The Substitute Post while I paint the Nursery Feb 9th

My wife and I are hard at work prepping the nursery for the arrival of Parker in early March?. To my shame, I haven't had time to scrabble together a post. In fact, I took an extra day off work - something I do maybe twice a year - just to finish the painting.

So, here's something I wrote about a month ago but considered too boring to post. Ain't that a great recommendation?

A long time ago I read Louis Lamour's posthumous autobiography, The Education of a Wandering Man. At the end of the book Lamour included a list of every book he read over the course of some of his 'yondering' days.

Although the lists were panned in reviews of the book, I resolved then and there to start taking stock of what books came across my plate. Beginning in 1994 and continuing to this day, I've done just that, jotting down the name and author of every book I've read.

Yeah, I know. It sounds lame to me too.

But I keep doing it. My shortest list was the year I met my wife, when I was too busy to care about heading off to the bookstore. My longest was sometime in the last three years, when I cleared eighty-some odd books.

I keep aiming for the century mark and falling short.

To rationalize my failure a bit, the list is very particular. Not only do I have to complete a book, I have to have read any and all forwards, footnotes, appendixes, and dedication pages. Maybe five books a year fail to make the list for failing to meet one or all of these criteria.

Lamer still, I know.

Anyhow, before I ramble myself into a straight-jacket, here's the list for 2004; and I warn ya, it's a weak one. I was mired in a few monster works of non-fiction for most of the summer that knocked me off pace. In addition I generally don't read other people's work when I'm stressing my own writing.

Floating Dragon by Peter Straub

Koko by Peter Straub

Mystery by Peter Straub

The Throat by Peter Straub

Julia by Peter Straub

Shadowland by Peter Straub

Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga by Stephen Davis

The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, The B.B, and Ritchie Valens by Larry Lehmer

Big Bad Wolf by James Patterson

Bad Business by Robert B Parker

Shall We Tell the President? By Jeffrey Archer

A Marginal Jew Vol. 1 by Joseph P. Maier

If you Copuld See Me Now by Peter Straub

The Hellfire Club by Peter Straub

The Birth of the Messiah: A commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke by Raymond E Brown

Double Play by Robert B Parker

The Enemy by Lee Child

Tripwire by Lee Child

The Possession of Joel Delaney by Ramona Stewart

Hark by Ed McBain

LazyBones by Mark Billingham

Plan of Attack by Dale Brown

Absent Friends by SJ Rozan

Sharpe's Escape by Bernard Cornwell

The Bone Parade by Mark Nykanen

The Madman's tale John Katzenbach

Sudden Prey by John Sandford

Hawke's Harbor by SE Hinton

An Unpardonable Crime by Andrew Taylor ? ?

Scaredy Cat by Mark Billingham

Cold Blood by Theresa Monsour

The Music of the Spheres by Elizabeth Redfern

The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great by Stephen Pressfied

The Godfather Returns by Mark Winegardner

Melancholy Baby by Robert B. Parker

You'll notice I tend to binge on a single authour and then move on.

My favorites? Well, I'll tell you the worst of the bunch - Plan of Attack by Dale Brown and the oldie by Jeffrey Archer. My favorites are harder to sort out, but I must say that I was really drawn to the non-fiction biblical studies this year.

I swear, I get dorkier by the minute.