I'm a devout listophile, and I look forward every year to the flurry of lists that come around the holidays.

Considering Salon's new letter format, I'd love to see some reader recommendations posted here. I'd read several of the books mentioned in the article - "Never Let Me Go" and "White Teeth" are two I particularly loved - but I'd really appreciate some top 10 lists from Salon readers as well. Even more fun would be some "worst" lists.

Not to dwell on the negative, but I read two books that I considered to be highly overrated. One was "Prep", by Curtis Sittenfeld. It's all over "best of" lists - including the NYT list - and I just hated it. I thought it was maudlin, and I can't remember reading a novel that had a falser ring to it. Just horrible.

Another book that arrived with much fanfare was Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian". At first I thought it had to be a gothic parody - it trotted out every dusty old stereotype from that genre - but the only horror that it elicited was the dawning realization that it was meant to be a straight-faced Dracula novel. I can't remember the last time I actually quit reading a novel, but this one made me fling it to the floor in disgust after about 600 pages. It makes a lovely doorstop, by the way.

On a sunnier note, I thought that Doris Kearns Goodman acquitted herself from that nasty plagiarism scandal quite admirably with the nonfiction "Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln". It was factually dense but as readable as a good novel, and it helped me to finally make sense of the 1850's, the fateful decade that led up to the American Civil War. It also spotlighted Lincoln's gracious and magnanimous nature, attributes that made him the perfect man for the office of President. Lincoln stands in such stark contrast to the dwarves we presently have in high political office.

So - any takers among Salon readers? What were the highs and lows from your year in literature?

These lists can be a gift for finding books you'd otherwise overlook. This isn't my Best of 2005 (because I've already forgotten most of this year) but here are my recommendations based on what I've reading over last couple months.

For nonfiction, instead of Packer's book on the US invasion of Iraq, I'd suggest Robert's Fisk's new magnum opus, "The Great War for Civilization." If you're a WWII history buff, I can't recommend highly enough "1945: The War that Never Ended" by Gregor Dallas. For readers interested in what used to be called belles lettres, check out "Kafka" by the deeply civilized Italian writer Roberto Calasso. For a delightful, idiosyncratic take on the the curse of monotheism, there's Harold Bloom's "Jesus and Yahweh." And my favorite recent armchair travel book is the charming "A Time of Gifts" by Patrick Leigh Fermor, who as a student in 1934 walked from Holland through Nazi Germany and Austria on his way to Constantinople (originally published in 1977, now republished in one of those handsome New York Review of Books editions). I'm also enjoying Siri Hustvedt's "Mysteries of the Rectangle" -- a novelist's reflections on painting, a book that is in itself a beautiful example of bookmaking.

And if (like me) you need a fix of bleak crime fiction to send you off to sleep, check out "Jar City" by the Icelandic author, Arnaldur Indridason. He's my new Nordic favorite after the Swede Henning Mankell and the Norwegian Karin Fossum.

...and I'm pleased to know that I haven't read one yet Marvelous! And, an excellent idea to share some of our top favorites this year.

Here are a few that I've enjoyed this year: although not all were published this year:

Non-Fiction

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner (The first book I've read that attempts to explain social phenomena quantitatively; a must for every skeptical scientist type. An easy read that will provoke thoughts and conversations for years to come)

Outwitting History A thoroughly enjoyable read about preserving Yiddish books before the majority of Yiddish-speakers die.

God's Politics (Jim Wallis writes brilliantly on separately God's priorities from poliitical retoric)

Rescuing Jesus from the Christianity, by Clayton Sullivan (Thoughtfully separating theology from Christ's teaching)

French Women Don't get Fat (finally, Americans are given permission to stop the insanity around fake food that makes us collectively fat!)

Fiction

Midnight in the Avenue of Faith (the family stories of an Iranian Jewish professor that were so amazing that they were classified as fiction.)

Life of Pi by Yann Martel (An amazing allegorical adventure tale that was sure pleasure.)

The Known World (What if a black man owned slaves in nineteenth century South?)

Happy Reading!

Elissa

What about poetry, Salon? I ask myself this question every year. Come on, guys! You're at the forefront of intellectual thought in this country and you hardly ever acknowledge an entire genre of literature! If you don't talk about it, who will? What if your news department only covered the executive and legislative branches of government, but not the judicial? Or if your sports columnists wrote about basketball and football, but not baseball? What if there were only two political parties that ever got any attention? Oh, wait, that one's true. Yeah, you heard me, Fiction and Non-fiction are the Republicans and Democrats of today's literary world, while poor little poetry limps along like the Green Party, shouting desperately to be heard, but to no avail. Is it a personnel issue? Is it simply that you don't have anyone on the payroll who reads enough poetry to maybe write a column about it, or at least come up with a top-5 list of poetry books once a year? (If that's all it is, I'm happy to help. I don't have a lot of credentials, but I do have an English degree, and I read poetry all the time. Why, at this very moment I've got at least ten poetry books checked out from the library. Give me a call, we'll work something out.) If it's not a staff issue, what other excuse could you possibly have?

Anyway, since you asked, here is my list of the Top Five Poetry Books of 2005.

1) The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch-- The life's work (excluding his longer poems, which will be published next year) of America's most underrated poet, and one of its finest.

2) Where Shall I Wander by John Ashbery-- As is always the case with Ashbery, the poems speak for themselves.

3) When a Woman Loves a Man by David Lehman-- Yeah, I know, this list is turning out to be somewhat slanted in favor of a certain "school" of poetry, but what can I say? I'm a sucker for this stuff.

4) Elegy on Toy Piano by Dean Young-- The title poem is an elegy for Koch, and is pitch-perfect. The poems in this book have so much tightly-packed energy, I think they're made of plutonium.

5) No Planets Strike by Josh Bell-- Yes, a newcomer. Finding this one was really exciting not only because the poems are so great, but because the guy is actually from my hometown of Terre Haute, Indiana! Move over, Theodore Dreiser, you're not the only man of letters in the "Crossroads of America" anymore.

Okay, that's my letter. Sorry about all the yelling. I'm not usually like this.