Since I've been ill I've had plenty of time to read. Here is a list of most of the books I read in 2004....

Since I've been ill I've had plenty of time to read. Here is a list of most of the books I read in 2004:

Marie's Diaries 1935-1955: The Diaries of Marie Pearl Cox Fisher, Burnley Farm, Louisa County, Virginia
My father's mother's mother's diaries, privately published.

Priscilla Cooper Tyler and the American scene 1816-1889. / Elizabeth Tyler Coleman.
Biography of Matt's Great-great-great-great-grandmother.

Thomas Abthorpe Cooper: America's Premier Tragedian / Geddeth Smith
Biography of Matt's Great-great-great-great-great-grandfather

The Autobiography of Elder Charles Derry
My mother's father's father's uncle.

The difference that disability makes / by Michalko, Rod
I disliked this and did not finish.

Achievement matters : getting your child the best education possible
aimed only at black parents. Did not finish.

Pride and prejudice / Jane Austen
A classic, but still fun.

How the Scots invented the Modern World: the true story of how western Europe's poorest nation created our world & everything in it / Arthur Herman
Grandiose title, but a good book, if a little heavy going at times.

The good women of China : hidden voices /
_The Good Women of China_ is non-fiction, and truly astonishing. You [everyone] should read it! Reading about a family in which the children have only one set of clothes among them, so only one gets to go outside at a time, can't help but make you more grateful for what you have.

Watershed : the undamming of America /
good, but did not finish.

The anatomy of hope : how people prevail in the face of illness / by Jerome Groopman
Very good.

Eragon by Christopher Paolini
Not at all worth reading. Obviously written by a teenager. Could not get past the first few pages. What I did read was nothing but the cliches of fantasy. I could not figure out what allo the fuss was about. So what if the author is home-schooled?

Middlesex / Jeffrey Eugenides
I liked this novel overall, the story of a boy who is raised as a girl. Parts were pretty strange.

The Eyre affair: a novel / Jasper Fforde
One of my very favorite works of fiction ever, a most peculiar book, a mystery set in an alternative reality. The detective, Thursday Next, lives in an England that is distinctly different from ours. Popular culture revolves around literature, rather than music or television. It helps to have read a number of famous works of literature - you get more of the extremely clever jokes - but you certainly don't have to know them all. I liked this book better after the first reading. At first I didn't plan to read the sequels. Then I did, and the series grew on me:
Lost in a Good Book / Jasper Fforde
The Well of Lost Plots / Jasper Fforde
Something Rotten / Jasper Fforde
Like many mysteries, they are best read in order of publication. The author's web site gives free "upgrades" (lists of corrections you should make due to errors in editing and typography).

Inkheart / Cornelia Funke.
Very good fantasy. Supposedly for children, but fine for adults.

Dragon Rider / Cornelia Funke, Anthea Bell
I was very glad to have Alan's warning first that this was a little-kid book. More childish than the dragons were the gratuitous talking mice, and humans who are not even surprised the first time they hear them talk.

Hominids / Robert J. Sawyer
Good science fiction.
Humans / Robert J. Sawyer
Sequel to Hominids.
Hybrids. / Robert J. Sawyer
Sequel to Humans.

Mandarin Plaid /
Third book in Lydia Chin and Bill Smith mystery series. I like this series.
No Colder Place.
Fourth book in Lydia Chin and Bill Smith mystery series.
China trade /
First book in Lydia Chin and Bill Smith mystery series.
A bitter feast /
Fifth book in Lydia Chin and Bill Smith mystery series.
Stone quarry /
Sixth book in Lydia Chin and Bill Smith mystery series.
Winter and night /
Seventh book in Lydia Chin and Bill Smith mystery series.

The black swan / Mercedes Lackey
Fantasy, a retelling of Swan Lake. Well done.

The eagle & the nightingales / Mercedes Lackey
The robin & the kestrel / Mercedes Lackey
Four & twenty blackbirds
Books two, three and four in a series that cannot be described as Lackey's best, but fun for those who like her.

