So what did you read in 2004?

[Darkstar]

This year, for the first time, I made a concerted effort to record what I had read, and find that I have read fifty eight books this year. I also made a concerted effort to read books by authors I had never read before, rather than stick to the increasingly small group of authors I had been reading in recent years. As a result, among the nineteen authors in this group, I’ve discovered some wonderful writers that I’m kicking myself I never read before. People like Patrick O’Brien, Philip Pulman, Arturo Perez-Reverte. I also tried to read novels by debut authors, or those only on the second or third book. Ian Graham's fantasy novel, Monument was one of the better ones in this group, and Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime was outstanding. I intend to continue doing this in 2005.

Of course I read the latest (paperback - I'm mean) offerings by Terry Pratchett - the Thief of Time and Lindsey Davis, The Accusers,

However it’s not all been good as I’ve read some total rubbish, that makes me want to spork my eyes out. Yes, Dan Brown, that means you.

I included a number of re-reads – old favourites that I hadn’t read for a while. Some of them seem to have stood up better than others. Whose Body by Dorothy L Sayers was as good as ever, but Catseye by Andre Norton a favourite in my teens no longer holds any magic.

Since it’s what I write, I’ve read a lot of historical fiction. I took in some of the non-Sharpe novels Bernard Cornwell has been writing lately, Gallows Thief and the Grail Quest Trilogy - Harlequin, Vagabond and Heretic, all excellent. A novel by Gillian Bradshaw, Render unto Caesar was also very good. I discovered Aubrey and Maturin, reading the first five of Patrick O'Brien's wonderful novels. I also enjoyed Tracey Chevalier's novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Alan Garner's latest, an adult fantasy-ish novel, Thursbitch had his usual wonderful eye for landscape, but Joel Rosenberg's Midkemia fanfic Tales of the Riftwar novel, Murder in La Mut, was disappointing.

[BrumB]

2004 was a good year for reading for me. As usual I read a lot of 'easy reading' including Lindsey Davies's The Accusers, some Stephen Saylor and a writer I discovered while on holiday in the US - Sharyn McCrumb. She writes Appalachian Mountain detective stories - some are wonderfully evocative and some are just awful! If, like me, you like that sort of thing I recommend The Rosewood Casket and She Walks These Hills.

My three favourite books were:

The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers - a beautifully written book mainly about the three children of mixed race parents in the US - the father a white Jewish immigrant phycist and the mother a black American musician. The book is about time, music and race among other things. The two sons become successful musicians and the daughter joins the Black Panthers. The book is written like a musical composition - moving backwards and forwards through the various themes. So complex and fascinating that I am not really able to describe it here. I think it is possibly one of the best books ever to be written about the issues of race and discrimination.

Unless by Carol Shields - a deceptively simple novel about domesticity, creativity and family loss.

The Clearing by Tim Gautreaux about an American returning from the First World War and his inability to adjust to his inheritance. He disappears into the cypress swamps of Louisiana where he is found by his brother who takes charge of the local sawmill. It is wonderfully descriptive of the brutal life in this grim place.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - set in 1970s Afghanistan and tells of the relationship between two boys and the fatal flaw of one of them. The descriptions of Afghanistan bring the recent conflicts to life and the story of the families is very moving.

I also read David Lodge's Author Author about Henry James. I enjoyed it but was slightly disappointed at its detachment.

[Lei-Lei Jayenne]

Thinking about it, I've read quite a few good books this year, which perhaps I will post when I have more time. But I just want to mention the best book I've read this year; Rubicon by Tom Holland. Fantastic book!

[Lady Lazarus]

Aah keeping a record of what you have read is a good idea, as I cannot remember everything I've read in the past year. Coming to think of the ones I can remember, it's a bit of a mixed bag... ones that spring to mind include The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad (not a novel, but a fascinating insight into Afghan community life), Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor (great, unique book), The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor, Layer Cake by J.J. Connolly, Empire by Niall Ferguson, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, Digital Fortress by Dan Brown, The Quincunx by Charles Palliser, The Little Friend by Donna Tartt, 1984 by George Orwell, and probably some others which I can't recall at the moment. Currently reading Starter For Ten by David Nicholls.

