Well, I made it to 100 books this year, helped immensely by a collection of art books and craft books.
Here’s the list:
| A Beader’s Reference | Jane Davis |
| Hunting Down Amanda | Andrew Klavan |
| A Heinlein Trio | Robert Heinlein |
| Designing Jewelry with Glass Beads | Stephanie Sersich |
| Adam-12: The Runaway | Chris Stratton |
| Adam-12: Dead on Arrival | Chris Stratton |
| Blood for a Dirty Dollar | Joe Millard |
| Wilson’s Creek | William Garrett Piston & Richard W. Hatcher III |
| Make Necklaces | Jo Moody |
| Jumpers | Tom Stoppard |
| The Frankenstein Factory | Edward D. Hoch |
| Assignment Golden Girl | Edward S. Aarons |
| Street Fighter | Todd Strasser |
| The Crime Encyclopedia | Marie J. MacNee |
| Kipling: A Selection of His Stories and Poems Volume 1 | edited by John Beecroft |
| Skin Tight | Carl Hiaasen |
| Captains Courageous | Rudyard Kipling |
| Play It Again Sam | Stephen Humphrey Bogart |
| The Magic of Scrub Holler | Lanny Gibson |
| 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America | Bernard Goldberg |
| Arizona Ambush | Don Pendleton |
| The Joy of Junk | Cheryl Fall |
| Winnowing Out Our Souls | Jane Hoogestraat |
| The Illustrated Man | Ray Bradbury |
| Tennessee Smash | Don Pendleton |
| Trash to Treasure 8 | Leisure Arts, Inc. |
| The Art of Woodburning | Betty Auth |
| Clemmie | John D. MacDonald |
| Two Hour Crafts | Landauer Books |
| Viets Guide to Sex,Travel, & Anything Else That Will Sell This Book | Elaine Viets |
| Brother Odd | Dean Koontz |
| Craftivity | edited by Tsia Carson |
| Trash to Treasure 2 | Leisure Arts, Inc. |
| Another Antigone | A.R. Gurney, Jr. |
| Tabletop Fountains | Dawn Cusick |
| Historic Midwest Houses | John Drury |
| Up For Grabs/Top of the Heap | Erle Stanley Gardner |
| Step-by-Step Pyrography | Bob Neill |
| Creative Tabletop Fountains | Marthe Le Van |
| Junk Beautiful Outdoor Edition | Sue Whitney with Kimberly Melamed |
| Murder, She Wrote: Dying to Retire | Jessica Fletcher with Donald Bain |
| 100 Crafts Under $10 | Better Homes and Gardens |
| Wicked Prey | John Sandford |
| The Salvage Sisters’ Guide to Finding Style in the Street and Inspiration in the Attic | Kathleen Hackett and Mary Ann Young |
| Great Presidential Wit | Bob Dole |
| City | Clifford B. Simak |
| Rules of Prey | John Sandford |
| Cosbyology | Bill Cosby |
| Getting Even with the Answering Machine | John Carfi and Cliff Carle |
| Currier and Ives’ America | edited by Colin Simkin |
| Detroit | Perrin Souvenir Company |
| Alberto Vargas: Works from the Max Vargas Collection | Reid Stewart Austin |
| Dick Tracy: The Secret Files | Edited by Max Allan Collins and Martin H. Greenberg |
| Kilobyte Couture | Brittany Forks |
| Creative Juice | Cathie Filian and Steve Piacenza |
| It Happened In Lemay | William F. Alden |
| The Bug | Ellen Ullman |
| Frederic Remington | Peter Hassrick |
| Odd Hours | Dean Koontz |
| Degas | Phoebe Pool |
| The Impressionists | Denis Thomas |
| Rough Country | John Sandford |
| Napkin Decoupage | Deborah Morbin and Tracy Boomer |
| The New Roadside America | Mike Wilkins, Ken Smith, and Doug Kirby |
| Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars Volume I | Greg Cox |
| Everything Crafts Easy Projects | edited by Courtney Nolan |
| Three-dimensional Decoupage | Hilda Stokes |
| Friday’s Feast | Don Pendleton |
| Fatherhood | Bill Cosby |
| You Look Nice Today | Stanley Bing |
| Trash to Treasure 6 | Leisure Arts |
| Borrowed Ideas and Famous Firsts: St. Louis Architecture | Marilynne Bradley and Ahme Quist |
| Hand Shadows To Be Thrown On The Wall | Henry Bursill |
| Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World | Jack Weatherford |
| Satan’s Sabbath | Don Pendleton |
| Rustic Reminders of the Past | Leo Hamblet |
| Motherhood, the Second Oldest Profession | Erma Bombeck |
| Double Crossfire | Don Pendleton |
| A History of the Rural Schools of Greene County, MO | David L. Burton |
| The Libyan Contract | Don Smith |
| Second Opinions of Hippocrates’ Oaf | James T. Brown, MD |
| Copp for Hire | Don Pendleton |
| Paul Harvey’s For What It’s Worth | edited by Paul Harvey, Jr. |
| Copp on Fire | Don Pendleton |
| Missouri Trivia | Ernie Couch |
| Fantastic Four The Universal Guide | |
| Color Treasury of Firearms | Crescent Books |
| Growing Up in the Ozarks | John E. Hult |
| The Past Through Tomorrow | Robert Heinlein |
| Mary Ellen’s Best of Helpful Hints | Mary Ellen |
| Cambodia Clash | Mack Bolan |
I didn’t read too much of real consequence this year; just a couple of Rudyard Kipling books. Also, in my defense in the run up to 100, one of the Kipling books was a collection with multiple books in it, and one of the Heinlein books I read this year was a collection of three shorter novels. Still, I count the number of books read.
I also didn’t add in my own novel, which I’ve read once through in manuscript form and a half way in bound galley form. Watch for that next year, werd.
If you’re interested in learning what I thought about each book on the list, check out the Book Reports category and keep scrolling.
This list is a fascinating assortment covering so many different topics and styles of writing.
I think that I’ve read about 20 books this year. Every now and then I get it into my head to read some heavy lit, but it’s been a while. Maybe some Nabokov would be good eating.
Keep up the work on JDG. I plan to read it when it comes out.
The list is a little light on the heavy lit this year; I read a bunch of Kipling, but that’s about it. Actually, I’m partly through the second volume of the Kipling collection, but since I’m not finished with it, it doesn’t show on this list. I’ve also started a volume of Epictetus’s work. But this year saw a lot of pulp. Also, I took a lot of evenings in the middle of the year to watch films, so I limited my reading time.