The Valdemar companion : a guide to Mercedes Lackey / Joh Helfers et al.
I got this out of the library for my son. It contains a novella by Lackey not published elsewhere.

Before & after decorating /
Just what it sounds like.

Owlflight /
From another series that cannot be described as Lackey's best, but fun for those who like her.

Ring of fire / Eric Flint (ed.)
Sequel to 1632, by Eric Flint. Better than 1633. What would happen if a small town from the US found itself transposed to the middle of the Thirty Years' War in what is now Germany? 1632 was the first and best of this series.

Word freak : heartbreak, triumph, genius, and obsession in the world of competitive Scrabble players / By Stefan Fatsis
The author set out to become a champion-level Scrabble player. Word Freak changed my feelings about Scrabble (I do NOT want to play in tournaments).

The spiral staircase : my climb out of darkness / Karen Armstrong
Autobiography, describes Armstrong's life as a nun and leaving the convent. Very good.

Exile's valor / Mercedes Lackey
One of the best novels from Lackey's Valdemar fantasy series. Her writing has clearly matured with time. Many in the Valdemar series are rather childish - I mean, come on, telephathic creatures that look like horses?! - but they hang together well, and contain good stories.

The King's Coat / Dewie Lambdin
The king's privateer /
The French admiral : a novel / by Lambdin, Dewey.
The gun ketch /
The king's commission : an Alan Lewrie naval adventure / by Lambdin, Dewey.
The king's privateer / by Lambdin, Dewey.
H.M.S. Cockerel : an Alan Lewrie naval adventure
Dewie Lambdin's Alan Lewrie series is another on the idea of Horatio Hornblower and other popular sea novels. Alan Lewrie is naughtier, and more modern in morals.

Mr. Midshipman Hornblower /
First in the Horatio Hornblower series of naval adventures. I'm so glad I am not at see on a sailing ship of the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries! We also read the rest of the series this year:
Lieutenant Hornblower
Hornblower and the Hotspur
Hornblower during the Crisis, and Two Stories: "Hornblower's Temptation" and "The Last Encounter"
Hornblower and the Atropos
Beat to Quarters
A Ship of the Line
Flying Colours
Commodore Hornblower
Lord Hornblower
Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies

Master and Commander / Patrick O'Brian
First in the Aubrey/Maturin sea adventure series.

Blindsided : lifting a life above illness : a reluctant memoir / by Cohen, Richard
I have found few autobiographies books detailing life with a disability. This one's good, about Cohen's fight with MS.

The crystal city / by Card, Orson Scott.

Dim sum dead : a Madeline Bean culinary mystery / by Farmer, Jerrilyn.
Immaculate reception : a Madeline Bean catering mystery / by Farmer, Jerrilyn.
Killer wedding : a Madeline Bean catering mystery / by Farmer, Jerrilyn.
Perfect sax : a Madeline Bean novel /

The engines of our ingenuity : an engineer looks at technology and culture / by Lienhard, John H., 1930-

Houston then & now / by Powell, William Dylan.
Like other "Then & Now" books (with different authors), this shows the same sites in old and modern photos. They are fascinating for any city you know well.

How to relax by Carrington, Patricia.
This did not stick. I think I'll check it out again.

Open heart : a patient's story of life-saving medicine and life-giving friendship / by Neugeboren, Jay.
I enjoyed this.

Plato, not prozac! : applying philosophy to everyday problems / by Marinoff, Lou.
Not a diatribe against medication, this is a book about using philosophy as an alternative to psychiatry. Entertaining read for me.

Right ho, Jeeves / by Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville), 1881-1975.
Pretty silly.

Schott's original miscellany / by Schott, Ben, 1974-
A fun book of lists.

Tail of the tip-off / by Brown, Rita Mae.
Eleventh in Brown's mystery series about a cat named Mrs. Murphy and her owner. Very good if you can get past the human impulses and communication abilities attributed to the animals.

The torso in the town : a Fethering mystery / by Brett, Simon.

What the numbers say : a field guide to mastering our numerical world / by Niederman, Derrick.