[Slowreader]

Being a slow reader I only get through a book a month usually. In 2004 my most enjoyable reads were 'Last Orders' and 'The Light of Day' by Graham Swift, 'The Photograph' by Penelope Lively and 'To The Lighthouse' by Virginia Woolf.

[My Friend Jack]

The number of books that I read in a year is largely driven by where I happen to be working. If I'm working in central London, then I spend an hour or more on the train every day and can get some extra chapters in. Did a fair bit of that last year, but so far I've been travelling by car, so most of my reading happens in bed.

Good idea to keep a list of what you've read, though - I will try to do that in 2005.

[orangelil]

My 3 favourite books I read in 2004 were: the Curious incident of the dog in the night time, just because it was so refreshing to read something so original, Star of the Sea - Joseph O'Connor is another orignal writer. The third is a book I read at least once a year, which I never grow tired of - The Phantom Tolbooth by Norton Juster. It is a kid's book but it's amazing. as anyone else read it?

[Darkstar]

The third is a book I read at least once a year, which I never grow tired of - The Phantom Tolbooth by Norton Juster. It is a kid's book but it's amazing. as anyone else read it?

I remember seeing an animated version of it years ago, but I've never read the book. I've got a number of books that I regularly read, just because I love them so much.

[Harriet]

Wow I really can't remember much that I read. Well, there was the Dan Brown books, and I read Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulkes. And there must be much mroe 'cos I get through about 2-3 books a week. But most of them are re-reads. Right, this year I'm definately going to write down what I read.

[Aixelsyd]

I read somewhere around 90 books in a 12 month period from September 2003 - September 2004. I have a list of all of them, but I really do not want to get it out.

The list is mostly Young Adult books.

[caldron]

well; I managed 59 books last year and since joining bookcrossing.com I've kept track of them, which is something I always wanted to do but for one reason or another 'never got around to'.

They were (latest first);

The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Ablom
Cod ~ A biography of the fish that changed the world - Mark Kurlansky
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
Griffith Review (#3)~ Webs of Power - Various
The Year of Living Aimlessly - Steve Myhill
The Lemon Table - Julian Barnes
Deeper - John Seabrook
The Calcutta Chromosome - Amitav Ghosh
Stargazing - Peter Hill
The Lawnmower Celebrity - Ben Hatch
Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary Cliches, Cant & Management Jargon - Don Watson
The Extinction Club - Robert Twigger
The Hungry Tide - Amitav Ghosh
Deception Point - Dan Brown
Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks
Typhoid Mary - Anthony Bourdain
Griffith Review ~ Spring 2003 - Various
The Shark Net - Robert Drewe
The Queen of the Tambourine - Jane Gardam
The Girl with a Pearl Earing - Tracy Chevalier
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
My Life - William J. Clinton
The White Earth - Andrew McGahan
Digital Fortress - Dan Brown
Voyage to the End of the Room - Tibor Fischer
Weapons of Choice - John Birmingham
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Quicksilver - Neal Stephenson
Dr. Mukti & other tales of Woe - Will Self
Atomised - Michel Houellebecq
The Cryptographer - Tobias Hill
The Consolations of Philosophy - Alain de Botton
The Ice People - Maggie Gee
The Reasons I Won't be Coming - Elliot Perlman
The Last Governor - Jonathan Dimbleby
Mutual Contempt (LBJ/RFK) - Jeff Shesol
In Retrospect ~ The Tragedy & Lessons of Vietnam - Robert McNamara
In Love with Night (RFK) - Ronald Steel
John Gorton ~ He Did it His Way - Ian Hancock
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Seven Types of Ambiguity - Elliott Perlman
Collected Essays - George Orwell
1984 - George Orwell
Scoop - Evelyn Waugh
Goodbye Babylon - Bob Ellis
Hooking Up - Tom Wolfe
Due Preparations for the Plague - Janette Turner Hospital
Memories of the Great & Good - Alastair Cooke
Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde
A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
Any Human Heart - William Boyd
The First Casualty - Phillip Knightley
Tragically I was an Only Twin ~ The Complete Peter Cook
The Dancer Upstairs - Nicholas Shakespeare
Dirt Music - Tim Winton
Pattern Recognition - William Gibson
Oryx & Crake - Margaret Atwood

Thanks to the recommendations & suggestions of fellow BXers, I have been exposed to new authors and genres which I would otherwise perhaps have remained ignorant of ~ & I've coloured the books concerned in red above.

