GARDINER (AP) – Celebrities sidled toward specialized, somewhat abstruse subjects – and Huck Finn – as they listed their favorite books for 2005, says the originator of the annual “Who Reads What?” list.

“Very esoteric this year,” said Glenna Nowell, who started the celebrity reading list in 1988 when she was librarian in this small southern Maine city. “There’s such a diversity of books, and not well-known, not best sellers.” Nowell also notices a lot of nonfiction this year.

The list, which Nowell compiles to invigorate people’s interest in reading, has drawn responses in past years from several U.S. presidents and other world leaders, athletes, actors and authors. This year’s list, released to coincide with National Library Week, runs the gamut from consumer activist Ralph Nader to major league pitcher Barry Zito.

Nader was one of three who included “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain on his list, which also included a selection of heavier books, such as “The Standard Oil Company” by Ida M. Tarbell.

But the former presidential candidate was tight with his words of literary praise, offering none in his response to Nowell.

Oakland Athletics hurler Zito was nearly as frugal with his praise, offering a single word – “Life!” – when describing his reaction to the spiritualist “Creative Mind” by Ernest Holmes.

Scripps Howard columnist Jay Ambrose was more wordy with his praise for “Huckleberry Finn.”

“I had read it as a child, as a college student and now, reading it at age 60, I found it as entertaining as ever, but even more insightful. The thing is, as I learn more, I can see more in it, such as the extraordinary way in which it delivers moral truths about this America of ours,” wrote Ambrose.

Nowell, who likes to include a Maine figure on her annual list, found her third “Huckleberry Finn” admirer in a state legislator, Rep. Sean Faircloth, who said Twain’s protagonist “thinks independently and keeps his sense of humor. Now, that’s a hero!” The Bangor lawmaker finds himself in the company of Bob Hope, Diane Sawyer and Charlton Heston, who have listed the Mark Twain classic on past “Who Reads What?” lists.

Some of this year’s contributors noted the power books had over them.

Author Reed Arvin said Mark Danielewsky’s “House of Leaves” was so creepy that “There were times when reading this book I threw it down on the floor in a combination of awe and horror.” Helmuth von Moltke’s “Letters to Freya,” which bares the spiritual side of a Nazi intelligence officer, “burned a hole in my heart,” Arvin wrote.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips, whose books have romantic themes, called “Flowers from the Storm” by Laura Kinsale “one of the best historical romances ever.”

Phillips also listed “Shadow Divers” by Robert Kurson as a prized page-turner. “A so-called guy’s book,”‘ wrote Phillips, “but I couldn’t put it down.”

Author Ray Bradbury told Nowell that he considers “The Friendly Persuasion” by Jessamyn West one of the best books of short stories published in a half-century. “It is warm, beautiful and round as a freshly laid egg,” he wrote.

Pamela Jones, whose Groklaw Web site has drawn her mostly to technical books and legal tomes like “Patent It Yourself” and “Open Source Licensing,” wrote that she “may be the only person who not only read War and Peace’ all the way through but wished there was more of it when I got to the last page.”

Author Mary Higgins Clark listed “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini as her top read for 2005, while actress Bonnie Bedelia called “The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener” by Martin Gardner “compelling and unpretentious musings of one of the greatest freethinking minds of the 20th Century.”

Toronto Sun foreign columnist Eric Margolis revealed his taste for books with spy themes, including this year’s favorites “Special Tasks” by Pavel Sudoplatov, a former Soviet KGB general who writes about the inner workings of the Soviet secret police from the 1920s to ’80s.

Margolis calls “Imperial Hubris” by former CIA terrorism analyst Michael Scheuer a “must read for all interested in politics and Mideast.”

Novelist Jodi Picoult wrote that Alice Hoffman makes writing look easy in “The Ice Queen,” which is to be published this spring. Picoult said Hoffman “can cut clean to the bone of relationships between men and women.”

Actor-author Dirk Benedict, who reads two books a week, said it wasn’t easy to pick a favorite. But he said “West With the Night” by Beryl Markham “defies categories. Adventure, Autobiography, Inspiration, Romance, Travel, History, Feminism … all of these and much, much more.”

Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist who covered the war in Iraq, wrote that “The Prophet” by Khalil Gibran “should be read at least every couple of years.”

—

On the Net:

Gardiner Public Library: http://www.gpl.lib.me.us/

AP-ES-04-10-05 1336EDT

Copy the Story Link