Are you really going to eat that? : reflections of a culinary thrill seeker / by Walsh, Robb
Robb Walsh is the restaurant reviewer for the Houston Press (weekly). He's great fun to read, too, if you like reading about food.

Dragon's Kin / by Anne McCaffrey, Todd McCaffrey
One of the worst Anne McCaffrey books I've read. We're going to avoid further books by Todd McCaffrey. That said, this was a fluffy book when I desperately needed a fluffy book to distract me.

Feng shui your home, garden, office and life : achieving health, happiness and prosperity though the ancient art of placement / by Hale, Gill.
Feng Shui seems pretty silly to me. My husband got this out for me. He's nice. Thank goodness I could give it back.

Hotspur / by Brown, Rita Mae.

How to practice : the way to a meaningful life / by Bstan-dzin-rgya-mtsho, Dalai Lama XIV
The Dalai Lama is a very kind and sensible man.

Guardian of the horizon / Elizabeth Peters
Exciting for Peters' fans (I'm one). Not the best book to start with if you are unfamiliar with her fiction.

The dreaming place / Charles de Lint
Moonlight and vines : a Newford collection / Charles de Lint
Forests of the heart / Charles de Lint
The onion girl / Charles de Lint
Spirits in the wires / Charles de Lint
Tapping the dream tree / Charles de Lint
Guardian of the horizon / Charles de Lint
Someplace to be flying / Charles de Lint
Dreams underfoot : the Newford collection /
Trader / Charles de Lint
Memory and dream /
Yarrow : an autumn tale /
Jack of Kinrowan /
Seven wild sisters /
The Newford fantasies of Charles de Lint are entirely unlike most fantasy. In general, each contains a normal urban scene plus one impossible thing. No generic elves/dragons/hobbits sort of stories, but haunting books, with themes of serious issues such as overcoming child abuse. Quite wonderful, overall. I highly recommend them. (I do not like de Lint's horror stories, not in the Newford series, nearly as much; they have many of the same good points, but I just can't handle the violence. Also, a Handful of Coppers is bland cliche fantasy, from before de Lint got so good.)
Mulengro / Charles de Lint
Well-written, haunting, but just too violent. Vastly superior to Stephen King in the same genre, but still, too many deaths of nice characters for me.

Pollyanna / Eleanor Porter. 1913.
This is a much better book than I expected. It is certainly a children's book, but it is not about being saccharine sweet without suffering.

Dear Michael : sexuality education for boys ages 11-17
I read this before handing it over to my twelve-year-old son to read. It was suitable.

The legacy of Gird / Elizabeth Moon
Ciontains two books in one volume, a sequel and a prequel to Moon's Deed of Paksenarian trilogy, which begins with Sheepfarmers Daughter. I recommend the trilogy, but then get Legacy of Gird only if you loved those. The trilogy is better, but this one is still worthwhile, if you like this sort of thing.

And then I had teenagers : encouragement for parents of teens and preteens. / Susan Yates
This book would not have annoyed me if it had been recommended specifically as a Christian book. Those recommending it imply it's for everyone. The Bible lessons throughout are not at all helpful if you are not looking for that sort of thing, however. It seemed like bait-and-switch: select this book to read about teens, then get lots of Christian evangelizing.

Green Rider / Kristen Britain
First rider's call / Kristen Britain
Good fantasy novels.

Fortress in the eye of time / C.J. Cherryh
Odd fantasy.

Wild Robert / Dianna Wynne Jones
Very much a children's book, short and slight, but novel and fun all the same.

The fairy godmother / Mercedes Lackey
What if there really were fairy godmothers, and they were human, not all bland sweetness? Fun fantasy.

Joust / Mercedes Lackey
Alta / Mercedes Lackey
Fantasy about yet another type of dragon owes a lot to Lackey's experience in the real world with rescuing raptors. Not as silly as most dragon fantasies.

Phoenix and ashes / Mercedes Lackey
'Elemental Masters' series retells fairy tales. This is much more interesting than its source in Cinderella would imply.

