Maureen Corrigan

Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan lists her favorite books of 2005, including novels by Mary Gaitskill and Kazuo Ishiguro, and memoirs by Joan Didion and J.R. Moehringer.

The novels, “The Ice Harvest” by Scott Phillips, “The History of Love” by Nicole Krauss; the nonfiction “The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness” by Joel ben Izzy, and the short story 1961 classic “Tell Me a Riddle” by Tillie Olsen.

The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, and Fate was written by Marjorie Williams. Williams died last year of cancer.

The novel Veronica by Mary Gaitskill.

The Tulip and the Pope is the new memoir from Deborah Larsen. The story explores young women on the road to becoming nuns in the 1960s. Larsen's previous work includes the novel The White.

Two writers describe how their lives have been shaped: Kim Ponders was an Air Force pilot during the first Gulf War; and Nicole Lea Helget grew up on a turbulent Minnesota farm in the 1980s.

In The March, novelist E.L. Doctorow applies his distinctive approach to historical fiction to events of the Civil War -- especially Gen. William T. Sherman's decisive, destructive assault on Georgia and the Carolinas.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the new memoir The Tender Bar by Los Angeles Times reporter J.R. Moehringer. It tells the tale of his dysfunctional family on Long Island — and the community's center, the local bar.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews A Necessary Spectacle: Billie Jean King, Bobby Riggs, and the Tennis Match that Leveled the Game. It's about the 1973 battle of the sexes match that inspired great bravado and even greater publicity.

For some, the summer is a time to indulge in frothy beach reading: the latest chick lit or globetrotting, highly unbelievable thriller. But book critic Maureen Corrigan has taken a different tack this year: She's catching up on more substantial reading that she hasn't had time for yet.