Books Finished in 2006

1. The Fabulous Girl's Guide to Decorum by Kim Izzo (1/6/06)

2. Alligators, Old Mink & New Money by Alison and Melissa Houtte (1/11/06)

3. The Hour Before Dawn & Two Other Stories from Newford by Charles de Lint (2/7/06)

4. The Two-Minute Rule by Robert Crais (3/1/06)

5. Prior Bad Acts by Tami Hoag (4/7/06)

6. Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown by Adena Halpern (7/21/06)

7. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (7/31/06)

8. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (8/09/06)

9. Gideon's Wall by Greg Kurzawa (10/13/06)

10. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (10/15/06)

11. The Sense of Paper: A Novel of Obsessions by Taylor Holden (10/20/06)

12. Imagined London by Anna Quindlen

13. 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff (my third reading at least)

Books Started in 2006

Alligators, Old Mink & New Money: One Woman's Adventures in Vintage Clothing by Alison and Melissa Houtte (1/6/06)

The Planets by Dava Sobel (1/20/06)

In the Shadow of the Gargoyle edited by Nancy Kilpatrick and Thomas S. Roche (1/24/06)

The Hour Before Dawn & Two Other Stories from Newford by Charles de Lint (2/6/06)

Moonlight & Vines by Charles de Lint

The Two-Minute Rule by Robert Crais (2/27/06)

The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll (3/1/06)

Prior Bad Acts by Tami Hoag (4/4/06)

Ashes to Ashes by Tami Hoag (4/10/06)

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seirstad (4/17/06)

Do You Speak American? by Robert MacNeil & William Cran (5/1/06)

Dead Beat by Jim Butcher (5/3/06)

Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown by Adena Halpern (7/16/06)

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (7/23/06)

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (8/1/06)

Gideon's Wall by Greg Kurzawa

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Sense of Paper: A Novel of Obesssions by Taylor Holden

Books to Read in 2006

Several books have caught my interest--The Judgment of Paris by Ross King, for example--but I think that it might be a good idea to finish up some of the myriad of books I have started but never finished because I have gotten distractracted by my next find.

A few that come immediately to mind:
One King, One Soldier by Alex Irvine
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Anna Karenina by Tolstoy
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Nine Layers of Sky by Liz Williams
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (Started after I read The Hours by Michael Cunningham)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon (So similar to the movie, however, that I may never finish reading it; low on the priority list)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (It's interesting, and I like his writing style, but it's probably much longer than it needs to be and occasionally borders on melodramatic.)
Wilson's Ghost
The Paradox of American Power
The World Is Flat by Friedman
Lawless World by Phillippe Sands

In some cases, I have been somewhere in the midst of the book for so long that I might as well start over at the beginning.

As for books I have not started but am going to move to the top of the To Be Read mountain:
Orlando by Virgina Woolf
Howard's End by E.M. Forster
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss
Wideacre by Philippa Gregory
The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint
Moonlight & Vines by Charles de Lint
White Apples by Jonathan Carroll (or maybe something else by the same author)

The goal for the last several years has been to read an average of a book a week. In 2004, I think I managed about forty. Last year I didn't even come close. This year I think that I might compose a wish list of books to read this year as well as keeping track of the ones that actually get read and the ones that get started but not finished, with a separate entry for each.