[Abbynormal92243]

books I read in 2004:

Liar's Club, by Mary Karr
Color of Water, by James McBride
This Boy's Life, by Tobias Wolff
Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl
Dry, by Augusten Burroughs
Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
The Deadhouse, by Linda Fairstein
Eleni, by Nicholas Gage
Angela's Ashes, by McCourt
The Kiss, by K. Harrison
Gravelight, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Desire of the Everlasting Hills, by Cahill
DaVinci Code, by Brown
Vanished Man, by Deaver
The Normals, by David Gilbert
Magical Thinking, by Augusten Burroughs
Running with Scissors, by Burroughs
The Stupidest Angel, by Christopher Moore
Strip Tease, by Carl Hiassen
Touching Evil, by Kay Hooper
Dead Famous, by Carol O'Connell
By the Light of the Moon, by Dean Koontz
The Stand, Uncut version, by Stephen King
Skull Session, by Daniel Hecht
Kiss of the Shadow Man, by Maggie Shayne
The Negotiator, by Dee Henderson
Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching, transl by Ursula Leguin
Face the Fire, by Nora Roberts
Paul Harvey's And That's the Rest of the Story, by Paul Aurandt
Every Breath She Takes, by Suzanne Forster
The Disappeared, by K. Rusch
The Charm School, by Nelson DeMille
Dogs of Babel
Time-Traveller's Wife
Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd
the perks of being a wallflower, by Chbosky
Due Diligence, by Michael Kahn
Darwin's Blade, by Dan Simmons
Dead Aim, by Iris Johansen

Books in 2005:
Nathan's Run, by John Gilstrap
At All Costs, by John Gilstrap
Big, Bad Wolf, by James Patterson

best reads are in purple; over-all favorite are bold purple.

[Darkstar]

When I made my first post I didn't actually list everything I read. It's interesting now that people have started to do that, how different our lists are, although we do seem to be one or two books in common.

Here's everything I read.

Julia Bell - Massive (YA) ***
Gillian Bradshaw - Render unto Caesar (historical) ****
Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code (mystery)
John Buchan - Witch Wood (historical) **
Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason - The Rule of Four (thriller/mystery) *
Tracey Chevalier - Girl with a Pearl Earring (historical/literary) ***
Judith Cook - Blood on the Border (Historical/Crime) ****
Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief (historical) ***, Harlequin (historical) ****, Vagabond (historical) ****, Heretic (historical) ****
Andrew Crumey - Mobius Dick (science-fiction) *
Lyndsey Davis -The Jupiter Myth (historical/crime) ****, The Accusers (historical/crime) ****
Charles Dickens - Nicholas Nickleby ****
Alexander Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo ***
Raymond E Feist and Joel Rosenberg - Murder in La Mut (fantasy) *
Alan Garner -hursbitch (fantasy)*****
Maggie Gee - Lost Children (literary ***
Ian Graham - Monument (fantasy *****
Susanna Gregory - A Plague on Both your Houses (historical ****
Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (YA/crime) *****
Robert Heinlein - Citizen of the Galaxy (science-fiction) **
Georgette Heyer - The Grand Sophy (historical/romance) *****
David Madsen - Black Plume (historical) *
James McLevy - McLevy the Edinburgh Detective (crime) ***
Andre Norton - Catseye (YA/science-fiction) **
Patrick O’Brian - Master and Commander (historical) *****, Post Captain (historical) *****, HMS Surprise (historical) *****, The Mauritius Command (historical) *****, Desolation Island (historical) *****
Arturo Perez-Reverte - The Dumas Club (thriller/mystery) ****, The Seville Communion (thriller/mystery) ****
Terry Pratchett - Thief of Time (fantasy) ***
Philip Pullman - Northern Lights (YA/fantasy) *****, The Subtle Knife (YA/fantasy) *****, The Amber Spyglass (YA/fantasy) *****
James Robertson - The Fanatic (historical) **
Dorothy L Sayers - Whose Body? (crime) ***
Duncan Sprott - The House of the Eagle (historical) ***
CJ Sansom - Dissolution (historical/crime) ***
Simon Scarrow - Under the Eagle (historical) **
James Wilson - The Bastard Boy (historical) ***

Non-Fiction - quite a few of these are long out of print. The one's I've highlighted aren't.

