wbur.org
support wbur today!
Listen to this show
Best Reads of 2005
photo

by Tom Ashbrook

Crack a book, and the life you save may be your own. When the world is wild and seems a shade too dark, a book may tell you why or might just light the world a different way.

2005 has now delivered its gift of books. This hour, we open these presents again and see who likes which best and why. We hear from editors, book sellers, and you on Murakami’s “Kafka on the Shore,” Herman Melville brought to life again, Joan Didion’s transcendent woe and Geraldine Brooks’ great “March.”

And we hear again from authors who have talked this year with us: from Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie and more.

Carol Horne selects:
“The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Dideon
“Saturday” by Ian McEwan
“The Lost Painting” by Jonathan Harr
“Rereadings” edited by Ann Fadiman
“A Little History of the World” by E.H. Gombrich
“The Complete New Yorker”
“The Planets” by Dava Sobel
“The Encyclopedia of New England” edited by Burt Finetuch and David Waters

Guests:

Charlotte Abbott, Senior Editor at Publisher’s Weekly

Marie Arana, Editor of The Washington Post’s Book World

Carol Horne, Senior Buyer at the Harvard Bookstore, an independent bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Jack Beatty, On Point News Analyst, senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly

 
 

Comments are closed.

Recent Shows
The Future of Aging
Thursday, November 5, 2009 image

A surge of new strategies to “manage” aging — from diets to testosterone. We’ll get the story.

Comments [31]
 
Climate, Congress & Copenhagen
Thursday, November 5, 2009 image

The Copenhagen climate conference is one month away. US climate action is going nowhere in Congress. We’ll look at the global implications of America’s domestic climate politics.

Comments [73]
On Point Blog
California, here we come! And we need your questions!

On Point is headed west!
No, no. Not for good. Only for one show. But it’s a very special show!  The NPR station in Thousand Oaks, California – KCLU – is celebrating their 15th anniversary. We’re lucky to have been on their airwaves for nearly seven years, and they invited us out west to host a live [...]

More » | Comments [7]
 
For Love of Science – or Money?

A new study supports the idea that U.S. dominance in engineering and science is threatened — but not for lack of training and education. It has more to do with a lack of social and economic incentives.

More » | Comments [5]
 
Matthew Hoh’s Resignation Letter

Matthew Hoh, a former Marine captain, became the first foreign service official to publicly resign in protest over the war in Afghanistan. The move has generated a lot of reaction. You can read Hoh’s resignation letter, posted by The Washington Post, which reported on it here.
It’s a topic for our news roundtable today. What [...]

More » | Comments [4]