awry when one bag springs a leak - and, worse, Jess' misfortune is videotaped. Pegged as the Bridget Jones for teens, Jess takes readers through the hilarious paces of her life with witty commentary along the way.

The Legend Of Buddy Bush, by Sheila P. Moses (Margaret K. McElderry Books, $15.95, ages 12 and up). The lively voice of 12-year-old Patti Mae regales readers with a sliver of life on Rehobeth Road in Rich Square, N.C., circa 1947. The story centers around her beloved Uncle Buddy and the accusation made by a white woman that leads to Buddy's arrest and jailing - and to the ensuing bad health of Patti Mae's Grandpa. Moses finds a beautiful story in Patti Mae's family.

And there's more

• Throughout the year, News critics pored over debut novels written in 2004 that weren't reviewed on our regular pages. They selected the cream of the crop, no-miss reads for all sensibilities, each detailed in a feature that ran last week. While we didn't have the space to include these here, you can find them by logging onto www.RockyMountainNews.com, clicking on "Entertainment," then "Books," then "First-Time Novelists."

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