紐約時報書評今天選出今年度10大本好書，小說及非小說各5本，紐約時報書評所介紹的書，我斷斷續續看了幾年，但是換總主編之後，我覺得所精選的書籍有點冷門，而且書評內容也艱深難懂，也許是我書看的不夠多，但是每周一次星期六出刊的書評（類似中國時報的開卷版），卻是歐美讀書人在週末所期待的精神糧食，也是新銳作家一炮而紅的的風向球，主編選書及書評人評論的主客觀性也可以左右讀者的思緒，看完選書，再讀書評，看看你的觀點與評論家是否相左？客觀寫書評老實說真不簡單！！
Fiction 小說
KAFKA ON THE SHORE（海邊的卡夫卡，時報有出中文版，米國人正流行村上熱）
By Haruki Murakami村上春樹
Alfred A. Knopf, $25.95.
This graceful and dreamily cerebral novel, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel, tells two stories - that of a boy fleeing an Oedipal prophecy, and that of a witless old man who can talk to cats - and is the work of a powerfully confident writer.
ON BEAUTY （論美）
By Zadie Smith.
Penguin Press, $25.95.
In her vibrant new book, a cultural-politics novel set in a place like Harvard, the author of ’’White Teeth’’ brings everything to the table: a crisp intellect, a lovely wit and enormous sympathy for the men, women and children who populate her story.
英美最受矚目的新生代作家莎娣．史密斯（Zadie Smith）新作《論美》，史密斯以福斯特（E.M.Foster）的小說《Howards End》為藍圖，描述自由派的白人貝爾賽、和極端保守的黑人吉普斯兩個家族之間的恩怨糾葛。
PREP
By Curtis Sittenfeld.
Random House, $21.95. Paper, $13.95.
This calm and memorably incisive first novel, about a scholarship girl who heads east to attend an elite prep school, casts an unshakable spell and has plenty to say about class, sex and character.
故事主人翁Lee Fiora是個天資聰穎的14歲少女，生長在美國印地安納州的小鎮，迷惑於位在美國麻州的貴族寄宿學校Ault School的華麗宣傳， Fiora在獎學金的補助下毅然前往該校就讀，卻赫然發現自己與同學們格格不入，在光鮮的外表下，周遭看似迷人的同學卻讓Fiora感到厭倦，由於出生背景不同，雖然Fiora極力打入校內的同儕集團，她始終保持著冷眼旁觀的身份。掙扎在課業和人際關係的窘境，Fiora以優良的表現升上二年級，也為自己爭取到受人尊敬的地位，然而一次行為失當卻讓她成為公眾焦點，不僅讓她在校內辛苦經營的認同感瀕臨崩潰邊緣，並差點走上自我毀滅的道路。透過師生間的複雜關係以及同儕間的互動過程，作者藉由Fiora的成長經驗描寫了青少年時期的認同問題，深刻地傳遞出成長時期中徬徨孤寂的況味。
SATURDAY
By Ian McEwan.
Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $26.
As bracing and as carefully constructed as anything McEwan has written, this astringent novel traces a day in the life of an English neurosurgeon who comes face to face with senseless violence.
黎明將屆的星期六的清晨時分，倫敦神經外科醫生Henry Perowne目睹一架著火的飛機劃過Heathrow國際機場，由於當地即將舉行反對對伊拉克開戰的遊行，Henry的第一個念頭是發生了恐怖份子攻擊事件，雖然事實證明並非如此，這場飛機意外事件並未直接影響Henry的生活，卻是其生活即將掀起巨大波瀾的徵兆。以此拉開故事序幕，作者描繪了故事主人翁Henry的一日生活，以內心獨白的敘述方式進行的一場大腦旅行記錄，作者詳細描述了Henry執行手術、與一名無賴漢擦撞發生車禍、參與一場逾越常軌的回力球比賽、到安養中心探訪母親、以及和家人的一次聚會的過程，透過鉅細彌遺的描述，作者鋪陳出故事高潮，在一天將盡的夜幕低垂時分，籠罩在早晨的壞兆頭之下的世界終於暴發了無法預料的暴力事件，作者藉著Henry的角度引導讀者深切感受充斥世界各個角落的緊張與衝突，藉由複雜動人的故事探討了現代人所面臨的道德難題和困難處境，此外，經由描述擔任外科醫師的主角和熱愛藝術的子女間的緊張關係，鋪陳刻劃科學和藝術在當代社會的重要性，將故事推向具有正面意義、充滿希望的結局。
VERONICABy Mary Gaitskill.
Pantheon Books, $23.
This mesmerizingly dark novel from the author of ’’Bad Behavior’’ and ’’Two Girls, Fat and Thin’’ is narrated by a former Paris model who is now sick and poor; her ruminations on beauty and cruelty have clarity and an uncanny bite.
Nonfiction 非小說
THE ASSASSINS’ GATE
America in Iraq
By George Packer.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.
A comprehensive look at the largest foreign policy gamble in a generation, by a New Yorker reporter who traces the full arc of the war, from the pre-invasion debate through the action on the ground.
DE KOONING
An American Master
By Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan.
Alfred A. Knopf, $35.
A sweeping biography, impressively researched and absorbingly written, of the charismatic immigrant who stood at the vortex of mid-20th-century American art.
THE LOST PAINTING
By Jonathan Harr.
Random House, $24.95.
This gripping narrative, populated by a beguiling cast of scholars, historians, art restorers and aging nobles, records the search for Caravaggio’s ’’Taking of Christ,’’ painted in 1602 and rediscovered in 1990.
POSTWAR
A History of Europe Since 1945
By Tony Judt.
The Penguin Press, $39.95.
Judt’s massive, learned, brilliantly detailed account of Europe’s recovery from the wreckage of World War II presents a whole continent in panorama even as it sets off detonations of insight on almost every page.
THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING
By Joan Didion.
Alfred A. Knopf, $23.95.
A prose master’s harrowing yet exhilarating memoir of a year riven by sudden death (her husband’s) and mortal illness (their only child’s).
文章出處：
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/books/review/tenbest.html?oref=login
