A list of the books I’ve read, along with the month and year in which I finished each one. An asterisk indicates it is a “best of” book: one of the very best I read that year.
2009
Lucia in London, E.F. Benson (reading now)
Words for the Wind, Theodore Roethke (reading now)
Trespassers on the Roof of the World, Peter Hopkirk (reading now)
Armadale, Wilkie Collins (11/09)
L.A. Confidential, James Ellroy (10/09)
In the Place of Fallen Leaves, Tim Pears (10/09)
Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell (10/09)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson (10/09)
*The Solitudes, John Crowley (10/09)
All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque (9/09)
Poe’s Children, ed. Peter Straub (9/09)
Home Cooking, Laurie Colwin (9/09)
The Tender Bar, J.R. Moehringer (9/09)
*The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters (9/09)
*Life with a Star, Jiri Weil (9/09)
An Expert in Murder, Nicola Upson (9/09)
A Slight Misunderstanding, Prosper Merimee (9/09)
*Human Croquet, Kate Atkinson (9/09)
*War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy (9/09)
Mister Pip, Lloyd Jones (8/09)
The Spies of Warsaw, Alan Furst (8/09)
The Mysterious Benedict Society, Trenton Lee Stewart (8/09)
The Miernik Dossier, Charles McCarry (7/09)
Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (7/09)
*The Language of Bees, Laurie King (7/09)
*The Puttermesser Papers, Cynthia Ozick (7/09)
Soldier’s Heart, Elizabeth Samet (7/09)
Spoon River Anthology, Edgar Lee Masters (7/09)
The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford (7/09)
Opening Skinner’s Box, Lauren Slater (7/09)
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley (7/09)
The Story of the Stone, vol. 5, Cao Xueqin (7/09)
Hotel Bemelmans, Ludwig Bemelmans (7/09)
The Story of the Stone, vol. 4, Cao Xueqin (7/09)
A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray (7/09)
Maps and Legends, Michael Chabon (6/09)
The Pillow Book, Sei Shonagon (6/09)
The Lost City of Z, David Grann (6/09)
*Surrender, Sonya Hartnett (6/09)
The Story of the Stone, vol. 3, Cao Xueqin (6/09)
The Matisse Stories, A.S. Byatt (6/09)
The Game, Diana Wynne Jones (6/09)
Les Noyers de l’Altenburg, André Malraux (6/09)
The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett (6/09)
*The Story of the Stone, vol. 2, Cao Xueqin (5/09)
Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell (5/09)
*The Story of the Stone, vol. 1, Cao Xueqin (5/09)
A Girl of the Limberlost, Gene Stratton-Porter (5/09)
Fire Watch, Connie Willis (5/09)
Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel (5/09)
Rabbit, Run, John Updike (5/09)
A High Wind in Jamaica, Richard Hughes (5/09)
Twentieth Century Ghosts, Joe Hill (5/09)
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester (5/09)
The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories, ed. Michael Cox (5/09)
Impossible Things, Connie Willis (5/09)
*The Little White Horse, Elizabeth Goudge (5/09)
Snow White, Blood Red, ed. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (5/09)
*Linnets and Valerians, Elizabeth Goudge (re-read, 4/09)
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett (4/09)
Beatrix Potter, Linda Lear (4/09)
*Asylum, Patrick McGrath (4/09)
The Lady and the Unicorn, Tracy Chevalier (4/09)
About A Boy, Nick Hornby (4/09)
Cop Hater, Ed McBain (re-read, 4/09)
*News From Tartary, Peter Fleming (4/09)
One’s Company, Peter Fleming (4/09)
*Perfume, Patrick Süskind (4/09)
The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis (re-read, 4/09)
Our Story Begins, Tobias Wolff (4/09)
The Meaning of Night, Michael Cox (4/09)
*New and Selected Poems, vol.2, Mary Oliver (4/09)
The Children of Green Knowe, L.M. Boston (3/09)
The Various Haunts of Men, Susan Hill (3/09)
*Fledgling, Octavia Butler (3/09)
The Lighthouse, P.D. James (3/09)
Blankets, Craig Thompson (3/09)
*When Will There Be Good News?, Kate Atkinson (3/09)
Just After Sunset, Stephen King (3/09)
