So close

A big glut of reading to finish the year off.

80. Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett. Much better then I expected, especially since it's a really long book about cathedral building in the Middle Ages. With romance.

81. Toxic - Robin Cook. E. coli drama from the man who brought you Coma. It's nice that Cook obviously did his research beforehand, but I would have appreciated a bit of translation from the textbook to the mouth of the characters. Nobody talks like that, dude. Not even rich, successful surgeons under lots of stress. Also, they use contractions.

82. Freedom's Landing - Anne McCaffrey.
83. Freedom's Choice - Anne McCaffrey.
84. Freedom's Challenge - Anne McCaffrey.
85. Freedom's Ransom - Anne McCaffrey. A series, obviously. I've read all of them before and I thought I really liked all of them. Turns out I loved the first one, hated the second and tolerated the third and fourth. Sort of science fiction, but not too much outer space stuff. Her Pern stories are better.

86. A Death in Belmont - Sebastian Junger. A family's (rather boring) true-life brush with the Boston Strangler (maybe). Well written but not exciting. And Junger's mom really should read The Gift of Fear.

87. Plain Truth - Jodi Picoult. The first Picoult book I ever read (this was a reread obviously). Takes place right near where my parents live and does a good job with the Amish. This is one of my favorites of her's.

89. Naked Pictures of Famous People - Jon Stewart. Not what I was expecting, but funny.

90. Stiff - Mary Roach. A funny, non-fiction book about dead people, just the thing for Christmas morning. If you're me.

91. Winner of the National Book Award - Jincy Willett. Loved the first half, hated the second. I'll probably look for her other books.

(The last three books were borrowed from my sister while in PA. She has reasonably good taste in books.)

92. Murder on Clam Pond - Douglas Kiker. Death in Cape Cod. Holy crap was this bad.

93. Days of Deception - Lee Roddy. The first of the Lady Pinkerton Chronicles. Also bad. But a good brainless read for the plane. It's quite possible I ended the book with less brains then I started with.

(The last two books were borrowed from my mom who has a habit of randomly picking books up at garage sales, mostly bad ones. As Mel so eloquently put it "Turns out you can judge a book by it's cover.")

94. A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas - Chuck Klosterman. I'd probably find him incredibly annoying in-person, but his articles are usually funny. Not a bad way to end the year.

Six short of 100. Not too shabby.

Happy New Year everyone!