The Traditional Year-End Books List

Well, for the last couple of years on January 1st I've posted a list of the books I read in the previous year, and as far as I'm concerned that's enough to count as a tradition, so I figured I'd do it again.

I seem to have been remarkably consistent over the past few years: the total was 94 in 2002, 94 in 2003, and 93 in 2004.

I am pleased to announce that my book-quota system actually has worked: I do have fewer books on my To-Read Pile now than I did at the start of 2004. Yay! Of course, the difference is a whole whopping 18 books, but, still, it's progress. Actually, it would have been a heck of a lot more than that if my mother hadn't shown up in October with a box full of about 30 books she'd decided she didn't want any more and thought I might like. I mean, come on, quota or no quota, how could I say no to that? I'm not made of stone!

Anyway, here's the list:

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
Obsidian Fate by Diana G. Gallagher
The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski
The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket
The Persistance of Vision by John Varley
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
The Onion Ad Nauseam edited by Robert Seigel
The Annotated Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (annotated by Michael Patrick Hearn)
The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman
Bones of the Moon by Jonathan Carroll
The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner
Pole to Pole by Michael Palin
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. II by Alan Moore
The Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket
Alpha & Omega by Charles Seife
Doctor Who and the Underworld by Terrance Dicks
Fluke by Christopher Moore
Faking It by William Alan Miller
The Second Summoning by Tanya Huff
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
Starfarers by Poul Anderson
The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes by Adrian Conan Doyle & John Dickson Carr
Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
The Ersatz Elevator by Lemony Snicket
The Ancestor Cell by Peter Anghelides & Stephen Cole
Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille by Steven Brust
The Iliad by Homer (translated by Robert Fagels)
The Vile Village by Lemony Snicket
The Future of Spacetime by Stephen W. Hawking, Kip S. Thorne, Igor Novikov, Timothy Ferris & Alan Lightman
Dense Macabre by Stephen King
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss
The Burning by Justin Richards
The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket
Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil by John Berendt
Transmetropolitan: One More Time by Warren Ellis
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Bible Stories for Adults by James Morrow
Farscape: The Illustrated Season 4 Companion by Paul Simpson
Standard Candles by Jack McDevitt
The Lost Slayer, Part One: Prophecies by Christopher Golden
The Lost Slayer, Part Two: Dark Times by Christopher Golden
The Lost Slayer, Part Three: King of the Dead by Christopher Golden
Science Says edited by Rob Kaplan
The Lost Slayer, Part Four: Original Sins by Christopher Golden
Zod Wallop by William Browning Spencer
Catch Me If You Can by Frank W. Abagnale
For Us, the Living by Robert Heinlein
The Carnivorous Carnival by Lemony Snicket
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
Sirius by Olaf Stapledon
Language Visible by David Sacks
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
Alaska Bound by Michael Dixon
The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Man in the Rubber Mask by Robert Llewellyn
The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. LeGuin
Why Do People Hate America? by Ziauddin Sardar & Merryl Wyn Davies
The Slippery Slope by Lemony Snicket
White as Snow by Tanith Lee
Flight by Chris Kraft
Idoru by William Gibson
War in Heaven by Charles Wiliams
Kiss Kiss/Switch Bitch/My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl
Mixed Magics by Diana Wynne Jones
Last Man Running by Chris Boucher
What Einstein Didn't Know by Robert L. Wolke
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
Life with Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Radioactive Boy Scout by Ken Silverstein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Players at the Game of People by John Brunner
God's Debris by Scott Adams
How to Be a Villain by Neil Zawacki
Dead in Dixie by Charlaine Harris
Spoken Here by Mark Abley
Prophecy and Change edited by Marco Palmierei
The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket
Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock
Warrior Lovers by Catherine Salmon & Donald Symonds
Doctor Who -- Planet of Fire by Peter Grimwade
Voodoo Science by Robert Park
I Sing the Body Electric! by Ray Bradbury
Your Favorite Seuss by Dr. Seuss
The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker
The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore
Claudius the God by Robert Graves
Dancing Barefoot by Wil Wheaton