The Universe in a Nutshell, Stephen Hawking (3/09)
*All the Names, Jose Saramago (3/09)
The Giver, Lois Lowry (3/09)
Dangerous Laughter, Steven Millhauser (3/09)
One Good Turn, Kate Atkinson (3/09)
Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (3/09)
*Travels in Alaska, John Muir (3/09)
Jamaica Inn, Daphne Du Maurier (3/09)
The Boy Who Reversed Himself, William Sleator (abandoned)
A Few Green Leaves, Barbara Pym (3/09)
*Bleak House, Charles Dickens (3/09)
Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu, Laurence Bergreen (2/09)
Remake, Connie Willis (2/09)
Kamouraska, Anne Hébert (2/09)
Beat To Quarters, C.S. Forester (2/09)
Don’t Look Now, Daphne du Maurier (2/09)
*Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope (2/09)
White Teeth, Zadie Smith (2/09)
Alphabet Juice, Roy Blount, Jr. (2/09)
Thread of Grace, Mary Doria Russell (2/09)
*Home, Marilynne Robinson (2/09)
*The Cross, Sigrid Undset (1/09)
Catalyst, Laurie Halse Anderson (1/09)
*Resistance, Agnes Humbert (1/09)
Mr. Punch, Neil Gaiman (1/09)
Appetites: Why Women Want, Caroline Knapp (1/09)
Rough Weather, Robert Parker (1/09)
Oracle Bones, Peter Hessler (1/09)
The Peppermint Pig, Nina Bawden (1/09)
*The Wife, Sigrid Undset (1/09)
The Haunted Doll’s House and Other Stories, M.R. James (1/09)
Fever 1793, Laurie Halse Anderson (1/09)
*The Wreath, Sigrid Undset (1/09)
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (1/09)
2008
The Absolute Sandman, vol. 4, Neil Gaiman (12/08)
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mildred Taylor (12/08)
Thirteen Steps Down, Ruth Rendell (12/08)
*Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino (12/08)
Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin (12/08)
*Everybody Was So Young, Amanda Vaill (12/08)
The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim (12/08)
Loving Living Party Going, Henry Green (12/08)
Flaubert’s Parrot, Julian Barnes (11/08)
Life Class, Pat Barker (11/08)
*The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, A.S.Byatt (11/08)
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (11/08)
Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant, ed. Jenni Ferrari-Adler (11/08)
Gemma Bovery, Posy Simmonds (11/08)
Kiss Me, Deadly, Mickey Spillane (11/08)
The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain (11/08)
The Ghost Writer, John Harwood (11/08)
*Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen (11/08)
The Ice Master, Jennifer Niven (11/08)
The Serial Garden, Joan Aiken (11/08)
Old School, Tobias Wolff (11/08)
The Art of the Personal Essay, Philip Lopate, ed. (10/08)
*If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino (10/08)
The Winds of Marble Arch, Connie Willis (10/08)
*Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy (10/08)
Queen Lucia, E.F. Benson (10/08)
*Essays of Elia, Charles Lamb (9/08)
Houses Without Doors, Peter Straub (9/08)
Inside Job, Connie Willis (9/08)
Death of the Heart, Elizabeth Bowen (9/08)
*Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object, Laurie Colwin (9/08)
Magic Terror, Peter Straub (9/08)
The Last Supper, Charles McCarry (9/08)
The Box of Delights, John Masefield (8/08)
Cold Hand in Mine, Robert Aickman (8/08)
Heart-Shaped Box, Joe Hill (8/08)
Painted Devils, Robert Aickman (8/08)
Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, Connie Willis (8/08)
The Awakening, Kate Chopin (8/08)
Shadows and Moonshine, Joan Aiken (8/08)
Cotillion, Georgette Heyer (8/08)
The House Next Door, Anne Rivers Siddons (8/08)
Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories, M.R. James (8/08)
The King in the Tree, Steven Millhauser (8/08)
La Route d’Altamont, Gabrielle Roy (7/08)
Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood (7/08)
*Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell (7/08)
*The Absolute Sandman, vol. 3, Neil Gaiman (7/08)
*Little, Big, John Crowley (7/08)
*Gemini, Dorothy Dunnett (7/08)
Duma Key, Stephen King (6/08)
