Dashing through the prose

News reviewers recap their A-lists for reading, giving

Patti Thorn, Rocky Mountain News & News Staff

Published December 3, 2005 at midnight

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It's the season of joy and giving, but most of all, it's the season of the imagination — a time when it seems entirely possible, at least to the young at heart, that a fat man in a red suit could round up a few reindeer, rope them to a sleigh and command the whole contraption to fly.

But flights of fancy don't stop just because we grow up. One has only to wander into a bookstore to recognize that fact. In 2004, a record 190,000 books were released, and while 2005 figures have yet to be tabulated, no doubt they'll hit similar highs. Authors celebrated the power of the imagination with a host of fiction, from potboilers to serious literary efforts. And for those who prefer true-life storytelling, nonfiction offerings were even more profuse, with stories of personal struggle and triumph and a battalion of books about the war in Iraq and global politics. While the vast selection makes choosing books for gifts intimidating, today we offer help with our annual holiday guide.

Inside these pages, you'll find a list of our favorite books of 2005, titles that received "A" grades from our critics. These include the best in fiction, nonfiction and children's, as well as 10 no-miss picks chosen by our staff from the scores of coffee-table books and gift volumes released in recent months.

In short, this is the one holiday task you shouldn't leave to your imagination. Onward, for unparalleled season's readings.

Our favorite books of 2005

Fiction

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

A Changed Man, by Francine Prose (HarperCollins, $24.95). When a neo-Nazi offers to help a human-rights organization "save guys like me from becoming guys like me," he sets in motion the tensions that fuel this story. Prose takes an unflinching look at questions of good and evil — while telling a darn good tale, to boot.

A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby (Riverhead, $24.95). Hopelessness turns into fodder for comedy when four depressives bump into one another as each prepares to jump off of a roof and commit suicide on New Year's Eve. Hornby offers a realistic solution for how any miserable human carries on: by putting one foot in front of the other, day by day.

A Thread of Grace, by Mary Doria Russell (Random House, $25.95). In a novel that is at once bold, complex and often unapologetically horrific, Russell tells the tale of Italian villagers who offer shelter and solace to Jewish refugees from Germany during World War II.

Articles of War, by Nick Arvin (Doubleday, $18.95). A poignant tale of a young man sent to fight in France during World War II that captures the grim and fragmented atmosphere of war-demolished France and the emotional turmoil of an adolescent forced to reckon with an act of brutality.

Babylon Sisters, by Pearl Cleage (One World, $23.95). To appease her daughter Phoebe's curiosity about her father, single mother Catherine creates false college diaries with names of a few male classmates and leaves them around for Phoebe to read. When Phoebe unexpectedly tries to locate the men, the plot thickens in this fast-paced story with lively, engaging characters, snappy dialogue and well-honed descriptive prose.

Baker Towers, by Jennifer Haigh (William Morrow, $24.95). Haigh's strong sense of time and place is evident in this skilled depiction of a post-World War II mining town and one family looking to escape its limitations.

Chore Whore: Adventures of a Personal Assistant, by Heather E. Howard (Harper, $23.95). Funny, wry, bitchy and entertaining, this is the fictionalized account of the author's years working as a personal assistant for Hollywood stars. Corki Brown, a black, single mother in her 30s, weathers the unending demands of clients who rely on her to make their lives run smoothly (someone's got to deal with the pool boy, the painters and the blackmailers) yet neglect to buy her a Christmas present even as they dispatch her with their shopping list.

Extremely Loud & Indredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer (Houghton Mifflin, $24.95). A complex, hilarious, tear-jerking and terribly intimate story about 9-year-old Oskar Schell, a boy struggling to cope with his father's death in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. When Oscar discovers a key in an envelope in his father's closet, he sets out to find the meaning of his key and, perhaps, some peace, as well.

The Fiercer Heart, by Micaela Gilchrist (Simon & Schuster, $25). The compelling, intelligent tale of a Southern belle who marries a dashing young adventurer from the North, only to find their marriage strained as the husband pursues a military career.

44 Scotland Street, by Alexander McCall Smith (Anchor Books, $13.95). Life lessons are laid out with the lightest of touch in this story about a young woman trying to find direction in life and the host of eccentrics she meets along the way.

The Franklin Affair, by Jim Lehrer (Random House, $23.95). In a story that reveals the idiosyncracies of historians in all their tattered glory, a Benjamin Franklin scholar learns a potentially lurid secret about Franklin's life and goes to desperate measure to conceal it — only to be blackmailed by a colleague about a shocking secret of his own.

The Ha-Ha King, by Dave King (Warner, $23.95). A dark, rich exploration of loneliness and isolation revolving around a Vietnam veteran asked to temporarily care for his high school sweetheart's son. His new task forces him to emerge from years of depression and connect with the world.

Hey Cowgirl, Need a Ride?, by Baxter Black (Crown, $23.95). When a former rodeo champ meets a woman with a half-million dollars in her boot, the hijinks begin in this spirited romp in which the good guys always win.

The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss (Norton, $23.95). Krauss spins a complicated web of intersecting stories, all revolving around protagonist Leo Gusky, who falls in love as a young man and writes a book titled The History of Love. He entrusts the novel to a friend, who publishes it in Chile under his own name — a fact that has repercussions years later.

Holy Skirts, by Rene Steinke (William Morrow, $24.95). Steinke reimagines the life of Baroness Elsavon Freytag-Loringhoven, a central figure in the Dadaist circle who paraded through Greenwich Village in bizarre fashions, such as a bustle with a taillight or a skirt with dolls peering from its folds. The author captures the fiercely creative intelligence of a woman who seemed unable to resist challenging every boundary and who wore her heart — or her art — on her sleeve.

