This Year in Books

A compilation of the best/worst/whatever-est books of the year. I'm guessing there'll probably be some overlap. Don't hold your breath for 'literary quality' being a deciding factor, nor bestseller status. In the spirit of fairness, however, I'm going to attempt to only include bokos I actually finished. Ahem. ;-)

These are my opinions on these books, plain and simple.

Most Memorable (not necessarily best, but stuck in my head)

• Ghost Rider
• Shadows on the Aegean
• Sweet Land Stories
• Inkheart
• Number 10
• Escape from Slavery

Best 5

• Paul: A Critical Life
• Bruiser
• Thursday Next series
• Eventide
• A Hole in My Life

Least Memorable (otherwise known as "I read wha-at?")

• Deadly Divots
• The Annotated Night Before Christmas
• Dead Cat Bounce
• Monkeewrench
• Box 9
• San Juan Solution

5 Books (or Authors) Best Forgotten

• Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
• Cat Seeing Double
• Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse
• Dickens Fur Coat and Charlotte's Unanswered Letters
• Cunning Linguist

Possible Book Discussion Books

• Land That Moves, Land That Stands Still
• Eventide
• Bruiser
• Thief Lord
• A Hole in My Life
• Sweet Land Stories
• The Time Traveler's Wife

I've also put together more of a statistical thing, which I'm posting here as well:

number of books read in 2004: 102
number of books read in 2003: 100
number of books read in 2002: 118
number of books read in 2001: 83
number of books read in 2000: 128
average read per month: 8.5 (over five years: 8.85)
average read per week: 1.96 (over five years: 2.04)
number read in worst month: 0 (July)
number read in best month: 12 (June)
number by male authors: 66
number by female authors: 36
number of fiction: 61
number of non-fiction: 41

Finally, I would estimate I also read around 100 magazines (Real Simple, Guideposts, Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek, Ms.), about 30 booklets on places we visited this summer, innumerable travel books (before we left), and at least three different cookbooks. Let's not forget the newspaper, although that was far from a regular event. There are probably a bunch of other things that I've suppressed in true amnesiac fashion.

Happy 2004, indeed.