BOOKS - "Our Reviewers Pick Their Favorites for '05"

The Providence Journal

January 1, 2006

Marie Lee (Reviewer)

1. SATURDAY, by Ian McEwen. (Doubleday. 298 pages. $26.) McEwen is excruciatingly precise in his cataloging of all the small moments that make up a day in the life of a middle-aged neurosurgeon, in which nothing and everything happens.

2. A WILD RIDE UP THE CUPBOARDS, by Ann Bauer. (Scribner. 279 pages. $24.) A startling story of a family pushed off the "normal" track and the ways its members struggle to get back.

3. THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, by Joan Didion. (Knopf. 219 pages. $23.95.) Even those unfamiliar with Didion's earlier work will likely find this slim volume revelatory and moving.

4. REAL KARAOKE PEOPLE, by Ed Bok Lee. (New Rivers Press. 96 pages. $13.95 paperback.) Prose and poems of our global and transitory America. Unnerving -- in a good way. Winner of the Many Voices Prize.

5. INCIDENTAL FINDINGS: Lessons from My Patients in the Art of Medicine, by Danielle Ofri. (Beacon Press. 224 pages. $23.95.) An honest and unswerving look at the world of medicine through the eyes of an insightful doctor.
Tony Lewis