The Hummingbird's Daughter, by Luis Alberto Urrea (Little, Brown, $24.95). In this sweeping fictional epic set in late 19th century Mexico, protagonist Teresita rises from a traumatic death to become a "saint" and spokesperson for Mexico's native people. Urrea captures the everyday, dashing convention with sensuous prose and characters who are alive in both the sunlight and the stink of the everyday.

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies, by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon, $19.95). Smith eloquently tracks the adventures of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency in another genteel journey through Botswana. In this sixth in a series, detective Mma Ramotswe is startled by an intruder at her home, baffled by the appearance of a large pumpkin in her yard, and forced to face a painful secret from her past when a jazz musician lands on her doorstep.

The Italian Secretary, by Caleb Carr (Carroll & Graf, $23.95). An homage to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Carr's novel features Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson looking into mysterious deaths at the summer home of the queen of England. Carr imitates Doyle in style and language, but is also willing to explore issues of the supernatural in ways Doyle might not have allowed himself.

Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami; translated by Philip Gabriel (Alfred A. Knopf, $25.95). In this novel about a Tokyo teen grappling with questions of his origins, humans converse with cats and fish fall from the sky. Like a classic fairy tale, Murakami uses the fantastic to explore the dark and profound truths at the core of human existence.

The Killings of Stanley Ketchel, by James Carlos Blake (William Morrow, $25.95). An elegant, knockout story filled with roguish humor and based on the real life of a turn-of-the-century middleweight champion boxer who died a tragic and sensationalized death.

Last Night, by James Salter (Alfred A. Knopf, $20). In this collection of 10 short stories, Salter displays the precise mastery of language that has led him to be described as a "writer's writer." Like light striking water at just the right angle, his prose makes these examinations of the shifting geography of human emotions shimmer with life.

The Limits of Enchantment, by Graham Joyce (Atria, $23). Fern, the adopted child of a midwife, comes of age amid a quirky group of characters in 1960s rural England. This magical fantasy uses Fern's village as a metaphor for a world that's moving faster than it can cope with.

The March, by E.L. Doctorow (Random House, $25.95). Doctorow re-creates General Sherman's famous March to the Sea, an assault during the Civil War that cut a swath of fire and destruction from Atlanta to Savannah and north through the Carolinas. Doctorow weaves fictional characters with actual historical figures in this grand churn and boil of a plot that is the image of war itself.

March, by Geraldine Brooks (Viking, $24.95). In this gripping historical novel that reveals the gray areas of politics and war, Brooks fleshes out the character of Mr. March, the absent father in Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women, using the life of Alcott's real father as a guide.

Memories of My Melancholy Whores, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; translated by Edith Grossman (Alfred A. Knopf, $20). When a 90-year-old bachelor who has never experienced romantic love falls in love with a 14-year-old factory girl, their chaste relationship sparks a profound awakening in the man. Told with sly, sensuous prose.

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro (Alfred A. Knopf, $24). In a page-turner that also jogs the brain, Ishiguro writes a science fiction-style story about a female clone who is raised to donate her organs before she reaches middle age. The story, at once pleasant and unsettling, is like a vivid dream that ultimately reveals a masterful design.

New Mercies, by Sandra Dallas (St. Martin's Press, $23.95). When a Denver woman receives notice of the murder of a long-lost aunt, she heads to Natchez, Miss., to settle her aunt's estate and explore her family history. The author delicately mines the woman's internal conflicts, all while capturing the flavor and eccentricities of this cast of Southern characters.

The Painted Drum, by Louise Erdrich (HarperCollins, $25.95). A novel written in four parts, each concerning the history of an Ojibwe drum and the impact the drum has on the lives of the people who come to own it. As to be expected from Erdrich, her characters are simultaneously gritty, delicate and real, and the novel loops to a satisfying close.

Q & A, by Vikas Swarup (Scribner, $24). When a poor, uneducated orphan wins a billion rupees on an Indian game show called Who Will Win a Billion?, he is suspected of cheating and is arrested. As he tries to extricate himself from the situation, he unveils the amazing stories of his life, which tie together in a spectacular ending.

Saturday, by Ian McEwan (Doubleday/Nan A. Talese, $26). In one of the most nuanced novels of the year, McEwan examines the intimate connections between our political worlds and the rest of our lives through protagonist Henry Perowne, who wakes one early morning to see an airplane catch fire and disappear in the pre-dawn London skyline. Perowne grapples with post-Sept. 11 realities and a brush with violence that threatens his family and home.

Shalimar the Clown, by Salman Rushdie (Random House, $25.95). In a tale achingly wise to the political terrors of our time, Rushdie sketches out a powerful, if distant, relationship between a father and daughter, excavating the history that led to the father's murder.

Sky Bridge, by Laura Pritchett (Milkweed, $22). With an unerring ear for the undercurrents of small Western communities, Pritchett tells the tale of a young woman saddled with the care of her sister's baby and the characters in the town who coalesce to support her.

Swing, by Rupert Holmes (Random House, $24.95). Tony Award-winning playwright and composer Holmes offers a clever Bogart-and-Bacall-style film noir mystery, in which a saxophonist meets an attractive young woman who wants him to help her in arranging a piece for a swing band. The more he gets to know her, the more things aren't what they seem. Nostalgic writing at its best, the story comes with a clue-laden CD of original swing music composed by Holmes.

Tooth and Claw, by T.C. Boyle (Viking, $25.95). A collection of 14 previously published stories that show off Boyle's seemingly limitless gift for the outrageous, sometimes grotesque and incredible situation. Many are dazzling, some just quite good — but each is worth the time it takes to read it.

