December 16, 2005
BEST BOOKS OF 2005:
These weren't necessarily published this year, but I finally got to them this year. [Included are links to our reviews and to purchase the books at Amazon.] Please feel free to add your own.
Victory in Tripoli : How America's War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation (2005) - Joshua E. London
Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem--and What We Should Do About It (2005) - Noah Feldman
Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses,/a> (2005) - Theodore Dalrymple
Living It Up At National Review: A Memoir (2005) - Priscilla L. Buckley
Treehouse Chronicles: One Man's Dream of Life Aloft (2005) - S. Peter Lewis
Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong (1988) - Gary Giddins
Notes from Underground (1864) - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag (2000) - Kang Chol-Hwan
Loving Soren (2005) - Caroline Coleman O'Neill
Dissolution (2004) - C. J. Sansom
Dr. Sam Johnson: Detector (1946) - Lillian de la Torre
Boswell's Presumptous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson (2001) - Adam Sisman
No god but God : The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (2005) - Reza Aslan
The Battle of Salamis : The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece -- and Western Civilization (2004) - Barry Strauss
South Park Conservatives : The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias (2005) - Brian C. Anderson
The Children of Men (1992) - P.D. James
River Season (There's a River Down in Texas) (2003) - Jim Black
Of Moths and Men: An Evolutionary Tale: The Untold Story of Science and the Peppered Moth (2002) - Judith Hooper
I read the Reza Aslan book which I won here (thanks again), but was not impressed. It seemed like a decent overview at first, but eventually I realized that he never seemed to say anything critical of Mohammed or Islam. E.g., Islam is good for women because women had it much worse in the Middle East before Islam. Yeah, well, but how about today? Nothing on Mohammed's time as an armed robber. I was hoping for an even-handed examination, and got an apologia. So I'm at a loss to understand why you'd think it was such a fine book.
Posted by: PapayaSF at December 4, 2005 3:35 PMwomen have it worse in the West today than under Mohammed.
Posted by: oj at December 4, 2005 4:10 PMNine year old girls have it worse in the West today than under Muhammed.
Posted by: Carter at December 4, 2005 4:29 PMOJ, I'd like to see you convince your wife of that, especially the parts about total submission to the husband, multiple wives, and such....
Posted by: PapayaSF at December 5, 2005 1:27 AMWhich wife?
Posted by: oj at December 5, 2005 7:50 AMDear Orin,
Thanks so much for including River Season in your Best Books of 2005.
Viking/Penguin has not done much in the way of marketing the book, but it continues to receive teriffic reviews and make its way into library reading groups everywhere. You've been a big help.
Sincerely,
Jim Black