Books Read In 2007

--Books I Particularly Enjoyed Though Your Mileage May Differ: (marked with *****)
--Most Disturbing Book of 2007: Three-way tie among The Wasp Factory (#57), Gemma (#76), and Crooked Little Vein (#52).
--Biggest disappointment of 2007: Farewell Summer (#69) by Ray Bradbury.
--Biggest surprise of 2007: Gemma (#76) by Meg Tilly (yes, that Meg Tilly!).
--Book With Plot Holes Large Enough Through Which One Could Drive A Mack Truck Yet Remain Readable): The Ruins (#81) by Scott Smith.
--Best Use of a Substitution Cipher: The Boy Detective Fails (#1) by Joe Meno (beating out the only other candidate, Enigma (#60), by a substantial margin)
--Biggest Waste of Neurons: Eat This Book: A Year of Gorging and Glory On the Competitive Eating Circuit (#72) by Ryan Nerz.


1. 3/Jan/07--The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno (2006).
2. 6/Jan/07--Monster Island by David Wellington (2006). *****
3. 7/Jan/07--Soul Kitchen by Poppy Z. Brite (2006).
4. 13/Jan/07--Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman (2006). *****
5. 16/Jan/07--Cosmic Trigger Volume II: Down To Earth by Robert Anton Wilson (1991, 1996).
6. 23/Jan/06--A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O'Connor (1955). *****
7. 29/Jan/07--Music For Chameleons by Truman Capote (1980). *****
8. 31/Jan/07--Monster Nation by David Wellington(2006). *****
9. 6/Feb/07--World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks (2006). *****
10. 6/Feb/07--How To Smash Everyone To Pieces by Mike Segretto (2004).
11. 13/Feb/07--The Identity Club by Richard Burgin (2005).
12. 14/Feb/07--Between the Bridge and the River by Craig Ferguson (2006). *****
13. 16/Feb/07--A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore (2006).
14. 20/Feb/07--How To Talk Dirty and Influence People by Lenny Bruce (1963, 1992).
15. 23/Feb/07--The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien (1990)
16. 8/Mar/07--The Big Chunk of Ice by Bertrand R. Brinley (1986, 2005).
17. 8/Mar/07--Underworld by Don DeLillo (1997).
18. 14/Mar/07--Those Who Walk In Darkness by John Ridley (2003).
19. 20/Mar/07--Blindness by Jose Saramago (1998). *****
20. 27/Mar/07--Life House by Spider Robinson (1997).
21. 28/Mar/07--My Friend Leonard by James Frey (2005). *****
22. 3/Apr/07--Irons In the Fire by John McPhee (1997). *****
23. 4/Apr/07--Encounters With the Archdruid by John McPhee (1971). *****
24. 6/Apr/07--Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris (2004).
25. 12/Apr/07--A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (2003).
26. 18/Apr/07 Visionary In Residence by Bruce Sterling (2006).
27. 23/Apr/07--White Noise by Don DeLillo (1984, 1998).
28. 26/Apr/07 Fuzzy Dice by Paul Di Filippo (2003).
29. 2/May/07--Bitterroot by James Lee Burke (2001).
30. 8/Apr/07--Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky (2002).
31. 10/May/07--Rose of No Man's Land by Michelle Tea (2005).
32. 15/May/07--The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie (1996).
33. 18.May/07--Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992). *****
34. 23/May/07--The Prestige by Christopher Priest (1995). *****
35. 30/May/07--Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle (1977).
36. 31/May/06 Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris (2006).
37. 4/Jun/07--Fabrication: Essays On Making Things and Making Meaning by Susan Neville (2001).
38. 12/Jun/07--Microserfs by Douglas Coupland (1995). *****
39. 15/Jun/07--Vamped by David Sosnowski (2004).
40. 21/Jun/07--A Specter Is Haunting Texas by Fritz Leiber (1968).
41. 27/Jun/07--Mammoth by John Varley (2005).
42. 28/Jun/07--Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick (1974).
43. 10/Jul/07--Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge (2006).
44. 13/Jul/07--Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi (2003).
45. 16/Jul/07--The Falling Season: Inside the Life and Death Drama of Aspen's Mountain Rescue Team by Hal Clifford (1998).
46. 17/Jul/07--It Was Gonna Be Like Paris by Emily Listfield (1984).
47. 20/Jul/07--Crimes and Misdemeanors: New and Original Stories of Love and Death ed. by Elaine Koster and Joseph Pittman (1998).
48. 26/Jul/07--How To Survive Anything, Anywhere: A Handbook of Survival Skills For Every Scenario and Environment by Chris McNab (2004).
49. 31/Jul/07--Trawler: A Journey Through the North Atlantic by Redmond O'Hanlon (2003).
50. 9/Aug/07--An American Dream by Norman Mailer (1964).
51. 19/Aug/07--Spook Country by William Gibson (2007).
52. 22/Aug/07--Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis (2007). *****
53. 29/Aug/07-- Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach (2003).
54. 29/Aug/07--Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Letham (1994).
55. 7/Sept/07--All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (1992). *****
56. 15/Sept/07--The Rift by Walter J. Williams (1999). *****
57. 18/Sept/07--The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks (1984). *****
58. 20/Sept/07--Uncommon Carriers by John McPhee (2006). *****
59. 25/Sept/07--The Backpacker's Handbook by Chris Townsend (2005).
60. 26/Sept/07--Enigma by Robert Harris (1995).
61. 2/Oct/07--The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt (2005).
62. 4/Oct/07--Hit Parade by Lawrence Block (2006). *****
63. 9/Oct/07--Consider the Lobster and Other Essays by David Foster Wallace (2006). *****
64. 17/Oct/07--Men and Cartoons by Jonathan Letham (2005).
65. 23/Oct/07--A Walk In the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson (1998).
66. 25/Oct/07--The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson (2006). *****
67. 30/Oct/07--Jaguars Ripped My Flesh: Adventure Is A Risky Business by Tim Cahill (1987). *****
68. 5/Oct/07--Girlbomb--A Halfway Homeless Memoir by Janice Erlbaum (2006).
69. 14/Nov/07--Farewell Summer by Ray Bradbury (2006).
70. 14/Nov/07--The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl (2007).
71. 20/Nov/07-- The Bookwoman's Last Fling by John Dunning (2006).
72. 27/Nov/07--Eat This Book: A Year of Gorging and Glory on the Competitive Eating Circuit by Ryan Nerz (2006).
73. 29/Nov/07--The Messiah of Morris Avenue by Tony Hendra (2006). *****
74. 4/Dec/07--Travels With Alice by Calvin Trillin (1989).
75. 7/Dec/07--Lost Echoes by Joe R. Lansdale (2007). *****
76. 10/Dec/07--Gemma by Meg Tilly (2006). *****
77. 12/Dec/07--Possible Side Effects by Augusten Burroughs (2006). *****
78. 16/Dec/07--A Pound Of Paper: Confessions Of A Book Addict by John Baxter (2002).
79. 18/Dec/07--Fast Company: A Memoir of Life, Love, and Motorcycles in Italy by David. M. Gross (2007).
80. 20/Dec/07--No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy (2005). *****
81. 23/Dec/07--The Ruins by Scott Smith (2006).
82. 28/Dec/07--Red Thunder by John Varley (2003).