Fellow Clarion dudes Eric and Trent have posted their list of books read in 2006, so I thought I'd include my complete, unexpurgated list. The astute reader will notice a few books on my Best of 2006 list that aren't included in the following list. Explanation: I hadn't completely finished those books, but I'd read enough of them to know they'd make my Best of 2006 list. So there. Cheating? Naw! Remember, my list, my rules.
Also, don't be too impressed. 100 books really isn't that much, especially when you consider that several of them are YA or juv. books and others were Books on Tape/CD. I still count 'em, though. I drive around a good bit on my book rounds, so it just makes sense to listen to stuff as I drive. So 100 isn't really all that impressive. (I sure ain't no Harriet Klausner.)
JANUARY
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (YA 2003) – J.K. Rowling
Crispin – The Cross of Lead (YA 2002) – Avi
No Country for Old Men (2005) – Cormac McCarthy
Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop (NF 2005) – Kate Wilhelm
Diary (2003) – Chuck Palahniuk
The Colorado Kid (2005) – Stephen King
Cell (2006) – Stephen King
Vellum (2005) – Hal Duncan
To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998) – Connie Willis
Only You Can Save Mankind (Juv 1992/2004 reissue) – Terry Pratchett
FEBRUARY
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (NF 2003) –Azar Nafisi
House of Leaves (2000) – Mark Z. Danielewski
Orchard (2003) – Larry Watson
The Handmaid's Tale (1985) – Margaret Atwood
Horror: Another 100 Best Books (NF 2005) – Stephen Jones & Kim Newman, eds.
Life of Pi (2002) – Yann Martel
Orphans of Chaos (2005) – John C. Wright
The Lincoln Lawyer (2005) – Michael Connelly
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) – Zora Neale Hurston
Cold Hand in Mine: Strange Stories (1975) – Robert Aickman
The Thief (YA 1996) – Megan Whalen Turner
MARCH
Saturday (2005) – Ian McEwan
Understanding the Bible (NF 1999) – John R.W. Stott
The Bottoms (2000) – Joe R. Lansdale
Night (NF 1959) – Elie Wiesel
Bankok 8 (2003) – John Burdett
Southern Comfort: A Charitable Anthology (2005) – S.A. Parham & W. Olivia Race, eds.
So You Want To Be a Wizard (YA 1983) – Diane Duane
Coldheart Canyon (2001) – Clive Barker
The Brief History of the Dead (2006) – Kevin Brockmeier
APRIL
Air (2004) – Geoff Ryman
The Witches (Juv/YA 1983) – Roald Dahl
Midnighters 2: Touching Darkness (YA) – Scott Westerfeld
The Shadow at the Bottom of the World (2005) – Thomas Ligotti
Tuck Everlasting (Juv/YA 1975) – Natalie Babbitt
The Two Sams: Ghost Stories (2003) – Glen Hirshberg
Leo: A Greyhound's Tale (YA 2003) – Cindy Victor
MAY
The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict (NF) – Ken Sande
Blood Meridian (1985) – Cormac McCarthy
X-Men: Dark Mirror (2006) – Marjorie M. Liu
All You Need Is Ears – The Inside Personal Story of the Genius Who Created The Beatles (NF 1979) – George Martin with Jeremy Hornsby
Blue Like Jazz (NF 2003) – Donald Miller
Don Quixote (1605) – Cervantes, trans. Edith Grossman
The Thief Lord (YA 2000) – Cornelia Funke
The Empire of Ice Cream (2006) – Jeffrey Ford
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) – Mark Twain
1066: The Hidden History in the Bayeux Tapestry (NF 2005) – Andrew Bridgeford
The Keys to the Kingdom – Book 1: Mister Monday (YA 2003) – Garth Nix
JUNE
The Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 1: The Field Guide (Juv/YA 2003) – Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi
1776 (NF 2005) – David McCullough
The Amulet of Sanmarkand (YA 2003) – Jonathan Stroud
Cold Hit (2005) – Stephen J. Cannell
His Majesty's Dragon (2006) – Naomi Novik
Armageddon Summer (YA 1998) – Jane Yolen and Bruce Coville
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Eighteenth Annual Collection (2005) – Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, Gavin J. Grant, eds.