Archibald Alison - Principles of Criminal Law
Stewart Lee Allan - The Devil's Cup
Carole Blake - From Pitch to Publication
W F Bynum - Science & the Practice of Medicine in the 19th Century
Renni Browne & Dave King - Self Editing for Fiction Writers
Fowler & Fowler - The Kings English
Noah Lukeman - The First Five Pages
James Myles - Chapters in the life of a Dundee factory boy
FK Prochaska - Women & Philanthropy in 19th century England
P J G Ransom - The Victorian Railway
Scottish Publishers Association - Directory of Publishing in Scotland 2004/2005
John A Shephard - Simpson and Syme of Edinburgh
Lynne Truss - Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Barry Turner (ed) - The Writers' Handbook 2005

[Slowreader]

aaah, lists! Now, Mrs Slowreader (who is in fact a very fast reader) took me to task over listing and rating my reads, suggesting that I was a uniquely anal person for doing so. I'm therefore very pleased to see that I'm not the only one!

Here's my modest offering:

Graham Swift- Last Orders ****
Graham Swift- The Light of Day ***
Graham Swift- Shuttlecock ***
Pat Barker- Another World **
Penelope Lively- The Photograph *****
Graham Swift- The Sweet Shop Owner **
Penelope Lively- City of the Mind ****
David Austin- A Clear Calling **
John Williams- Temperance Town *
Rachel Cusk- The Lucky Ones **
Maureen Duffy- Alchemy *
Rachel Cusk- Saving Agnes ***
Virginia Woolf- To the Lighthouse ****
Albert Camus- The Fall ***

[Tess]

I keep a list of the books I have read every year, it's interesting to look back at and I would definitely recommend others to do the same. I read 47 books last year and here they are:

The Dark Tower - The Gunslinger Stephen King
The Dark Tower - The Drawing of the Three Stephen King
Pompeii Robert Harris
Strange Pilgrams Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Science of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials Mary and John Gribbon
Godchildren Nicholas Coleridge
Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck
The Five People You Meet in Heaven Mitch Albom
Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
The Famished Road Ben Okri
A Friend of the Family Lisa Jewell
Big Stone Gap Adriana Trigiani
East of Eden John Steinbeck
The World According to Garp John Irving
The Dark Tower - The Waste Lands Stephen King
The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break Steven Sherrill
All Quiet on the Orient Express Magnus Mills
That Old Ace in the Hole Annie Proulz
Frost on my Moustache Tim Moore
The Autograph Man Zadie Smith
The Bluebird Cafe Rebecca Smith
The Alchemist Paulo Coelho
The Wrong Way Home Peter Moore
The Scheme for Full Employment Magnus Mills
Veronika Decides to Die Paulo Coelho
Wish You Were Here - The Official Biography of Douglas Adams Nick Webb
Aunts Aren't Gentlemen P.G.Wodehouse
Hey Nostradamus! Douglas Coupland
The Dark Tower - Wizard and Glass Stephen King
Hotel World Ali Smith
The London Pigeon Wars Patrick Neate
Coma Alex Garland
All Families are Psychotic Douglas Coupland
Timoleon Vieta Come Home Dan Rhodes
The Dark Tower - Wolves of the Calla Stephen King
The Dark Tower - Song of Susannah Stephen King
A Prayer of Owen Meany John Irving
Imsomnia Stephen King
The Dark Tower Stephen King
Holes Louis Sacher
The Eyre Affair Jasper Fforde
Finding Myself Toby Litt
The Restraint of Beasts Magnus Mills
The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown
The World in Winter John Christopher
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Victor Hugo

NOTE -I don't usually read that many Stephen Kings in a year but it was the year in which the last three books of the fantastic Dark Tower series were published so I couldn't resist!

[Grammath]

Hello, newbie type person here. Since you've shown me yours I'll show you mine - 70, all told.

2004 was the first year I kept a list and I found it quite revealing e.g. I read more non-fiction and short stories than I thought I did, and I'm dismayed at the male/female ratio in terms of authors. I also make no apology for the number of kids' books on here; I reckon in this post-Potter world we've been spoilt for superb children's writing.

I must confess to cheating a bit. I drive to work and listen to audiobooks whilst doing so, so I've included them here. They were all unabridged; I make it policy not to touch abridged ones. I figure I wouldn't choose to read every other page of a paper book so why should I do the same on CD?