Truth and Consequences, by Alison Lurie (Viking, $24.95). Lurie details the ridiculous indulgences of academics in this brilliant romp through the infidelities of two couples on a college campus.

Vanishing Acts, by Jodi Picoult (Atria, $25). Delia Hopkins has it all — until she discovers that the man she knows as her father may have kidnapped her years ago. Told in alternating viewpoints, Picoult's story weaves details of Delia's childhood, her longtime friends and her father's ensuing arrest and trial with remarkable ease and unerring precision.

Widow of the South, by Robert Hicks (Warner Books, $24.95). A historical novel based on the emotionally wrenching life of Carrie McGavock, a Civil War-era woman who relocated 1,500 unclaimed bodies of Confederate soldiers to a private graveyard on her property and came to be known as the Widow of the South.

The Wild Girl: The Notebooks of Ned Giles, 1932, by Jim Fergus (Hyperion, $23.95). A vivid sketch of the early 20th century American West focusing on Ned Giles, a recently oprhaned Chicago teen who heads westward in search of adventure in the 1930s, eventually befriending a young Apache girl.

The Wonder Spot, by Melissa Bank (Viking, $24.95). In eight, short-storylike chapters, Bank chronicles the trials and tribulations of Sophie Applebaum from age 14 to her 40s, as she comes of age and struggles with career and dating questions. Sophie's wonderful deadpan humor helps the book surpass the fluffy drama associated with chick lit to become a mature, rich work.

Zorro, by Isabel Allende (HarperCollins, $25.95). Allende succeeds in making the Hollywood swashbuckler Zorro into her own character, weaving historical detail into her story with such enthusiasm, it will be difficult for another novelist to take up the cape, mask, and sword in her wake.

Best thriller

Selected by News thriller critic Peter Mergendahl

Involuntary Witness, by Gianfranco Carofiglio (Bitter Lemon Press, $13.95). This "gentle thriller" set in Italy doesn't have much violence in it, except perhaps of the sort we do to ourselves out of hubris and ego. Attorney Guido Guerrieri is depressed in midlife after a failed marriage, and it's zapping his energy and enthusiasm for his job — until he takes on the cause of Abdou Thiam, a Senegalese peddler working in Italy who has been charged with murdering a young boy he had befriended. This exceptional story explores how Guido manages to shake off his ennui and save both his and Abdou's lives. It's also about how our lives are changed in unnoticed increments. A love story, a condemnation of racism, a cold, hard look at the failures of justice systems, this is a story unlikely to resemble anything you have read.

Best mystery

Selected by News mystery critic Jane Dickinson

Field of Blood, by Denise Mina (Little, Brown, $24.95). One of the best young crime writers, Scotland's Mina tells with unflinching clarity of the murder of a small child by two older boys in 1981 and a young woman journalist torn by family loyalty, justice and ambition. Luminous writing and impeccable plotting bring these unforgettable characters to life.

Best unreal worlds

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

It's Superman! by Tom De Haven (Chronicle Books, $24.95). While I really loved Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, Graham Joyce's The Limits of Enchantment, and Jonathan Carroll's Glass Soup, the novel I enjoyed most this year was De Haven's amazing biography of the early years of the Man of Steel. From the beginning chapter, when young Clark's powers accidentally ruin his chances for a relationship with his high school sweetheart, to his early days on the Daily Planet, where Lois Lane adores his alter ego, but spurns him without his tights and cape, the book captures this iconic character in an amazingly original way. It's Superman! is funny, poignant and exciting, with a pace that never bogs down in 425 pages, not for a sentence.

Nonfiction

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

Adventure

Lost in the Amazon: The True Story of Five Men and their Desperate Battle for Survival, by Stephen Kirkpatrick, as told to Marlo Carter Kirkpatrick (W Publishing Group, $21.99). A wildlife photographer hoping to find rare pictures and earn a spot on the National Geographic staff, becomes lost with others in an expedition to uncharted parts of the Peruvian rain forest.

Biography

Beautiful Jim Key, by Mim Eichler Rivas (William Morrow, $15.95). The remarkable story of an ex-slave and his astonishing horse, an animal that became famous because of its ability to spell, add, subtract, tell time and other amazing feats.

The Bradbury Chronicles, by Sam Weller (William Morrow, $26.95). Several books have been written about science fiction guru Ray Bradbury, but this is the first complete volume authorized by the author. An intimate and thorough journey into a fascinating life.

Henry Adams and the Making of America, by Garry Wills (Houghton Mifflin, $30). In this serious, articulate and thoroughly researched volume, Wills contends that while Adams — great-grandson of John Adams and grandson of John Quincy Adams — is best-known for a book he wrote late in life, The Education of Henry Adams, his overlooked contributions to history have been more profound.

Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse, the Conquest of Colour, 1909-1954, by Hilary Spurling (Alfred A. Knopf, $40). The sensitive story of a creative man who was sometimes considered delusional and old-fashioned, and who often alienated those around him as he fought his insecurities. The book is the follow-up to Spurling's The Unknown Matisse, which covered the first half of the artist's life.

The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race, by Priscilla J. McMillan (Viking, $25.95). McMillan takes readers inside the technical and political aspects of the Atomic Age, detailing the slow undoing of the brilliant and charismatic leader of the Manhattan Project.

The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde, by Neil McKenna (Basic Books, $29.95). Achieving the rare distinction of making the familiar fresh, McKenna takes an unvarnished look at the life of the 19th-century poet and playwright whose bold sense of style and rapier wit rivaled his decadent lifestyle for notoriety.