*The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov (6/08)
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan (6/08)
The Keep, Jennifer Egan (6/08)
The Terror, Dan Simmons (abandoned)
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, Jeanne Birdsall (5/08)
*The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, Michael Chabon (5/08)
Arctic Grail, Pierre Berton (5/08)
The Rottweiler, Ruth Rendell (4/08)
The Killing Doll, Ruth Rendell (4/08)
Excellent Women, Barbara Pym (4/08)
The Impossible Journey of Sir Ernest Shackleton, William Bixby (4/08)
The Untouchable, John Banville (4/08)
Awake in the Dark, Shira Nayman (4/08)
Bellwether, Connie Willis (4/08)
Scales of Gold, Dorothy Dunnett (1/08)
The Chatham School Affair (abandoned)
To Lie With Lions, Dorothy Dunnett (2/08)
The Unicorn Hunt, Dorothy Dunnett (2/08)
Touchstone, Laurie King (1/08)
Give Yourself a Fright, Joan Aiken (3/08)
Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain (3/08)
Caprice and Rondo, Dorothy Dunnett (3/08)
What the Dead Know, Laura Lippman (abandoned)
Lincoln’s Virtues, William Lee Miller (DNS)
*Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, Peter Hopkirk (4/08)
Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1/08)
2007
Justice and Her Brothers, Virginia Hamilton (2/07)
Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman (1/07)
Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (6/07)
The Ode Less Travelled, Stephen Fry (2/07)
Tales, H.P. Lovecraft (5/07)
Lisey’s Story, Stephen King (1/07)
*Happy All the Time, Laurie Colwin (2/07)
Whale Talk, Chris Crutcher (1/07)
Under Orders, Dick Francis (11/07)
*Bound to Please, Michael Dirda (12/07)
Sandman, vol 21-40, Neil Gaiman (12/07)
The Towers of Trebizond, Rose Macaulay (6/07)
I Was a Teenage Fairy, Francesca Lia Block (1/07)
Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson (1/07)
According to Mark, Penelope Lively (1/07)
Pack of Cards, Penelope Lively (1/07)
*The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman (6/07)
Gate of Angels, Penelope Fitzgerald (1/07)
The Secret Lovers, Charles McCarry (1/07)
Offshore, Penelope Fitzgerald (1/07)
Grand Ambition, Lisa Michaels (2/07)
The Last King of Scotland, Giles Foden (5/07)
*Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad (10/07)
Night Inspector, Frederick Busch (2/07)
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller (8/07)
Biggest Elvis, P.F. Kluge (2/07)
Closing Arguments, Frederick Busch (2/07)
*My Cousin Rachel, Daphne DuMaurier (9/07)
Strega, Andrew Vachss (3/07)
What to Expect When You’re Expecting (2/07)
Little House series, 7 vols., Laura Ingalls Wilder (re-read, 3/07)
*The Lone Pilgrim, Laurie Colwin (4/07)
Midnight Graffiti, collection (4/07)
Aubrey-Maturin series, 20 vols., Patrick O’Brian (re-read, 3-5/07)
The Maytrees, Annie Dillard (5/07)
Cart and Cwidder, Diana Wynne Jones (9/07)
*Italian Folktales, Italo Calvino (6/07)
The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy, Vicki Iovine (5/07)
*Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham (6/07)
The Weirdstone of Brisigamen, Alan Garner (5/07)
The Young Unicorns, Madeleine L’Engle (re-read, 5/07)
Salt, Mark Kurlansky (8/07)
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky (7/07)
Malory Towers series, 6 vols., Enid Blyton (re-read, 6/07)
The Big Book of Birth, Erica Lynn (6/07)
The Dark is Rising series, 5 vols., Susan Cooper (re-read, 6/07)
The Portable Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker (7/07)
A Ring of Endless Light, Madeleine L’Engle (re-read, 7/07)
The Arm of the Starfish, Madeleine L’Engle (re-read, 7/07)
*At Large and At Small, Anne Fadiman (7/07)
The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad (7/07)
Your Movie Sucks, Roger Ebert (7/07)
Awake in the Dark, Roger Ebert (8/07)
The Art of Detection, Laurie King (7/07)
The Colorado Kid, Stephen King (7/07)
The Aeneid, Virgil (8/07)
Lincoln’s Dreams, Connie Willis (7/07)