This Rough Magic / Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, Dave Freer
Sequel to _The Shadow of the Lion_, set in a world in which the great Library of Alexandria did not burn. Very good. More serious than Lackey's other series.

Nine Coaches Waiting / Mary Stewart
This book from my childhood is much better written than I had remembered.

Island in the Sea of Time / S. M. Stirling
On the oceans of eternity / S. M. Stirling
Against the tide of years / S. M. Stirling
As is so often the case, the first book in the set stands alone and is better than its sequels.

Rules for aging : resist normal impulses, live longer, attain perfection / Roger Rosenblatt
A book of advice that is easy and somewhat amusing to read. Rather light for its subject.

Food politics : how the food industry influences nutrition and health / Marion Nestle
Just exactly what the title implies. Lots of awful stuff. Ho-hum.

Cryptonomicon / Neal Stephenson
*Great* novel about cryptography. Big. Long. Fascinating. Fun.

This Pen for Hire: a Jaine Austen Mystery / by Laura Levine
Too self-consciously funny to get into. Hard to believe in the narrative. I was not able to read much of this one before giving up.

Life of Pi.
Not bad. I disliked the bit at the end where the narrator implies
the whole thing was just a hallucination (or something like that).

Quaker silence: An Elizabeth Elliot Mystery / Irene Allen
First book in a quiet and pleasant mystery series.
Quaker witness / Irene Allen
Quaker testimony / Irene Allen
Quaker indictment / Irene Allen

Replay / by Ken Grimwood
A sort of time travel book, in which the main characters find that, unaccoutnably, they get to relive their lives from the age of eighteen, repeatedly, making different choices as they please. Very interesting. I liked it a lot.

A Quaker book of wisdom : life lessons in simplicity, service, and common sense / Robert Lawrence Smith

Sophie's world : a novel about the history of philosophy / Jostein Gaarder
I did not have time to finish this before I had to return it, but it was good. I'll try again.

Fibromyalgia & chronic myofascial pain : a survival manual / Devin Starlanyl

Silverbridge / Joan Wolf
The poisoned serpent / Joan Wolf
No dark place / Joan Wolf
Mysteries set in twelfth century Norman England. Good stories.

Ten big ones / by Evanovich, Janet.
This fun series deserves its bestseller status.

Chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and other invisible Illnesses / by Berne, Katrina H.

Chronic fatigue syndrome / Liesa Abrams

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell / by Susanna Clarke
Like a combination of Jane Austen and modern sf/fantasy, very serious on the surface, but full of sly details. A lot of work, but very rewarding for the right reader.

Home to Harmony /
Just another mystery. No plans to read the next in the series.

Die laughing / Carola Dunn
A good mystery, set in the 1920s. Start with he first in the series, _Death at Wentwater Court_.

A girl with no name / Carola Dunn
Disappointing, turned out to be a romance, not a mystery.

Time's arrow / Martin Amis
Horrifying, like all books about the Holocaust, but fascinating, well done. Memorable.

The time traveler's wife : a novel
Very touching, requires a box of tissues.

The feeling good handbook
Classic on cognitive behavorial therapy.

Really useful : the origins of everyday things / Joel Levy
Pretty pictures along with info about now-commonplace inventions.

Little foods of the Mediterranean : 500 fabulous recipes for antipasti, tapas, hors d'oeuvre, meze, and more / Clifford Wright
What was I thinking? I don't have the energy for this sort of cooking.

Postcards from the edge / Carrie Fisher
Too crazy for me. I had to give up in the middle, the characters were so repellant.

Real murders / Charlaine Harris
First in the Aurora Teagarden mystery series, which I liked a lot.
A bone to pick: an Aurora Teagarden mystery
Three bedrooms, one corpse : an Aurora Teagarden mystery
The Julius House: an Aurora Teagarden mystery /
Dead Over Heels / Charlaine Harris
A fool and his honey / Charlaine Harris
Last scene alive / Charlaine Harris
Poppy done to death / Charlaine Harris
I first read _Last Scene Alive_ before I read any of the others. I enjoyed it. Then, when I read the series, I had to read it again, in order with the reast. How different it was! Still enjoyable.

