The best and worst of 2005: Books

This has been a stellar year for both fiction and non-fiction, with a number of popular authors surfacing with excellent work, including E.L. Doctorow, David McCullough, Joan Didion and Elmore Leonard.

FICTION

"Saturday" (by Ian McEwan, Nan Talese, 289 pages, $26). Perhaps the best novel to appear with 9/11 as its theme, this gripping work follows a single day in the life of neurosurgeon Henry Perowne, who lives in London. While a surgeon is expected to act well under pressure, the reader also sees the way his medical mind works in reaction to other surprising challenges.

"The March" (by E.L. Doctorow, Random House, 363 pages, $25.95). Doctorow succeeds as perhaps no other writer has in creating a compelling and believable work of historical fiction as he follows the infamous march of Union General William T. Sherman through Georgia during the Civil War.

"Grace" (by Linn Ullmann, Knopf, 130 pages, $20). A Norwegian novelist writes with unique finesse about an ordinary husband and wife, and their estranged son, struggling with relationships and the potential of a lethal injection to relieve the husband of his suffering from cancer.

"The Closed Circle" (by Jonathan Coe, Knopf, 367 pages, $25). This book is a sequel to "The Rotters' Club," an earlier novel about a group of school friends in the 1970s. In a masterful development of character, Coe examines the same group of friends 20 years later as they reconnect in fascinating ways.

"The Hot Kid" (by Elmore Leonard, William Morrow, 312 pages, $25.95). At the age of 80, Leonard has written his 40th crime novel — and he just keeps getting better. There is a good vs. evil allegory running through this one as the offbeat characters collide, Carl (the law) and Jack (the underworld). The dialogue is realistic, salty and fast-paced.

"The Franklin Affair" (by Jim Lehrer, Random House, 210 pages, $23.95). Prominent television journalist Lehrer is also an excellent novelist, who focuses on possibly the greatest founding father — Benjamin Franklin — to build his story. It is really about R Taylor, a Franklin scholar, who is morally tested when he discovers adverse information about the subject of his studies.