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Every year I like to account for everything I've read over the previous 12 months and list it in order of best to least best. I include graphic novels but exclude trade paperbacks that collect ongoing comic book series for the most part since they are too numerous to list and tend to blend together volume to volume.

I read more than I did last year but the quality of what I read is not as high. Click below to see the list.

1. A Short History Of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
I'm a sucker for books that try to tackle big subjects and you can't get any bigger than the entire universe. This book was very informative but more importantly it was entertaining especially as an audiobook since the narrator with his sly British accent gave the material the Monty Python-esque absurdity that the universe deserves.

2. Locas: A Love & Rockets Book - Jaime Hernandez
Love & Rockets is one of the most engaging comic books ever created. This beautiful hardcover collects all the Maggie and Hopey stories over the past 20 years into one novel-like format.

3. The Plot Against America - Philip Roth
The first of two books I read this year by literary authors that have almost a sci-fi concept. This one involves an alternate history of WWII-era America. Roth's work doesn't always appeal to me but I love how he took his usual milieux and tweaked one aspect of it to get a new kind of story to explore his familiar themes.

4. City of Glass - Paul Auster (adapted by Paul Karasik and David Mazzuchelli)
This graphic novel adaptation of an Auster short story brings it to a whole new level thanks to the work of Mazzuchelli. One of the most amazing combinations of words and pictures I have read.

5. The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman
I think Friedman is one of the smartest people in America. A lot of people don't like his support of outsourcing here but he gives a good arguement for how it could make the world a safer place here. More importantly he explores the whole subject of globalization from the inside and gives it a truly global perspective.

6. Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
Gladwell seems to be spawning a new genre of non-fiction theses that hop between subjects you wouldn't think connect to each other. He's still the best though.

7. Black Hole - Charles Burns
Comic book fans have been waiting years for this hardcover collection of Burns' masterpiece to come out. It's creepy, bizarre beautiful and poignant.

8. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Set against the backdrop of an Afghanistan being ruined by the Taliban this is a touching story of a young boy who does something truly horrible to his best friend in order to gain the affection of his father.

9. Skinny Dip - Carl Hiassen
Maybe the most fun book I read this year. An Elmore Leonard style crime novel that is also an environmentalist warning about the over-development of the Florida Everglades.

10. Freakonomics - Stephen D. Levitt
One of those books that follow in the footsteps of Malcom Gladwell. This is written by an economist who has some fascinating theories on such diverse topics as abortion, real estate, the KKK, sumo wrestling and baby naming.

11. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold - John LeCarre
The classic spy novel by the genre's greatest writer. The first book of his that I've read and I'll definitely be trying more.

12. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
I wish that I hadn't known the mystery behind this book before I read it but honestly I probably wouldn't have picked it up if I didn't know there was a sci-fi slant to it and the mystery iteslf is revealed off-handedly as if it wasn't that important to the story anyway. I wish that it all added up to more in the end but I was engaged the whole way through.

13. Ice Haven - Daniel Clowes
An expanded version of possibly the greatest single issue of a comic ever written. It's a nice hardcover package too but a little pricey for what was basically a $3 comic last year.

14. A Million Little Pieces - James Frey
A brutal rehab memoir that doesn't completely ring true to me but stood out from the rehab pack.

15. V for Vendetta - Alan Moore and David Lloyd
Not my favorite Alan Moore stories but a fascinating and disturbing examination of terrorism and anarchy.

16. Indecision - Benjamin Kunkel
Kunkel's first novel shows a lot of promise but I lost interest when his main character began babbling about 'democratic socialism'.

17. Superman: Birthright - Mark Waid and Lenil Wu
Another retelling of Superman's origin but it has a nice modern, cinematic feel to it and Lenil Wu's artwork is incredible.

18. Street Angel - Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca
A crazy, imaginative and funny adventure involving a homeless skater girl who fights ninjas, time traveling Spanish pirates and Irish astronauts.

19. Men and Cartoons - Jonathan Lethem
A fun anthology of short stories that showcases Lethem's trademark blending of realism with comic book fantasy.

20. 1776 - David McCullough
I didn't enjoy this as much as most people did only because I'm more interested in the political side of the birth of the country rather than the actual revolutionary war. Still, there were some interesting bits here.

21. Orient Gateway - Vittorio Giardino
An intricately illustrated European graphic album that perfectly captures the feel of a LeCarre novel or a 1960s European espionage adventure.

22. The Push Man and Other Stories - Yoshihiro Tatsumi
A very weird and often disturbing anthology of stories about sexual deviance in Japan. It's a beautiful hardcover but the stories are hit and miss.

23. Artists on Comic Art - Mark Salisbury
It's always interesting to read about how artists work and this book of interviews gets really in-depth.

24. Ultra: Seven Days - The Luna Brothers
Sex and The City with super-heroines. Often charming and inventive, occassionally amateurish but a great debut by the Luna Brothers.

25. The Final Solution: A Story of Detection - Michael Chabon
A very light detective story by Chabon, in homage to the old Sherlock Holmes stories.

26. Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels : A History Of Comic Art- Roger Sabin
A big book full of plenty of color images which is what you want from something like this. I thought it was a little too Euro-centric and for a book called "A History of Comic Art" doesn't really talk about the art itself in any meaningful way.

27. DC Comics Guide to Pencilling Comics - Klaus Janson
An informative how to guide that unfortunately spreads itself too thin and doesn't deliver enough solid instruction for me.

28. Superman: Secret Identity - Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen
What if Superman was real. Very well done and the pencil work by Immonen is great. Still the more real you make Superman the less fun he is.

29. Farewell, Georgia - Ben Towle
Four charmingly illustrated folktales.

30. Transmission - Hari Kunzru
What could have been an interesting novel about a hapless Indian techie who finds that coming to America is not all he dreamed of goes off the rails at some point when it focuses too much on some uninteresting secondary characters.

31. The Long Haul - Antony Johnston and Eduardo Barreto
Oceans 11 with cowboys, nicely drawn by Barreto but it's a real lightweight story.

Plus, started but never finished:

Saturday - Ian Macewen
I was very disappointed in this followup to my favorite novel from two years ago, Atonement. Still, since it's been on a lot of people's top 10 lists this year I may go back to it.

Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
A big book that I may get back to someday because it seemed like it was going to be really interesting but it is just too damn long.

American Gods - Neil Gaiman
I'm still a little more than halfway through this. It's great so far but I didn't finish it in time for it to count for this year.

Posted at January 1, 2006 12:03 AM