This year's goal was 30 books, and I met it with style!
My favorites were the Lord of the Rings books, of course. But I also loved the experience of reading Contact
and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at the same time. There was a surprising amount of overlap and
cross-reference, which I particularly enjoyed. I also highly recommend The Physiognomy by Jeffrey Ford,
which was an intense sci-fi/fantasy about how damaging prejudice can be.
This was one of my favorite years, in literary terms. I read some of the great classics just because I had to the
leisure to do so, and I cherished them, every one. Misses for me this year were The Celestine Prophecy,
which felt hokey to me, and Something Rich and Strange. Talk about odd. It was a novel based on a Brian
Froud painting, which I expected to be interesting. It wasn't.
Oh yes, mustn't forget the new Amber novels. Not as great as Zelazny's original chronicles, but reading in the
world of Amber again was just like a journey home after a long absence.
2004
1. Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien
2. The Two Towersby J. R. R. Tolkien
3. The Copper Beech, by Maeve Binchy
4. The Return of the King, by J. R. R. Tolkien
5. Timeline, by Michael Crichton
6. Snow Glass Apples, by Neil Gaiman
7. Murder Mysteries, by Neil Gaiman
8. The Lord God Made Them All, by James Harriott
9. 1916, by Morgan Llywelyn
10. Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
11. Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen
12. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
13. The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
14. The Celestine Prophecy, by James Redfield
15. The Return of the King (re-read), by J. R. R. Tolkien
16. The Sweet Potato Queen’s Book of Love, by Jill Conner Browne
17. Friends... til The End, by David Wild
18. Griffen & Sabine, by Nick Bantock
19. The Vampire Armand, by Anne Rice
20. Sabine’s Notebook, by Nick Bantock
21. The Golden Mean, by Nick Bantock
22. The Gryphon, by Nick Bantock
23. Alexandria, by Nick Bantock
24. The Morning Star, by Nick Bantock
25. Something Rich and Strange, by Patricia A. McKillip
26. Evening Class, by Maeve Binchy
27. Farewell to My Concubine, by Lillian Lee
28. The Dawn of Amber, by . G. Betancourt
29. The Notebook, by Nicholas Sparks
30. Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming, by Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley
31. The Truest Pleasure, by Robert Morgan
32. A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeliene L’Engle
33. Bridget Jones’ Diary, by Helen Fielding
34. Roverandom, by J. R. R. Tolkien
35. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, by Helen Fielding
36. The River King, by Alice Hoffman
37. Chaos and Amber, by J. G. Betancourt
38. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
39. Contact, by Carl Sagan
40. The Physiognomy, by Jeffrey Ford
