High Fives

The New York Timesfive best non-fiction books of 2005 includes four works of history: George Packer, The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq; Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swann, De Kooning: An American Master; Jonathan Harr, The Lost Painting; and Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. At Ghost in the Machine, Kevin Murphy points out that Columbia's Eric Foner recently listed the five books that most influenced his work. There were three works of history: E. P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class, W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, and Richard Hofstadter's The American Political Tradition. His fiction choices: José Saramago's The History of the Siege of Lisbon and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.