My intention had been to read more 20th century classics in - as you can see I didn't entirely succeed:

The Stand - Stephen King
The Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish - Douglas Adams
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
High Rise - J G Ballard
Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine
The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon
The Dice Man - Luke Rhinehart
Black Mischief - Evelyn Waugh
Playing the Moldovans at Tennis - Tony Hawks
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Amber Spyglass - Phillip Pullman
Dude, Where's My Country? - Michael Moore
A Darkness More Than Night - Michael Connelly
Captive State - George Monbiot
Minority Report and other Stories - Philip K. Dick
The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
They Do It With Mirrors - Agatha Christie
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy - Greg Palast
Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson
Pastoralia - George Saunders
The Black Dahlia - James Ellroy
Holes - Louis Sachar
The Full Montezuma - Peter Moore
Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald
31 Songs - Nick Hornby
Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde
Tokyo Station - Martin Cruz Smith
Death and the Penguin - Andrey Kurkov
Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson
Eaters of the Dead - Michael Crichton
Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell
Courting Trouble - Lisa Scottoline
Lanzarote - Michel Houellebecq
The Songlines - Bruce Chatwin
The Company - Robert Littell
My Life as a Fake - Peter Carey
Jolie Blon's Bounce - James Lee Burke
Goodbye to Berlin - Christopher Isherwood
Barrel Fever - David Sedaris
Naked - David Sedaris
Santaland Diaries - David Sedaris
From a Buick 8 - Stephen King
Parrot in a Pepper Tree - Chris Stewart
A Man's Head - Georges Simenon
Shadowmancer - G. P. Taylor
The New Rulers of the World - John Pilger
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
Number Ten - Sue Townsend
Fup - Jim Dodge
Opening Up - Mike Atherton
The Return of the Dancing Master - Henning Mankell
Grey Area - Will Self
Perdido Street Station - China Miéville
Four Short Stories - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Pole to Pole - Michael Palin
Gabriel's Gift - Hanif Kureishi
Farewell, My Lovely - Raymond Chandler
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
To Have and Have Not - Ernest Hemingway
Eats, Shoots and Leaves - Lynne Truss
Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
The Glass Key - Dashiell Hammett
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
Dubliners - James Joyce (only managed 2 stories out of this so far)
Brick Lane - Monica Ali

[Abbynormal92243]

Grammath---
I read one story from Pastoralia last year that was very interesting---
I think it was the first one--about the guy and his wife who were on show as part of a re-enactment thing?

rats
I've forgotten most of it.

an interesting story, though, I remember. What did you think of it?

[Grammath]

Abby,

Absolutely right, that was the basis of the title story. The rest of the book is in a similarly black vein and for some of the stories you need a pretty strong stomach.

As a whole, I liked the collection a lot. Having said that, my taste (or lack of it) tends towards dark humour and satire, so I can see it would not be a book for everyone.

I was sufficiently impressed to buy another George Saunders' collection "Civil War Land in Bad Decline", but I haven't read it yet.

To my knowledge, he's only had short stories published so far, unusual in this day and age. I think good short story writing is a dying art. I sense a new discussion thread coming on here....

[hamletbb]

1 MOORE, Michael: Dude, Where’s my Country? ***
2 ROWLING, J.K.: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone **
3 CAMUS, Albert: The Fall ***1/2
4 McEWAN, Ian: The Cement Garden ***1/2
5 SAGAN, Carl: Contact ***
6 MORGAN, Marlo: Mutant Message Downunder **1/2
7 DAHL, Roald: Kiss Kiss (short stories) ***1/2
8 LAHR, John: Show and Tell (collected profiles from the New Yorker) *****
9 de BOTTON, Alain: How Proust Can Change Your Life ****
10 McEWAN, Ian: In Between the Sheets (short-stories) ****
11 LAHR, John: Dame Edna Everage and the rise of Western Civilisation *****
12 AMMANITI, Niccolo: I’m Not Scared ***1/2
13 HESSE, Hermann: Siddhartha ****
14 TARTT, Donna: The Secret History ****
15 MORRIS, Desmond: The Human Zoo ****
16 HESSE, Hermann: Steppenwolf *****
17 CHATWIN, Bruce: The Songlines ***1/2
18 WATSON, Don: Death Sentence (The Decay of Public Language) ***1/2