In the Presence of the Enemy, Elizabeth George (abandoned)
The Seven Natural Laws of Breastfeeding (8/07)
*The Doomsday Book, Connie Willis (8/07)
And Both Were Young, Madeleine L’Engle (re-read, 8/07)
This Gun for Hire, Graham Greene (12/07)
*The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton (8/07)
The Sisters, Mary Lovell (9/07)
Hundred Dollar Baby, Robert Parker (9/07)
A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett (re-read, 9/07)
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett (re-read, 9/07)
The Saturdays, Elizabeth Enright (re-read, 9/07)
The Four-Story Mistake, Elizabeth Enright (re-read, 9/07)
And Then There Were Five, Elizabeth Enright (re-read, 9/07)
Spiderweb for Two, Elizabeth Enright (re-read, 9/07)
An Old-Fashioned Girl, Louisa May Alcott (re-read, 9/07)
Eight Cousins, Louisa May Alcott (re-read, 9/07)
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (re-read, 9/07)
*Collected Poems, Jane Kenyon (12/07)
*Passage, Connie Willis (10/07)
The Samurai’s Garden, Gail Tsukiyama (10/07)
The Ladies of Grace Adieu, Susannah Clarke (10/07)
Raney, Clyde Edgerton (re-read, 10/07)
Niccolo Rising, Dorothy Dunnett (re-read, 11/07)
Equal Rites, Terry Pratchett (10/07)
Goodbye Without Leaving, Laurie Colwin (11/07)
Race of Scorpions, Dorothy Dunnett (12/07)
Kindred, Octavia Butler (12/07)
The Known World, Edward Jones (10/07)
Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens (11/07)
Collapse, Jared Diamond (10/07)
*Middlemarch, George Eliot (6/07)
*The Great Game, Peter Hopkirk (9/07)
*Kim, Rudyard Kipling (1/07)
*Effi Briest, Theodor Fontane (5/07)
Desert Queen, Janet Wallach (abandoned)
*Black Boy, Richard Wright (11/07)
Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver (5/07)
*Collected Poems, Anna Akhmatova (8/07)
100 Love Sonnets, Pablo Neruda (8/07)
*Poetry, Rainer Maria Rilke (7/07)
2006
The Radiant Way, Margaret Drabble (11/06)
Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald (9/06)
Goshawk Squadron, Derek Robinson (10/06)
*Tears of Autumn, Charles McCarry (12/06)
A Natural History of Love, Diane Ackerman (abandoned)
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides (1/06)
*The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy (1/06)
The Penultimate Peril, Lemony Snicket (1/06)
Father Melancholy’s Daughter, Gail Godwin (2/06)
Evensong, Gail Godwin (2/06)
*Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson (7/06)
Operating Instructions, Anne Lamott (re-read, 1/06)
Talk to the Hand, Lynne Truss (1/06)
Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott (1/06)
Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery (re-read, 1/06)
The Owl Service, Alan Garner (2/06)
Red Shift, Alan Garner (3/06)
Anne of the Island, L.M. Montgomery (re-read, 2/06)
Back Story, Robert Parker (2/06)
Cold Service, Robert Parker (10/06)
*A Big Storm Knocked it Over, Laurie Colwin (2/06)
The Eliots of Damerosehay, 3 vols., Elizabeth Goudge (re-read, 2/06)
*Another Marvelous Thing, Laurie Colwin (3/06)
The Evening of Adam, Alice Thomas Ellis (3/06)
Lives of Girls and Women, Alice Munro (2/06)
Families and Survivors, Alice Adams (3/06)
The Final Solution, Michael Chabon (3/06)
Vanity Dies Hard, Ruth Rendell (3/06)
From Ink Lake, Michael Ondaatje, ed. (4/06)
Cell, Stephen King (abandoned)
The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova (8/06)
A Short History of Myth, Karen Armstrong (8/06)
The Lymond Chronicles, 6 vols., Dorothy Dunnett (8/06)
*Family Happiness, Laurie Colwin (6/06)
Nothing But You, Roger Angell, ed. (7/06)
Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones (8/06)
*Green Grass, Running Water, Thomas King (7/06)
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, Amy Krouse Rosenthal (10/06)
Singularity, William Sleator (10/06)
The End, Lemony Snicket (10/06)
Hush Money, Robert Parker (re-read, 10/06)
Paper Doll, Robert Parker (re-read, 10/06)
Crimson Joy, Robert Parker (re-read, 10/06)
Break In, Dick Francis (re-read, 10/06)