The Home-Based Bookstore (NF 2006) – Steve Weber
A Drink Before the War (1994) – Dennis Lehane
Cover Story – The Art of John Picacio (NF 2006)
JULY
The Book Thief (YA 2006) – Marcus Zusak
lost boy lost girl (2003) – Peter Straub
The Jaguar Hunter (1987) – Lucius Shepard
Prince Caspian (YA 1951) – C.S. Lewis
Jane Eyre (1847) – Charlotte Bronte
Horror: 100 Best Books (NF 1988) – Stephen Jones and Kim Newman, eds.
By a Spider's Thread (2004) – Laura Lippman
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904) – M.R. James
Shadow Touch (2006) – Marjorie M. Liu
AUGUST
In the Forest of Forgetting (2006) – Theodora Goss
Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave (NF 2001) – Edward T. Welch
The Crying of Lot 49 (1965) – Thomas Pynchon
True History of the Kelly Gang (2001) – Peter Carey
When Life and Beliefs Collide (NF 2001) – Carolyn Custis James
Gun, with Occasional Music (1994) – Jonathan Lethem
Shadows and Silence (2000) – Barbara Roden, Christopher Roden,
eds.
SEPTEMBER
The Last of the O-Forms and Other Stories (2005) – James
Van Pelt
Manhunt (NF 2006) – James L. Swanson
The Husband (2006) – Dean Koontz
Rosemary's Baby (1967) – Ira Levin
Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales (2002) – Stephen King
When People are Big and God is Small (NF 1997) – Edward T.
Welch
The Eyre Affair (2001) – Jasper Fforde
Midnighters 3: Blue Noon (YA 2006) – Scott Westerfeld
OCTOBER
Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales (2005 reissue) - trans. Tiina Nunnally
No Good Deeds (2006) – Laura Lippman
James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon (NF 2006) – Julie Phillips
A Scanner Darkly (1977) – Philip K. Dick
Never Let Me Go (2005) - Kazuo Ishiguro
Shriek: An Afterword (2006) – Jeff VanderMeer
NOVEMBER
Kafka on the Shore (2005) - Haruki Murakami
The Road (2006) – Cormac McCarthy
London (NF 2004) – A.N. Wilson
The God Who is There (NF 1968) – Francis A. Schaeffer
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (NF 2005) – Thomas L. Friedman
The Five Love Languages (NF 1992) – Gary Chapman
DECEMBER
Twilight (YA 2005) – Stephenie Meyer
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (NF 2006) – Francine Prose
Best New Fantasy (2006) – Sean Wallace, ed.
Sharpe's Prey (2002) – Bernard Cornwell
Searching for God Knows What (NF 2004) – Donald Miller
Lolita (1955) – Vladimir Nabokov
To Own a Dragon (NF 2006) – Donald Miller & John MacMurray
Echo Park – Michael Connelly (2006)
3 comments:
I'm reading The Crying of Lot 49 right now. What did you think of it?
You have a nice mix of Lit and Spec-fic. I also like how you broke it down by month. Nice little touch. Okay, I'm done critiquing. Overall, I'd say this is a very publishable list. ;)
Glad you liked the list, Eric. I'll be honest, I had to read the Sparks Notes after I read The Crying of Lot 49, which helped explain quite a bit. I think you have to remember when it was written, what was going on culturally, etc. I know a lot of the book is comedic satirie, but it made me wonder if Pynchon actually has that bleak of a worldview. Still, it's definitely a book I plan to read again someday. (I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle his new 1000 page novel, though.)
Yeah, I decided before I would start the new one or Gravity's Rainbow, I would try something smaller, thus I borrowed this book from my friend.
I was thinking about making Pynchon my author of the year considering he has a small backlog, but most of them are meaty books and if The Cying of Lot 49 is any indication rather difficult books language-wise. So I decided against it.
If you makes you feel any better I am probably going to check out the sparknotes too. No shame in that, even for books you understand because it can often show you a theme or perspective, not to mention historical context that you are missing.
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