Search, show and sort a list of items from a database

Hello. This is my first post.

I am considering the possibility of using WordPress to build my site, despite it is more a bunch of “static” pages than a blog.

There is one part in my site that is going to be more dynamic: I want let the visitor to search for some given items of a list (say, a list of books, with author, title, publisher, year, and so on; search by author, by year…), to be shown in different ways (in a table, in a “bullet” list way, etc.), and to sort it (by title, ascending or descending, etc.).

Also, a desired feature is that all that operations be made in a dynamic/Ajaxized way, I mean, the user changes his/her selection preferences, and the list of items changes, but the whole page is not reloaded. This is not mandatory, but it would be very good.

Is that possible with WordPress? Which plugins would I need, if any?

I know that it is possible to add some “customized” fields when entering a new post, but I don’t know if that’s the [best/unique] way availabe in WordPress to define a kind of “database” (a table with rows/items and columns/fields, in fact).

Sorry if this subject was already dealt, but I was not able to find an answer in the forums.

Any hint, tip or help will be welcomed!!

Thank you in advance.