Here are my top 7 books of 2005, if anyone cares, in order. Why 7? I couldn’t not include any of these in my top 5, and I didn’t want to include two more just to make 10.

1. The Tender Bar
2. Kafka on the Shore
3. This Thing of Darkness
4. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
5. Home Land
6. On Beauty
7. History of Love

I’d be interested in reading the lists of the rest of the BGB crew, so get ‘em on up here.

I left Saturday by Ian McEwen off the list due to my own written record on the book. My original post was essentially “meh”. After reading an article where McEwan talked about the book with Zadie Smith and reflecting on the book some more, I came to realize that it is actually an incredible book. One day I will print a retraction post. If I were to put it on the list above, it would fall somewhere between 2 and 4. But who to bump? So really, its a top 8 list. I’m just ridiculous.