The Best Books of 2005 from Metacritic.com

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Metacritic's complete Best of 2005 coverage: High Scores | Awards | Critic Top Ten Lists

2005's Best Reviewed Books

The following table lists the highest-scoring books in our database for 2005. The higher a Metascore for a book (on a 0-100 scale), the better the overall reviews for that book were. Note that a book must have a minimum of seven reviews to qualify for this list.

You may also view all-time high scores | view 2004 high scores

Fiction

1	Beasts Of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala	2005	89
2	Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes	2005	88
3	The March by E.L. Doctorow	2005	87
4	Europe Central by William T. Vollmann	2005	87
5	The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly	2005	86
6	The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich	2005	85
7	Veronica by Mary Gaitskill	2005	85
8	The Hot Kid by Elmore Leonard	2005	82
9	The Closers by Michael Connelly	2005	81
10	Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman	2005	80
11	The Testing Of Luther Albright by MacKenzie Bezos	2005	80
12	Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami	2005	79
13	Drama City by George Pelecanos	2005	79
14	On Beauty by Zadie Smith	2005	79
15	Saturday by Ian McEwan	2005	78
16	Ordinary Heroes by Scott Turow	2005	78
17	Cinnamon Kiss by Walter Mosley	2005	78
18	Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro	2005	78
19	Nice Big American Baby by Judy Budnitz	2005	78
20	Paradise by A. L. Kennedy	2005	77
21	Dancing In The Dark by Caryl Phillips	2005	77
22	Collected Stories by Carol Shields	2005	77
23	Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince [Book 6] by J.K. Rowling	2005	77
24	Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap	2005	77
25	Zorro by Isabel Allende	2005	76
26	March by Geraldine Brooks	2005	75
27	The Manhattan Beach Project by Peter Lefcourt	2005	75
28	Maps For Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam	2005	75
29	Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel	2005	75
30	Envy by Kathryn Harrison	2005	75
31	Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham	2005	74
32	The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood	2005	74
33	The Ha-Ha by Dave King	2005	73
34	The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh	2005	73
35	Acts Of Faith by Philip Caputo	2005	73
36	Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender	2005	73
37	A Changed Man by Francine Prose	2005	73
38	The Sea by John Banville	2005	73
39	Bangkok Tattoo by John Burdett	2005	73
40	American Purgatorio by John Haskell	2005	72
41	Snobs by Julian Fellowes	2005	72
42	The Geographer's Library by Jon Fasman	2005	71
43	A Slight Trick Of The Mind by Mitch Cullin	2005	71
44	The History Of Love by Nicole Krauss	2005	70
45	The Closed Circle by Jonathan Coe	2005	70
46	Weight by Jeanette Winterson	2005	70
47	Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland	2005	69
48	Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel	2005	69
49	Pearl by Mary Gordon	2005	69
50	The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks	2005	69

Nonfiction

1	Epileptic by David B.	2005	92
2	A Woman In Berlin by Anonymous	2005	89
3	Matisse The Master by Hilary Spurling	2005	89
4	Quicksands by Sybille Bedford	2005	88
5	American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin	2005	87
6	The Lady And The Panda by Vicki Constantine Croke	2005	86
7	Courtroom 302 by Steve Bogira	2005	85
8	The Year Of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion	2005	84
9	The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer	2005	83
10	Bury The Chains by Adam Hochschild	2005	82
11	Postwar by Tony Judt	2005	82
12	Team Of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin	2005	81
13	Can't Stop Won't Stop by Jeff Chang	2005	81
14	Melville by Andrew Delbanco	2005	81
15	Every Man A Speculator by Steve Fraser	2005	80
16	1776 by David McCullough	2005	80
17	The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr	2005	79
18	Ghosting by Jennie Erdal	2005	79
19	Pol Pot by Philip Short	2005	78
20	Edmund Wilson by Lewis M. Dabney	2005	78
21	A Great Improvisation by Stacy Schiff	2005	78
22	Perfect Soldiers by Terry McDermott	2005	78
23	The Assassins' Gate by George Packer	2005	77
24	I Didn't Do It For You by Michela Wrong	2005	77
25	The Accidental Masterpiece by Michael Kimmelman	2005	77
26	The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis	2005	75
27	V. S. Pritchett by Jeremy Treglown	2005	75
28	Big Bang by Simon Singh	2005	75
29	The Wreckers by Bella Bathurst	2005	75
30	The Perfectionist by Rudolph Chelminski	2005	75
31	The Disappointment Artist by Jonathan Lethem	2005	75
32	Them by Francine du Plessix Gray	2005	75
33	Girl Sleuth by Melanie Rehak	2005	75
34	Two Lives by Vikram Seth	2005	74
35	The Orientalist by Tom Reiss	2005	74
36	February House by Sherill Tippins	2005	74
37	Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk	2005	73
38	The Genius Factory by David Plotz	2005	73
39	Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte	2005	73
40	Teacher Man by Frank McCourt	2005	72
41	Histories Of The Hanged by David Anderson	2005	72
42	The Planets by Dava Sobel	2005	71
43	The Survivor by John F. Harris	2005	71
44	Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell	2005	71
45	Conspiracy Of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald	2005	71
46	Dream Boogie by Peter Guralnick	2005	71
47	DisneyWar by James B. Stewart	2005	70
48	The Beatles by Bob Spitz	2005	70
49	John Brown, Abolitionist by David S. Reynolds	2005	69
50	Smashed by Koren Zailckas	2005	69

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