Singing in a Strange Land: C.L. Franklin, The Black Church and the Transformation of America, by Nick Salvatore (Little, Brown, $27.95). Long before he became known as "Aretha Franklin's father," C.L. Franklin was a radio and recording star in his own right. Salvatore does an excellent job of portraying the gospel singer as a brilliant, but far from faultless man.

Business

Conspiracy of Fools, by Kurt Eichenwald (Broadway Books, $26). Eichenwald gives his material the drive of a good suspense novel as he sets out to tell us, in massive detail, how arrogance and the corruption of internal restraints at Enron combined to cause one of the largest corporate scandals in U.S. history.

Crime

The Lost Night: A Daughter's Search For the Truth of Her Father's Murder, by Rachel Howard (Dutton, $24.95). The absorbing story of Howard's emotional struggle to come to terms with her father's murder, which she witnessed when she was 10 years old, and her attempts to forge a fulfilling life in spite of it.

Mainliner Denver, by Andrew Field (Johnson Books, $17.50). In this story of the downing of a 1955 United Airlines Flight by a Denver man who stuffed 25 sticks of dynamite into his mother's luggage before she boarded the plane, the reader gains appreciation for Denver journalism of the era — and is effortlessly drawn back to a time when the crime seemed like the most unimaginable deed of the century.

The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece, by Edward Dolnick (HarperCollins, $25.95). The story of the theft of Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Scream, and the investigation by a Scotland Yard art detective to recover it.

Essays

Break, Blow, Burn, by Camille Paglia (Pantheon, $20). A '60s rebel, streetwise feminist and militant reformer of the academy offers a book of literary criticism, deconstructing 43 poems in the Western tradition. Paglia is interested in the naked power and majesty of words, and offers her observations in a voice that bursts with ingenuity.

Character Studies: Encounters With the Curiously Obsessed, by Mark Singer (Houghton Mifflin, $26). The staff writer for The New Yorker offers a series of often endearing portraits of colorful characters, including a former corporate executive turned over-achieving-mom, a lunch group of old Texans devoted to finding the missing skull of Pancho Villa and a fan club trying to keep the memory of cowboy actor Tom Mix alive.

This I Believe: An A to Z of a Life, by Carlos Fuentes (Random House, $26.95). Fuentes, a scholar, philosopher, diplomat and breathtaking lyricist, offers a collection of essays about his family, his influences and his revolutionary political beliefs.

The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family and Fate, by Marjorie Williams; edited by Timothy Noah (PublicAffairs, $26.95). A posthumous collection by a writer for the Washington Post, Vanity Fair and Slate Magazine. Williams, who died this year at age 47, muses on family and fate and offers provocative political profiles, including an insightful analysis of the relationship between Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

History

American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman — and the Shoot-out That Stopped It, by Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge, Jr. (Simon & Schuster, $26). In this story about an attempt on President Truman's life, novelist Hunter and journalist Bainbridge mix meticulous research with the qualities Hunter applies to his fiction (Dirty White Boys, Hot Springs) to create history that reads like a top-notch thriller.

Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell (Simon & Schuster, $21). Vowell highlights the bizarre, ironic, ridiculous and just plain weird aspects of presidential assassinations as she travels to shrines and museums around the country. This self-confessed "morbid lookey loo" is as illuminating as it is entertaining.

Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood, by Donald Bogle (One World/Ballantine, $26.95). An insightful, behind-the-scenes tour of the struggles and social lives of black actors and actresses who lived large while walking the racial lines drawn by the movie industry.

February House, by Sherill Tippins (Houghton Mifflin, $24). Tippins re-creates the ferment of creativity that inhabited a three-story brownstone in Brooklyn between 1940-41. At one point or another during that time, the home housed poet W.H. Auden, composer Benjamin Britten, painter Salvador Dali, writers Carson McCullers, and Richard Wright — and even stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.

Marriage: A History, by Stephanie Coontz (Viking, $25.95). This enlightening and highly detailed book bursts with surprising facts about marriage throughout history.

Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima, by Stephen Walker (HarperCollins, $26.95). Walker covers the three weeks between the testing of the atomic bomb and its use on Hiroshima, telling riveting parallel stories from the view of both the bombers and the bombed.

Spy Handler: The True Story of the Man Who Recruited Robert Hanssen & Aldrich Ames, by Victor Cherkashin with Gregory Feifer (Basic Books, $26). This jaw-dropping memoir of a former KGB agent reads like some grand, global game has now ended, and all the participants have gathered for a postmortem to tell each other how well they played it. Cherkashin notes that while the KGB's budget was little more than one-fourth the CIA budget, "the two agencies went head to head — and the KGB did a better job."

13 Seconds, by Philip Caputo (Chamberlain Bros., $19.95). An efficient, thorough accounting of the shootings at Kent State, in which four student Vietnam War protesters (and bystanders) were killed and nine wounded by Ohio National Guard troops.

Iraq/9-11

Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco, by David Phillips (Westview, $25). A fascinating insider account of the missteps the Bush administration made in planning to win the peace in Iraq, by a contracted senior analyst with the U.S. State Department.

One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer, by Nathaniel Fick (Houghton Mifflin, $25). A Dartmouth graduate- turned-Marine details his experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, writing of the horrors of war and the honor and professionalism of today's military.

Perfect Soldiers: The Hijackers — Who They were, Why They Did It, by Terry McDermott (HarperCollins, $25.95). McDermott, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, traveled to more than 20 countries to research this portrait of men who, for the most part, lived unexceptional lives until their extreme beliefs led them astray.