Come to Grief, Dick Francis (re-read, 10/06)
When She Was Queen, M.G. Vassanji (10/06)
Kindergarten, Peter Rushforth (re-read, 10/06)
Moonheart, Charles de Lint (abandoned)
*The Penderwicks, Jeanne Birdsall (10/06)
Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl (abandoned)
School Days, Robert Parker (10/06)
*Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman (11/06)
Coraline, Neil Gaiman (re-read, 10/06)
Stardust, Robert Parker (re-read, 11/06)
The 27th Kingdom, Alice Thomas Ellis (12/06)
A Shooting Star, Wallace Stegner (12/06)
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter Miller, Jr. (12/06)
Minotaur, Barbara Vine (12/06)
The Road to Lichfield, Penelope Lively (12/06)
The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood (12/06)
Sandman, vol. 1-20, Neil Gaiman (12/06)
The Boy in the Water, Stephen Dobyns (abandoned)
Touching the Void, Joe Simpson (9/06)
Girl, Interrupted, Susanna Kaysen (2/06)
Journals of Susannah Moodie, Margaret Atwood (10/06)
2005
*The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins (7/05)
*Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston (5/05)
The Cement Garden, Ian McEwan (7/05)
Beauty, Robin McKinley (abandoned)
Bastard Out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison (3/05)
The Winter Without Milk, Jane Avrich (7/05)
Grasshopper, Barbara Vine (6/05)
The Paris Review Book of Heartbreak, Madness, Sex, Love, Betrayal, Outsiders, Intoxication, War, Whimsy, Horrors, God, Death, Dinner, Baseball, Travels, the Art of Writing, and Everything Else in the World Since 1953 (3/05)
Young Men and Fire, Norman McLean (2/05)
Wolves of the Calla, Stephen King (1/05)
*The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy (6/05)
*Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson (8/05)
Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters (8/05)
The Book of Revelation, Rupert Thomson (8/05)
Codex, Lev Grossman (5/05)
A Mass for the Dead, William Gibson (7/05)
The Long Walk, Slavomir Rawicz (abandoned)
Kings of Infinite Space, James Hynes (5/05)
Darkness, Take My Hand, Dennis Lehane (1/05)
Song of Susannah, Stephen King (1/05)
*Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susannah Clarke (3/05)
*Zelda, Nancy Milford (7/05)
*Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis (7/05)
*River Town, Peter Hessler (1/05)
*Wild Swans, Jung Chang (3/05)
Born to Buy, Juliet Schor (1/05)
*The Soul of a Chef, Michael Ruhlman (2/05)
A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman (2/05)
The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo (3/05)
Red Gold, Alan Furst (3/05)
*Moon Tiger, Penelope Lively (3/05)
The True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey (4/05)
The Dark Tower, Stephen King (1/05)
The Love Letters, Madeleine L’Engle (5/05)
Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee (5/05)
*Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (6/05)
Prayers for Rain, Dennis Lehane (7/05)
*The Song of the Dodo, David Quammen (7/05)
*Ex Libris, Anne Fadiman (6/05)
Le Lotus Bleu, Hergé (6/05)
Straight Man, Richard Russo (7/05)
*The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins (7/05)
The Night in Question, Tobias Wolff (7/05)
Keeping Watch, Laurie King (7/05)
A Very Long Engagement, Sebastien Japrisot (7/05)
No-No Boy, John Okada (7/05)
Miracle at St Anna, James McBride (7/05)
Band of Brothers, Stephen Ambrose (7/05)
The Skull Mantra, Eliot Pattison (8/05)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling (9/05)
The Lost Daughters of China, Karin Evans (9/05)
2004
Knots and Crosses, Ian Rankin (7/04)
*Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond (5/04)
Lilith, George Macdonald (1/04)
Bitten, Kelley Armstrong (2/04)
Cities of the Plain, Cormac McCarthy (6/04)
*Beloved, Toni Morrison (3/04)
Fairy Tale, Alice Thomas Ellis (7/04)
*Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (7/04)
Jack the Giant-Killer, Charles de Lint (8/04)