Double murder (Bert & Nan Tatum Mysteries) / Barbara Taylor McCafferty, Beverly Taylor Herald
First in a mystery series about a pair of identical twins, written by a pair of identical twins (which is a strength of the series, not just a gimmick).
Double dealer : a Bert and Nan Tatum mystery /

Truckers / Terry Pratchet
Fantasy. Not in the Diskworld series, but quite amusing.

You've got murder / Donna Andrews
Pretty good mystery - *if* you can suspend disbelief about a character who is a computer
Click here for murder /
another mystery with a computer program as the narrator. Otherwise good.

Murder, with peacocks / Donna Andrews
Nurder with puffins / Donna Andrews
Revenge of the wrought-iron flamingos / Donna Andrews
Crouching buzzard, leaping loon / Donna Andrews
We'll always have parrots / Donna Andrews
Hilarious mystery series. I loved these.

Summon the keeper / Tanya Huff
The second summoning / Tanya Huff
Long Hot Summing / Tanya Huff
Humorous sf/fantasy.

Shakespeare's landlord /
Shakespeare's Christmas /
Shakespeare's champion
Shakespeare's counselor /
Shakespeare's trollop
This mystery series is much darker than the others by the same author. Stuck in bed, I vicariously enjoyed the working-out scenes in the series. Very good. (The Shakespeare in the title is the name of the small town in which the series is set.)

It's so amazing! : a book about eggs, sperm, birth, babies, and families
Read aloud to my then-seven-year-old.

Evans above / Bowen, Rhys.
Evan help us / Bowen, Rhys.
Evanly choirs / Bowen, Rhys.
A pleasant mystery series set in Wales.

The weirdstone of Brisingamen : a tale of Alderley / Alan Garner
The Moon of Gomrath / Alan Garner
Children's fantasy books. The stories are too thin for adults, but I was desperate for something to read.

Your money or your life : transforming your relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence
Didn't do anything for me, as I'm already frugal and non-obsessive with money.

The Mangrove Coast / Randy Wayne White
Captiva / Randy Wayne White
North of Havana / by Randy Wayne White
Mysteries with Doc Ford, a Florida marine biologist, as the main character. Violent and yet satisfying, much like John D. McDonald.

Dead Until Dark / Charlaine Harris
Living dead in Dallas / Charlaine Harris
Club Dead / Charlaine Harris
Dead to the World / Charlaine Harris
I am not a great fan of vampire novels in general, but these have a dark humor that's irresistable. It's odd how Harris can make a character like Sookie Stackhouse quite believable.

A fine Italian hand : a Shifty Lou Anderson mystery. / William Murray

Camouflage / Joe Haldeman
Good science fiction.

The Lilac fairy book / Andrew Lang
The Pink fairy book /Andrew Lang (ed.)
Fairy tale classics. One of these has lots of Peris (word-a-day earlier this week)

Anatomy of an illness as perceived by the patient / Norman Cousins
still good.

The Sunday philosophy club / Alexander McCall Smith.
First in a new mystery series. I liked it.

Two to conquer /
One of Marion Zimmer Bradley's lesser efforts, a fantasy novel of
Darkover.

Going postal : a novel of Discworld / Terry Pratchett
Satisfying and funny like most in the Diskworld series. Fantasy.

A world lit only by fire : the medieval mind and the Renaissance : portrait of an age / by Manchester, William Raymond
Poorly referenced, but extremely interesting history, especially the history of the Reformation.

Dress your family in corduroy and denim / David Sedaris
Apparently other people find this author much funnier than I do. I was glad my husband liked it, because otherwise it was not worth the small effort of bringing it home from the library. It did nothing for me, but he liked it.

Fingersmith / Sarah Waters
This book was well-written in many places and had convincing characters and well-described places, in Victorian England, but it's not convincing all the way through. I think it gains more success than it deserves from the fact that two women in the book fall in love with each other. The turn-arounds in the book were quite surprising, though.