Memoir

The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family, by Dan Savage (Viking, $24.95). Syndicated sex-advice columnist Savage poses the question: "How can two gay guys be in favor of legal, same-sex marriage and huge fans of the traditional family without wanting to marry?" in this humorous account of his struggle to decide whether he and his partner of 10 years should marry.

Early Bird: A Memoir, by Rodney Rothman (Simon & Schuster, $23). At age 25, a former head writer for Late Night With David Letterman moves to a Boca Raton, Fla., retirement community, chronicling his neighbors' bingo games, exclusive canasta clubs and poolside cliques — to hilarious and insightful effect.

Elaine's Circle: A Teacher, A Student, A Classroom and One Unforgettable Year, by Bob Katz (Marlowe and Co., $14.95). This satisfying book tells what happens when a student in Elaine Moore's fourth-grade class is diagnosed with a brain tumor and his fellow students rally to support him.

Epileptic, by David B. (Pantheon, $25). David B. uses the graphic-novel format to explore his older brother's crippling epilepsy and its effect on his family. With drawings that convey his story in a visceral way, this astonishing book never sugarcoats the horror of the tragedy.

Guinness Book of Me, by Steven Church (Simon & Schuster, $22). Fascinated with the Guinness Book of World Records, which the author discovered at a grammar school book fair, Church's memoir alternates between the monumental moments of his own life and his musings on Guinness record holders. The result is an intimate story without the smarm that often goes with such prose.

Teacher Man, by Frank McCourt (Scribner, $26). In free-flowing prose, McCourt tells the story of his 30 years teaching English in New York City public high schools. Through wonderfully rendered dialogue and accurate dialect, he dissects the decidedly unglamorous life of the public school teacher.

The Tender Bar, by J.R. Moehringer (Hyperion, $23.95). Funny, frank, sad and bursting with life, this memoir tells the Denver author's story of growing up poor and fatherless in Manhasset, N. Y., where he finds substitute father figures in the eccentric characters who populate the bar where his uncle works.

The Tricky Part, by Martin Moran (Beacon Press, $23.95). A follow-up to the Denver author's Obie-winning one-man show of the same name, this book gives a fuller, richer account of his sexual relationship at age 12 with a camp counselor and his struggle to transcend the abuse.

The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion (Alfred A. Knopf, $23.95). Didion offers an exquisite meditation on grief, following the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and the grave illness of her only child, daughter Quintana Roo Dunne Michael.

Nature

The Grizzly Maze: Timothy Treadwell's Fatal Obsession With Alaskan Bears, by Nick Jans (Dutton, $24.95). In this wildly interesting account, Jans sifts through the self-made myth of Timothy Treadwell, a man who spent 13 summers in Alaska's bear habitat, until 2003, when he and a companion were attacked and eaten by a grizzly.

Religion

I Told the Mountain to Move, by Patricia Raybon (Tyndale House, $19.99). Stuck in a listless marriage, with one daughter struggling as a single mother and another leaving Christianity to embrace Islam, Colorado author Raybon discovers that prayer is an art, not a skill. Her book, filled with raw honesty, serves as a powerful argument for the healing nature of prayer.

Plan B: Further Thoughts On Faith, by Anne Lamott (Riverhead, $24.95). A drolly honest collection of essays about Lamott's day-to-day challenges and how faith brings her through them, from raising a teenage son, to handling the death of the family dog, to learning to be kind to "the aunties," her names for "the jiggly areas of my legs and butt that show when I put on a swimsuit."

Science

Descartes' Secret Notebook: A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe, by Amir D. Aczel (Broadway Books, $24.95). In this entertaining, intellectual adventure, Aczel reveals the contents of Descarte's long-lost private notebook and its implications for the history of mathematics, while spinning the story of Descartes' swashbuckling life.

The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, by David Plotz (Random House, $24.95). In what could easily have been a first-rate science fiction novel, Plotz reveals what happened after a wealthy investor, hoping to manufacture an intellectually superior breed of humans, invited Nobel Prize winners to donate sperm to his own private sperm bank.

The Republican War on Science, by Chris Mooney (Basic Books, $24.95). A former editor with The American Prospect who specializes in the relation of science and politics argues that the Bush administration ignores, subverts and misrepresents science to conform to its political goals.

Social issues

The Death of Innocents, by Sister Helen Prejean (Random House, $25.95). The author of Dead Man Walking explores the issue of executions, recounting the stories of two men she believes were wrongly put to death and probing other cases to show how racism plays a role in the administration of the death penalty.

Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, by Elizabeth Royte (Little, Brown, $24.95). Royte follows what happens to her trash after it's thrown away, using the journey to question what we can learn about ourselves by studying what we discard.

Major Conflict: One Gay Man's Life in the Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell Military, by Jeffrey McGowan (Broadway Books, $24.95). The story of the devastating impact President Clinton's military regulation had on one young soldier coming to terms with his sexual orientation in the wake of the rule. Written with considerable humor and charm.

Without a Net: Middle Class and Homeless (With Kids) in America: My Story, by Michelle Kennedy (Viking, $23.95). With riveting detail, a housewife with three young children recounts her summer spent homeless.

Sports

Juicing the Game, by Howard Bryant (Viking, $24.95). Through a series of columns punctuated with anecdotes and interviews with journalists, baseball players and league officials, a Boston Herald columnist explains how baseball officials from 1994 to 2004 turned a blind eye to the obvious use of steroids among ballplayers.

Lance Armstrong's War, by Daniel Coyle (HarperCollins, $24.95). Coyle spent 15 months shadowing Armstrong's training sessions and back-road rides, seeing the bicyclist through the eyes of his most trusted inner circle. The result is a study in his unmatched toughness that also reveals the athlete's soft side.

Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, by Jonathan Eig (Simon & Schuster, $26). In this compelling narrative, Eig offers interviews with old-time players and excerpts from letters Gehrig wrote to his doctors and wife while he was away for treatment of his fatal disease. The story brings to life major-league baseball of the '20s and '30s, when athletes drank, gambled, wenched — and played great baseball.

Next Man Up: A Year Behind the Lines in Today's NFL, by John Feinstein (Little, Brown, $25.95). Feinstein's account of the season he spent with the Baltimore Ravens, from the draft day war room to the final huddle, offering a story that captures the ups and downs of a season, while pulling back the curtain on the game's inner workings.

3 Nights in August, by Buzz Bissinger (Houghton Mifflin, $25). Bissinger writes about a pivotal three-game, late-summer series in August 2003 between rivals the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs. With unprecedented access to St. Louis manager Tony LaRussa, he offers insights to the sport, delivering what our critic called "the best baseball book I've read in a decade."

Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era, by Gary Pomerantz (Crown, $24.95). Pomerantz uses the 1962 game in which Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points to encompass a man and a sport, merging basketball, biography and history to capture a tipping point in the National Basketball Association's evolution.

Travel

The City of Falling Angels, by John Berendt (Penguin, $25.95). Just when it seemed Berendt might turn out to be another Harper Lee — bringing us one critically acclaimed best-seller (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) and nothing more — he returns to form with a beguiling tale of modern Venice. Berendt details the city's history and eccentric characters.

Wrong About Japan: A Father's Journey With His Son, by Peter Carey (Alfred A. Knopf, $17.95). When Carey is introduced to the world of Japanese comics, courtesy of his 12-year-old son, he decides a father-son outing is in order. The two travel to Japan, exploring Japanese culture through the "garish back door" of animé and manga, resulting in an exotic armchair trip.

World events

Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground, by Robert D. Kaplan (Random House, $27.95). Kaplan offers a fascinating, fly-on-the-wall tour of America's military jurisdictions around the globe as he embeds himself in Special Operations Forces stationed in Mongolia, the Balkans and elsewhere.

Justice on the Grass: Three Rwandan Journalists, Their Trial for War Crimes and a Nation's Quest for Redemption, by Dina Temple-Raston (Free Press, $25). Temple-Raston details the history that led up to the mass killings in Rwanda in 1994, focusing on three men who came to be known as the "Media Trio" and who were eventually convicted of masterminding the genocide.

They Poured On Us From the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys From Sudan, by Benson Deng, Alephonion Deng and Benjamin Ajak (Public Affairs, $25). The authors, now young men living in San Diego, give an amazing account of what it was like to be among the Lost Boys of Sudan, those who escaped the carnage wrought by a fundamentalist jihad that gripped southern Sudan in the late 1980s.

10 great children's books

Selected by News children's critic Natalie Soto

Elephants Can Paint Too! by Katya Arnold (An Anne Schwartz Book, $16.95, ages 3-7).In this amazing, true-life story, Arnold explores what she has learned teaching painting to New York City schoolchildren — and to Asian elephants in Thailand. With the help of photos, Arnold compares her students: the way they hold the brushes, their artistic styles and so on. Sidebars offer interesting information about elephants — and for added incentive, a portion of the profits go to protect the world's diminishing elephant population.

Emma Kate, by Patricia Polacco (Philomel Books, $16.99, ages 3-8). Emma Kate and her best friend, an elephant, do everything together. In Polacco's trademark pencil-and-watercolor style, readers see the two friends as they sit together for lunch, ride bikes, go to soccer practice, and even get their tonsils out at the same time. Readers will delight in the endearing, surprise twist at the end.

Leonardo, The Terrible Monster, by Mo Willems (Hyperion Books for Children, $15.99, ages 3-6). Leonardo desparately wants to scare the "tuna salad" out of someone, but he isn't much of a monster. Without 1,642 teeth, like Tony has, or a big size, like Eleanor, his safest target is Sam, the "most scaredy-cat kid in the whole world." Unfortunately, Sam turns out to have bigger problems than being scared , and Leonardo captures Sam's heart — and the readers' — when he decides to turn his efforts toward being a wonderful friend, instead of a monster.

One Red Dot, by David A. Carter (Little Simon, $19.95, all ages). Created by the man behind the Bugs in a Box books, this title offers 10 amazing pop-up sculptures — everything from one "perplexing puzzle box" to four "flip-flop flaps" — that challenge readers to find the one red dot in each.

Seen Art? by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith (Viking Children's Books, $16.99, all ages). A witty, playful introduction to the Museum of Modern Art, the story begins with the narrator planning to meet his friend Art at the corner of Fifth and 53rd in New York. "I didn't see him. So I asked a lady walking up the avenue, 'Have you seen Art?'" The woman directs him to the nearby, recently renovated MoMA. The narrator continues to search for his friend and suffer the same confusion, as readers are treated to the works of Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Claude Monet and others, in this amazing treat.

10 Little Rubber Ducks, by Eric Carle (HarperCollins, $19.99, ages 2-6). The legendary creator of more than 70 children's books used a newspaper report of a 1992 shipment of 29,000 bath toys that fell from a cargo ship to shape this delightful story. In his version, ducks come out of a machine, get painted, packed 10 to a box and loaded onto a ship. Stormy weather causes one box to spill out 10 ducks that begin to drift apart on the wide sea. Each encounters a different creature along its journey — until the final page when readers are encouraged to press a duck and hear its squeaky good night.