The Seventh Swan, Nicholas Stuart Gray (abandoned)
Cadillac Jack, Larry McMurtry (6/04)
*Dark Star, Alan Furst (6/04)
*The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon (2/04)
Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon (8/04)
*Savage Beauty, Nancy Milford (9/04)
*The Moon and Sixpence, W. Somerset Maugham (2/04)
The Birthday Boys, Beryl Bainbridge (3/04)
*War for the Oaks, Emma Bull (8/04)
A Coffin for Dimitrios, Eric Ambler (6/04)
*Sacred Hunger, Barry Unsworth (3/04)
Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn (1/04)
The Little Friend, Donna Tartt (1/04)
lost boy lost girl, Peter Straub (1/04)
Ordinary Horror, David Searcy (11/04)
The Chimney-Sweeper’s Boy, Barbara Vine (1/04)
A Drink Before the War, Dennis Lehane (2/04)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (3/04)
The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers (11/04)
The Wine-Dark Sea, Robert Aickman (5/04)
The Roald Dahl Omnibus, Roald Dahl (re-read, 4/04)
Nursery Crimes, anthology (4/04)
*The Color Purple, Alice Walker (9/04)
*Little Black Book of Stories, A.S. Byatt (6/04)
Over the Edge, Jonathan Kellerman (5/04)
Gone Baby Gone, Dennis Lehane (5/04)
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (re-read, 6/04)
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard (re-read, 6/04)
Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon (6/04)
Expecting Adam, Martha Beck (6/04)
Tulipomania, Mike Dash (12/04)
The Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler (7/04)
Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Lynn Truss (7/04)
Possession, A.S. Byatt (re-read, 8/04)
Girl of the Limberlost, Gene Stratton-Porter (re-read, 6/04)
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, Diana Wynne Jones (7/04)
Silent Partner, Jonathan Kellerman (7/04)
Daughter of the Land, Gene Stratton-Porter (re-read, 7/04)
The Harvester, Gene Stratton-Porter, (re-read, 7/04)
The Streets of Laredo, Larry McMurtry (8/04)
The Game, Laurie King (8/04)
Dark Specter, Michael Dibdin (9/04)
The Grim Grotto, Lemony Snicket (9/04)
2003
The Truth, Terry Pratchett (3/03)
War in Heaven, Charles Williams (1/03)
Descent into Hell, Charles Williams (1/03)
Phantastes, Charles Williams (4/03)
The Midwich Cuckoos, John Wyndham (1/03)
Longitude, Dava Sobel (3/03)
A History of Israel, Howard Sachar (abandoned)
Devices and Desires, P.D. James (1/03)
Death in Holy Orders, P.D. James (4/03)
Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (1/03)
Tender At the Bone, Ruth Reichl (1/03)
Ali and Nino, Kurban Said (5/03)
The Love of a Good Woman, Alice Munro (9/03)
The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy (8/03)
Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens (6/03)
Noblesse Oblige, Nancy Mitford (12/03)
Nine Horses, Billy Collins (1/03)
The Fourth Hand, John Irving (4/03)
The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde (4/03)
*Regeneration, Pat Barker (4/03)
Night Soldiers, Alan Furst (3/03)
Neon Rain, James Lee Burke (4/03)
*Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (9/03)
*Vanity Fair, William Thackeray (4/03)
Swallows and Amazons, Peter Ransome (3/03)
Crimson Joy, Robert Parker (re-read, 1/03)
The Go-Between, L.P. Hartley (2/03)
Hornblower and the Atropos, C.S. Forester (1/03)
Many Dimensions, Charles Williams (3/03)
Letters to Alice, Fay Weldon (3/03)
Trouble, Fay Weldon (3/03)
Wicked Women, Fay Weldon (3/03)
Revenge, Stephen Fry (3/03)
*All of Us, Raymond Carver (7/03)
Trial of Elizabeth Cree, Peter Ackroyd (3/03)
Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart (3/03)
*Tom Jones, Henry Fielding (8/03)
The Eye in the Door, Pat Barker (5/03)
The World at Night, Alan Furst (6/03)
I Saw Esau, Iona and Peter Opie (4/03)
Heaven’s Prisoners, James Lee Burke (5/03)
Riffs and Reciprocities, Stephen Dunn (5/03)
Holes, Louis Sachar (5/03)
Kindergarten, Peter Rushforth (10/03)
Briar Rose, Jane Yolen (5/03)
Too Soon to Tell, Calvin Trillin (5/03)