The philosophical strangler / Eric Flint
Too busy being self-consciously funny to be convincing. I could not finish it.

Stardust / Neil Gaiman
A lovely fable intended for adults, though not unsuitable for older kids.

Zandru's Forge / Marion Zimmer Bradley & Deborah J. Ross
The fall of Neskaya
A flame in Hali
These three were completed after Bradley's death. They may not be as good as Bradley's best, but they are far better than her worst.

The full cupboard of life / No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency/ Alexander McCall Smith
Another pleasant mystery, but not a lot seems to happen in it.

The Egyptologist : a novel /
This was recommended on Amazon, but I could not get into it. My husband then read it and advised me not to bother.

Faerie wars / by Brennan, Herbie.
Fairies are not at all cute, sweet, or nice in this book, but the descriptions of the characters of various species in this book are great.

The shifting tide / Anne Perry
The fourteenth book in Perry's Victorian mystery series about William Monk. Very good. Read the series in order, though, not starting with this one (the first in the series is _The Face of a Stranger_).

Seven Dials / Anne Perry
The latest in Perry's ninetheenth-century mystery series about Charlotte and Thomas Pitt. This series starting out feeling a bit light to me, but it has gotten very good. I recommend it, but do start at the beginning of the series if you have not already read these. Perry does not stint on research.

Memoirs of a medieval woman : the life and times of Margery Kempe / Louise Collis
I wanted to read this because it was apparently the source of the the fictional Margaret of Asbury in Judith Merkle Riley's _A Vision of Light_ and _In Pursuit of the Green Lion_. It was interesting, but the novels are much more fun to read.

And justice there is none / Deborah Crombie, 2002
Now may you weep / Deborah Crombie, 2003
In a dark house / Deborah Crombie, 2004
Volumes eight, nine, and ten of a very good mystery series which started with _A Share in Death_. Best read in order of publication.

We asked for nothing : the remarkable journey of Cabeza de Vaca / Stuart Waldman, Tom McNeely
By and large, the Spanish conquistadors were a pretty disgusting bunch. Not so Cabeza de Vaca. He sailed from Florida to Galveston, then walked to Mexico City, living with the natives and learning their languages. This was a children's book, which we got out of the library for my twelve-year-old's history project, but I got a lot out of it, myself.

The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron
Space flight as imagined in 1954. A very charming litle book for children.

A clubbable woman / by Reginald Hill
First book in Dalziel and Pasco mystery series. It was okay.

Magician's ward / by Patricia C. Wrede
Light and fluffy cross between Regency romance and youth-learns- to-be-a-magician genres. Amusing.

Knots and crosses / Ian Rankin
First book in Inspector Rebus series. Rather grim.
Hide and Seek / Ian Rankin - Inspector Rebus mystery.
Tooth and nail / Ian Rankin - Inspector Rebus mystery.
This last is not quite as grim, more interesting than the preceding two.

The over-scheduled child : avoiding the hyper-parenting trap
Ha, ha. The last problem my kids could have.

The bloody sun and To keep the oath /
Star of danger /
Marion Zimmer Bradley. Rather childish.

The Outstretched Shadow : The Obsidian Trilogy: Book One / Mercedes Lackey, James Mallory
A pretty good new fantasy series.
To light a candle /
Sequel ot the Oustretched Shaddow.

Sunshine / by Robin McKinley
Excellent fantasy (though with vampires).

The Spoils of Egypt : a Mamur Zapt mystery / by Michael Pearce
I got this one from the library with the mistaken notion that it was first in the series. It wasn't (it's the sixth), but it wasn't bad. Set in Cairo before the first world war.

Paper mage / by Leah R. Cutter
Excellent fantasy in which origami is used to produce magic spells. Set in Tang Dynasty China.

Wolf to the slaughter : a chief inspector Wexford mystery / Ruth Rendall
One of the earlier books in this sries, dated 1967.

The wizard of Karres / by Eric Flint, Mercedes Lackey, Dave Freer.
Sequel to James H. Schmitz's excellent 1966 sf novel. It can't help but lack Schmitz's quirky charm, but it's not bad.