Tickle the Duck!, by Ethan Long (Little, Brown and Company, $10.99, all ages). A bossy duck booms from his speech bubble "WHATEVER YOU DO . . . DON'T YOU DARE TICKLE ME HERE!" as he points to a cutout on his tummy. When readers turn the page, they are greeted with a lot of hees, ha has, quacks. The fun continues as the duck orders no tickling while pointing to other vulnerable spots in this silly book that will make you snicker.

Wait! I Want To Tell You A Story, by Tom Willans (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, $15.95, ages 3-7). In this delightful look at a clever muskrat who has mastered the art of stalling, a tiger approaches the muskrat and announces its plans to eat the creature. "WAIT!" says the muskrat. "I want to tell you a story." The muskrat proceeds to tell the tiger about several other animals about to be devoured by larger ones, eventually adding the tiger into the story — and one very hungry crocodile.

Young adult

The Cloud Chamber, by Joyce Maynard (An Anne Schwartz Book, $16.95, ages 11 — 14). Maynard's first book for young adults tells the heartbreaking story of a family struggling with the father's attempted suicide. The novel follows 14-year-old Nate as he witnesses his father being escorted to an ambulance and out of their lives to several months later, when Nate finally gets some sense of closure. Nate and his sister Junie are likable characters full of hope and spirit, and readers will appreciate the message of the importance of honest, open communication in this compelling story.

The Fashion Disaster That Changed My Life, by Lauren Myracle (Dutton Children's Books, $15.99, ages 8 — 12). Colorado author Myracle offers the story of a seventh grader struggling to make sense of her friendships. When Alli is ridiculed by the class cut-up, the most popular girl in class comes to her rescue — putting Alli's old friendships in jeopardy. Through her journal, instant messages and phone conversations, Alli discourses on everything from belly piercings to one friend's mean-spirited teasing — all while learning who her true friend is in the end.

10 stellar coffee-table / gift books

Selected by News staffers

Best pick for music lovers

The Beatles: 365 Days, by Simon Wells (Harry N. Abrams Inc., $29.95). You've got the Beatles Anthology and everything else — can there possibly be another must-have Beatles book out there? Yep. The Beatles: 365 Days is a big brick of a book that spotlights 365 moments in the band's career, from the obvious (Ed Sullivan) to the obscure (Paul McCartney outside his house the night before his marriage to Linda Eastman), devoting two pages to each day. The payoff here is that author Wells accessed the Hulton-Getty photo archive in London, pulling out never-before-seen photos culled from the unprecedented international coverage given the band's every move, including comings and goings from Abbey Road studios. The sheer number of photos of the members in everyday life with wives and kids (as opposed to the press conference/onstage photos we've seen a million times) give another look at the people behind the phenomenon.

Mark Brown

Best pick for American history buffs

Dear Mr. President: Letters to the Oval Office From the Files of the National Archives, by Dwight Young, with an introduction by Brian Williams (National Geographic, $20). This collection of letters to the White House isn't a big, glossy, back-breaker of a book, but you'll be hard-pressed to resist a volume that juxtaposes a letter from three girls begging President Eisenhower not to allow the Army to cut Elvis Presley's sideburns ("oh please, please don't! If you do we will just about die!") with a terse note to Andrew Johnson from Abraham Lincoln's cabinet, informing him that the president had been shot. The senders' handwriting (the elegant, artful penmanship of the King of Siam in a letter to Lincoln; the misspellings and uneven handwriting of Presley in a letter to Nixon) offer personality clues straight text could never reveal. In all, it makes one wonder: Could a book of today's e-mail correspondence be nearly as riveting? :)

Patti Thorn

Best pick for science fans

A Short History of Nearly Everything: Illustrated Edition, by Bill Bryson (Broadway Books, $35). "Protons are so small that a little dib of ink like the dot of this 'i' can hold something in the region of 500,000,000,000 of them." You find this amazing fact in the first chapter of Bryson's history of the universe and life on Earth — and plenty more. First published to critical acclaim in 2004, Short History is now available in an illustrated version, which means lots of artist conceptions of things like planetary landscapes, and even more pictures of fossils and the people who discovered them. Bryson writes brightly and concisely at the level of a high school textbook, though his prose is considerably more engaging. The pictures are especially adept at illustrating the debate over human evolution, specifically how scientists bickered over who had discovered the oldest bones and which ones denoted a break in the evolutionary chain. From quarks to quantum theory, Darwin to the extinction of the dodo, Bryson makes lofty subjects surprisingly accessible. This new edition will be a welcome gift for anyone who is curious about the world around them.

Mike Pearson

Best pick for sports fans

Smithsonian Baseball: Inside the World's Finest Private Collections, by Stephen Wong (Collins/Smithsonian Books, $29.95). All of America's baseball heritage doesn't live in Cooperstown. Wong, an investment banker in Hong Kong who was raised in San Francisco and is himself an avid collector, examines the treasures of the national pastime held in private collections. The book is packed with rare photographs and baseball lore woven into richly detailed stories of how the collections were assembled. One long chapter is devoted to Denver lawyer/collector Marshall Fogel, whose trove includes an intact ticket from the 1919 "Black Sox" World Series, Mickey Mantle memorabilia and vintage original photography from the early 20th century and the Negro Leagues. For even casual fans, every page is an extra-base hit.