Auto da Fay, Fay Weldon (8/03)
The Photograph, Penelope Lively (10/03)
Dry, Augusten Burroughs (6/03)
The Debt to Pleasure, John Lanchester (6/03)
Little House books, 6 vol., Laura Ingalls Wilder (re-read, 7/03)
You Must Remember This, Joyce Carol Oates (abandoned)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling (7/03)
Small Vices, Robert Parker (re-read, 7/03)
Questions About Angels, Billy Collins (7/03)
New Selected Poems, Galway Kinnell (7/03)
Stardust, Robert Parker (re-read, 7/03)
The Road from Coorain, Jill Ker Conway (8/03)
The Sun, the Moon, the Stars, Stephen Brust (10/03)
Affinity, Sarah Waters (10/03)
The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories, Gene Wolfe (10/03)
Books of Blood, Clive Barker (10/03)
The Slippery Slope, Lemony Snicket (11/03)
Dark Companions, Ramsey Campbell (11/03)
Four Dark Nights, Bentley Little (11/03)
At the Back of the North Wind, George MacDonald (re-read, 12/03)
The Princess and the Goblins, George MacDonald (re-read, 12/03)
Wifey, Judy Blume (12/03)
Tales of the Supernatural and Uncanny, Algernon Blackwood (12/03)
The Murder Room, P.D. James (12/03)
The Painted Devil, Robert Aickman (12/03)
2002
Lamb in Love, Carrie Brown (abandoned)
Eleanor Rushing, Patty Friedmann (abandoned)
Night Work, Laurie King (10/02)
In the Land of the Big Red Apple, Roger Lea MacBride (12/02)
*The Art of Eating, M.F.K. Fisher (1/02)
*To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis (1/02)
The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman (1/02)
The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman (abandoned)
Ruby in the Smoke, Philip Pullman (1/02)
The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, Joyce Reardon (abandoned)
New American Poets (3/02)
Get With the Program, Bob Greene (1/02)
The Carnivorous Carnival, Lemony Snicket (11/02)
*Peace Like a River, Leif Enger (5/02)
*Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (12/02)
*All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy (2/02)
Friend of My Youth, Alice Munro (1/02)
Shadow in the North, Philip Pullman (3/02)
An American Childhood, Annie Dillard (re-read, 2/02)
Tiger in the Well, Philip Pullman (4/02)
Everything’s Eventual, Stephen King (4/02)
Folly, Laurie King (3/02)
High Five, Janet Evanovich (3/02)
Widow’s Walk, Robert Parker (4/02)
*Atonement, Ian McEwan (11/02)
*The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford (4/02)
A Widow for One Year, John Irving (5/02)
*Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh (re-read, 5/02)
*An Equal Music, Vikram Seth (5/02)
Justice Hall, Laurie King (8/02)
*This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff (6/02)
*American Gods, Neil Gaiman (8/02)
Smoke and Mirrors, Neil Gaiman (7/02)
*Coraline, Neil Gaiman (7/02)
Tam Lin, Pamela Dean (10/02)
Picnic, Lightning, Billy Collins (8/02)
The Art of Drowning, Billy Collins (8/02)
Morning in the Burned House, Margaret Atwood (10/02)
*Amsterdam, Ian McEwan (9/02)
The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler (9/02)
The Blood Doctor, Barbara Vine (9/02)
The Lecturer’s Tale, James Hynes (11/02)
Fingersmith, Sarah Waters (10/02)
Enduring Love, Ian McEwan (10/02)
From a Buick 8, Stephen King (12/02)
*The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (11/02)
Some Can Whistle, Larry McMurtry (11/02)
*Jenny and the Jaws of Life, Jincy Willett (12/02)
Early Autumn, Robert Parker (re-read, 12/02)
2001
*Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (7/01)
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden (11/01)
*Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens (7/01)
The Nutmeg of Consolation, Patrick O’Brian (re-read, 4/01)
American Tabloid, James Ellroy (DNS)
The Black Dahlia, James Ellroy (abandoned)
Blue at the Mizzen, Patrick O’Brian (6/01)
Riding the Bullet, Stephen King (3/01)
Galileo’s Daughter, Dava Sobel (6/01)
Dreamcatcher, Stephen King (5/01)
*King Lear, Shakespeare (6/01)
