This year's aim was to read more classic books, both classic sf and 'proper' books and I'm quite pleased that I did that, but it has taught me that a lot of them are just plain dull. Old sf for the most part ages very well, but the non-sf stuff moves at a much slower rate than modern books focussing more on the descriptions and just slow everything down. It's good to see where a lot of references and staple ideas come from, but often they suffer because they've (unsurprisingly) been done better on the 20th attempt. My other plan was to read more non-fiction. This didn't really happen.

55 fiction books:
Foundation - Isaac Asimov
Foundation and Empire - Isaac Asimov
Second Foundation - Isaac Asimov
Emma - Jane Austen
Consider Phlebus - Iain M. Banks
The Player of Games - Iain M. Banks
The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester
Jhereg - Steven Brust
Yendi - Steven Brust
Teckla - Steven Brust
Taltos - Steven Brust
Phoenix - Steven Brust
Athyra - Steven Brust
Orca - Steven Brust
Dragon - Steven Brust
Issola - Steven Brust
Dzur - Steven Brust
Downbelow Station - C.J. Cherryh
Sunstorm - Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter
Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident - Eoin Colfer
Artemis Fowl and the Eternity Code - Eoin Colfer
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Babel-17 - Samuel R. Delany
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K. Dick
Ubik - Philip K. Dick
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom - Cory Doctorow
The Diamond as Big as the Ritz - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Christmas Mystery - Jostein Gaarder
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Five Quarters of the Orange - Joanne Harris
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Mary Reilly - Valerie Martin
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Things Can Only Get Better - John O'Farrell
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Gateway - Frederik Pohl
Brokeback Mountain - Annie Proulx
Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
The Big U - Neal Stephenson
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder - Evelyn Waugh
Astonishing X-Men V1: Gifted TPB - Joss Whedon
Astonishing X-Men V2: Dangerous TPB - Joss Whedon

Best Books - I think my top pick of the year is The Time Traveller's Wife, it was a little slow to get going but absolutely took my breath away once I got into it.
Honourable mentions - Life of Pi was only narrowly edged into second place, a great novel that's also fun to read. Runner up positions go to The Lovely Bones and Flowers for Algernon.
Most enjoyable books - Gateway and Ubik are a couple of 'classic' sf books that I was delighted to find were really fun to read. I enjoyed the Artemis Fowl books a lot and also the first bundle of Josh Whedon's Astonishing X-Men.
Disappointments - I thought the idea behind Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom was going to be a winner, but I was disappointed with the realisation of it which was jumbled and let down by poor characters and mystery. The Foundation series fell into the same problem of great concept, but poor writing. A lot of books this year I read because I felt I should, rather than with any real hope that I'd like them, so I'm not really going to count them as disappointments. Similarly I can't really describe them as 'bad' because they're important historically and what-not, just not necessarily rivetting to read.

Non-fiction - 11 this year, which is actually a lot better than last year's 7.
Building Strong Brands - David A. Aaker
The Book of Nothing - John D. Barrow
Working the Wheel - Martin Brundle and Maurice Hamilton
Letter from America - Alistair Cooke
C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too... - John Diamond
Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking - Malcolm Gladwell
Free Prize Inside: The Next Big Marketing Idea - Seth Godin
Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth - Andrew Smith
Mendeleyev's Dream: The Quest for the Elements - Paul Strathern
Eats Shoots and Leaves - Lynne Truss
Talk to the Hand - Lynne Truss

It's almost impossible to compare these books, they're all so different. The only thing I'm sure about is that The Book of Nothing was dreadful. Eats Shoots and Leaves was fun to read and offered very clear guidance at the same time, although her second book was a bit depressing and negative. C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too made me cry and laugh and is an amazingly powerful, but very depressing book.

2007 - I can't believe I didn't read a Pratchett book this year! That's got to be the first time in probably 15 years that's happened, so I'm looking forward to his next proper Discworld (I don't like the Tiffany Aching books for some reason). There's finally a new Dalziel and Pascoe book on the way and I guess I should be at least vaguely interested in the new Harry Potter. I'm going to try to keep reading 'classics' but maybe throwing in a larger percentage of actually interesting books as well!