Mark Wolf

Best pick for armchair adventurers

Explorers: The Most Exciting Voyages of Discovery, From the African Expeditions to the Lunar Landing, by Andrea De Porti (Firefly, $49.95).Want to explore the world without ever leaving your couch or turning on a TV? This remarkable book allows you to do just that, surveying 150 years of exploration by men and women who boldly went where few had gone before. More accurately, where few Europeans had gone, since indigenous peoples in Africa, Asia and the Arctic already were there. Some of the names here are familiar: Charles Lindbergh, Stanley Livingston and Edmund Hillary, among them. But just as many are not: Ernest Doudart de Lagree, who first explored the ruins at Angkor; Teobert Maler, who discovered scores of Mayan ruins; Alexandra David-Neel, the first western woman to penetrate the Tibetan capital of Lhasa. Explorers consists of 55 thick, quarter-fold pages chock-full of vintage photos and maps. This is not a book easily read in your lap, however, because most of the two-page spreads open vertically and horizontally. Today, we need only hop a plane to get from Point A to Point B. The intrepid souls showcased here did it the hard way: Inch by inch.

Mike Pearson

Best pick for comics lovers

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson (Lionheart Books, Ltd., $150). "When Calvin and Hobbes launched," Watterson writes in the introduction to this deluxe collection of his strips, "Lee Salem, my editor at Universal Press Syndicate, advised me not to quit my day job anytime soon." Good advice, he says, given the number of strips that fail. But Watterson promptly ignored the warning and focused on making his strip the best it could be. The result: The mischievous Calvin and his stuffed tiger pal Hobbes endured for 10 years, right up until the day Watterson decided to call it quits. In this retrospective, Watterson tells of the strip's evolution, while the cartoons — fueled by Calvin's rocket-powered imagination — speak for themselves, each gloriously reproduced in this expensive, expansive, three-volume, 1,440-page, treasure-filled collection.

Patti Thorn

Best pick for baby boomers

Timeless Toys: Classic Toys and the Playmakers Who Created Them, by Tim Walsh (Andrew McMeel, $29.95). Weird how a picture of a lame potato with plastic eyes, nose and pipe can bring back your childhood more vividly than the old family film projector. One look at Mr. Potato Head and we were reeling in the years. Remember Hands Down? Lite-Brite? Mystery Date? Remember Slip 'N Slide, Ant Farm, Trolls? They're all here, photographed with their original packaging and text that tells you how they came to be. While the book probably is best suited to baby boomers, who will recognize most of the toys here, the items span the ages, from the Radio Flyer red wagon, which debuted in 1933, to Beanie Babies (1993). In all, it's an offering perfect for anyone who fondly remembers paneled dens, polyester shirts and the cryptic wisdom of the Magic 8 Ball.

Patti Thorn

Best pick for mystery lovers

The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Vol. III, edited with notes by Leslie S. Klinger (Norton, $49.95). If you missed volumes one and two of this series, it's elementary, my dear Watson: You won't want to miss miss volume three. While the first two books offered Arthur Conan Doyle's oeuvre of 56 short stories, this lavish new edition, more than 800 pages, features the mystery master's four novels: A Study in Scholar; The Sign of Fear; The Hound of Baskervilles and The Valley of Fear. With a smart-looking slip-cover, nearly 400 illustrations and period photographs, as well as hundreds of annotations by its Edgar-winning author, a respected Holmes scholar, the book is as gorgeous as it is gratifying. And it all wraps up with a chronological table of important dates and events in the lives of Holmes, Watson and Conan Doyle.

Patti Thorn

Best pick for contemporary art lovers

Lucian Freud: 1996-2005, introduction by Sebastian Smee (Alfred A. Knopf, $75). The human body is the first place artists turn to when looking for a subject, and why not, since we all own one and they are just so infinitely varied. Figurative painting in the late 20th century owes a great debt to many artists, but for his unsparing eye and masterful brushwork, Lucian Freud has earned a reputation as someone who gets beneath the skin — literally — in terms of his ability to capture the blue of veins and the plane of bones. (How apt for the grandson of Sigmund Freud to look below the surface.) That's the heart of this volume, which isn't really a big, splashy book, but is all about the art. A brief introduction by British art writer Smee sets the stage for myriad color plates — faces, sprawling bodies (many of them so humanly corpulent), horses and dogs — that come alive through the artist's meticulous coloration and lavish textures.

Mary Voelz Chandler

Best pick for pop culture fans

The Playboy Book: 50 Years, by Hugh M. Hefner and Gretchen Edgren (Taschen, $39.99). With its trademark black cover, adorned with the trademark rabbit ears, you would expect to find pages and pages of the seductive nudes the magazine is known for. And, yes, there's plenty of that here. But there's also so much more: cartoons; interview snippets from a melange of subjects (including Princess Grace, Raquel Welch, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Fidel Castro); amazing layouts that accompanied fiction by the likes of Joyce Carol Oates, Scott Turow and other literary lights; wonderfully detailed caricatures; provocative art illustrating articles on the Vietnam War, AIDS, the O.J. trial, and other issues of the day. It's a fevered, frenetic offering — and an intriguing way to track the cultural tides of the past 50 years. For Playboy die-hards, there's a foldout at the end featuring stamp-sized photos of every Playmate from 1953 (Marilyn Monroe) to 2004 (Colleen Shannon) — but that's just the icing on this visual, pop culture treat.

Patti Thorn

Of local interest

• Colorado Less Traveled: Journeys Off the Beaten Path, photographs by Jim Steinberg; text by Susan J. Tweit (Portfolio Publications, $44.95). Colorado nature photography.

• Colorado: Wild and Beautiful, by Glenn Randall (FarCountry Press, $29.95): Nature photos taken throughout the state.

• Riding High: Colorado Ranchers & 100 Years of the National Western Stock Show, by Tom Noel (Fulcrum, $50 hardback, $32 paperback). Expansive history of the National Western, in text and photos.

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