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (5/01)
A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (4/01)
The White Mountains, John Christopher (5/01)
The City of Gold and Lead, John Christopher (5/01)
The Pool of Fire, John Christopher (5/01)
When the Tripods Came, John Christopher (5/01)
High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (5/01)
Unsolved Mysteries of the Arctic, Stefansson (6/01)
The Old Curiosity Shop, Charles Dickens (abandoned)
The Warden, Anthony Trollope (9/01)
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, C.S. Forester (8/01)
Little House on Rocky Ridge, Roger Lea MacBride (8/01)
Little House in the Ozarks, Roger Lea MacBride (8/01)
Lieutenant Hornblower, C.S. Forester (9/01)
*Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (re-read, 8/01)
*Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome (8/01)
The Skull Beneath the Skin, P.D. James (7/01)
An Old-Fashioned Girl, Louisa May Alcott (re-read, 8/01)
Notes From a Small Country, Bill Bryson (8/01)
The Biographer’s Tale, A.S. Byatt (8/01)
Vichy France and the Jews, Marrus, Paxton, and Hoffman (9/01)
Black House, Stephen King and Peter Straub (9/01)
Hornblower and the Hotspur, C.S. Forester (10/01)
*A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket (re-read, 10-11/01 — 8 vol.)
Original Sin, P.D. James (9/01)
Shopgirl, Steve Martin (12/01)
Perish Twice, Robert Parker (12/01)
Angels and Insects, A.S. Byatt (12/01)
*The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman (12/01)
2000
Cemetery Nights, Stephen Dobyns (12/00)
*Velocities, Stephen Dobyns (12/00)
Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (5/00)
Between Silk and Cyanide, Leo Marks (1/00)
The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith (2/00)
Ripley Under Ground, Patricia Highsmith (2/00)
A Test of Wills, Charles Todd (2/00)
Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett (2/00)
Wings of Fire, Charles Todd (2/00)
Send a Fax to the Kasbah, Dorothy Dunnett (3/00)
The Aubrey-Maturin series, Patrick O’Brian (re-read, 3-4/00, 19 vol.)
Firestarter, Stephen King (4/00)
The World Split Open, Ruth Rosen (6/00)
The War Against Boys, Christina Hoff Sommers (6/00)
*Graves of Academe, Richard Mitchell (1/00)
The Gift of Fire, Richard Mitchell (2/00)
The Johnson Johnson mysteries, Dorothy Dunnett
The Seven Per Cent Solution, Nicholas Meyer (abandoned)
*Possession, A.S. Byatt (10/00)
*Moo, Jane Smiley (9/00)
1999
*For the Time Being, Annie Dillard (5/99)
*The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (6/99)
*Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott (4/99)
*Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott (7/99)
*The Game of Kings, Dorothy Dunnett (4/99)
*Queen’s Play, Dorothy Dunnett (4/99)
*The Disorderly Knights, Dorothy Dunnett (5/99)
*Pawn in Frankincense, Dorothy Dunnett (5/99)
*The Ringed Castle, Dorothy Dunnett (6/99)
*Checkmate, Dorothy Dunnett (6/99)
*The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Marie Pope (4/99)
Encounters With Chinese Writers, Annie Dillard (6/99)
*The Writing Life, Annie Dillard (5/99)
*Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card (6/99)
Talk Before Sleep, Elizabeth Berg (6/99)
*Crooked Little Heart, Anne Lamott (6/99)
*O Jerusalem, Laurie King (6/99)
Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns (12/99)
Rosie, Anne Lamott (5/99)
Niccolo Rising, Dorothy Dunnett (6/99)
Lord of the Flies, William Golding (10/99)
Joe Jones, Anne Lamott (7/99)
Bolt, Dick Francis (re-read, 7/99)
Break In, Dick Francis (re-read, 7/99)
The Edge, Dick Francis (re-read, 7/99)
Banker, Dick Francis (re-read, 7/99)
The Danger, Dick Francis (re-read, 7/99)
Girl of the Limberlost, Gene Stratton-Porter (re-read, 7/99)
Seven Steps to Midnight, Richard Matheson (9/99)
A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking (10/99)
*Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens (11/99)
*Less Than Words Can Say, Richard Mitchell (12/99)