Water: tales of elemental spirits / by Robin McKinley, Peter Dickinson
very good fantasy or fairy-tale short stories

Exile's song : a novel of Darkover / Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Shadow Matrix : a novel of Darkover / Marion Zimmer Bradley
These two go together. Better than a lot of Bradley's stuff.

The exchange student / by Kate Gilmore
Young Adult book about exchange students from another star system, and their mysterious obsession with the few remaining wild animals and pets on Earth.

Book lust : recommended reading for every mood, moment, and reason / by Nancy Pearl
A pretty good list of some good books to read.

Murder in a Nice Neighborhood (Liz Sullivan Mysteries) / Lora Roberts
Not a bad mystery.

Chicks in chainmail / by Esther Friesner (Editor)
Fantasy short stories making fun of the chain mail bikini beloved of cover artists. Fluffy and fun.

Ghostlight / Marion Zimmer Bradley
Not a Darkover novel, this one takes place in late twentieth century America. The only fantastic elements are a little 'paranormal' stuff, but there's some wholesome scoffing, as well. Drags at times.

Status anxiety / Alain de Botton
A little too clever.

Dragons & dreams : a collection of new fantasy and science fiction stories /
Jane Yolen.
A child's book, but with some good stories.

The devil's arithmetic / Jane Yolen
An American girl of the late twentieth century finds herself unaccountably living the life of a Polish Jewish child in the Holocaust. Does not stint on the horrors that really happened, though this is a children's book.

Protecting the gift : keeping children and teenagers safe (and parents sane) /
Gavin de Becker
I thought I hadn't read this book, only his earlier the Gift of Fear, but it turned out I had, so I reread it.

Trickster's choice / Tamora Pierce, 2003
Trickster's Queen / Tamora Pierce, 2004
Pierce said that since J. Rowling's success, she can now write longer books and expect them to sell, so this series in complete in two longer volumes instead of her usual four shorter ones. New in 2004, and good.

Sorcery and Cecelia or the enchanted chocolate pot / Caroline Stevermer, Patricia C. Wrede
A book composed of letters written by the two main characters alternately, it was originally written as actual letters between the authors, in which neither knew wwaht the other was going to write. They called this "The Letter Game". This is another cross between Regency romance and magic-using fantasy.

Mairelon the Magician / Patricia C. Wrede
The Magician's Ward / Patricia C. Wrede
Two more in the specialized genre that is a cross between a Regency romance setting and magic-using fantasy.

Bored of the rings : a parody of J.R.R. Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings.
The only good thing about this book was the title. Outdated. Disappointing.

On Food And Cooking, second edition / Harold McGee (newly revised 2004)
Full of an incredible number of truly useful facts, drawn from both chemistry and physics, about why food is, or tastes, or cooks, the way it does. Complete with many very useful bits of information, such as how to cook a stew that is tender without drying the meat out by overcooking, or the differences in different types of tea, or how to melt chocolate and why. The best book about food I've ever read.

Curse of the Blue Tattoo : Being an Account of the Misadventures of
Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady (Bloody Jack Adventures) /
Louis A. Meyer
Very amusing adventure story, not a mystery or fantasy or sf. Sequel to _Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, Ship's Boy_, which we have not read yet at my house, but it was great fun, even without having read the first book.

The floating brothel : the extraordinary true story of an eighteenth- century ship and its cargo of female convicts / by Rees, Siân
Facinating history.

A hat full of sky / by Pratchett, Terry.
Sequel to _Wee Free Men_. Young Adult, but good. Set in Discworld, but that's clear only because it includes Granny Weatherwax, a character from _Wyrd Sisters_ and other Diskworld novels.

Pastwatch: the Redemption of Christopher Columbus / Orson Scott Card
Rather slow.

Magician / Raymond Feist
Silverthorn / Raymond Feist
fantasy series involving alternate universes, elves, dwarves, etc.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
by Lynne Truss
This started out feeling like a great relief - hey, other people care about these details, too! - but ended up feeling just picky. A fast and fun read, though.