The Best Book Ever Part III

Here it is the long awaited final installment of the best book ever. This the list of my favorite books in the year that I read them(Note: The year I read a book had nothing to do with its release, Note #2: This list was compiled from memory so if I say I read a book before it was published I apologize. ) Previous entries can be read here and here.

My favorite book of 2000 was… um… well you see this was the year I turned twenty-one and well…um…I had other stuff to do. The stuff I did read I only have a vague memory of.

My favorite book of 2001 was… The Dome of Fire by David Eddings. This was my first Eddings book and it inspired me to go find his other stuff. A great book.

My favorite book of 2002 was… Dissolution by Richard Lee Byers. At this point I was drifting away from The Forgotten Realms and Dungeons and Dragons but The War of the Spider Queen brought me back for a little while.

My favorite book of 2003 was… A History of Western Civilization author unknown. This was a hard year for me to remember anything I read that I enjoyed. I had just started back in college and was taking 18 credit hours a semester for the time I took off, but this was my favorite class so…

My favorite book of 2004 was…Myth Adventures by Robert Asprin. This book provided me with a whole series of humorous light hearted stories. The perfect read between classes.

My favorite book of 2005 was…Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan. The continuation of my favorite series of all time, and my copy was signed by the author!

My favorite book of 2006 was… Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. I read this one shortly before Robert Jordan’s death and loved it. I was really pleased when they announced he would finish The Wheel of Time

My favorite book of 2007 was… Sacrifice of the Widow by Lisa Smedman. By this point I was done with D&D. Everyone I gamed with had left town, and the only Forgotten Realms books I read in years was the The War of the Spider Queen but I was sold on Lisa Smedman’s writing from her entry, Extinction, in The War of the Spider Queen.

My favorite book of 2008 was… Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. This was a great book, I hate first person but I loved this one.

My favorite book of 2009 was… Storm Front by Jim Butcher. Again another start of a series that I really enjoyed.

My favorite book of 2010 was… Towers of Midnight by Brandon Sanderson. The latest entry in the Wheel of Time, who knew you could pack so much awesome in one book?

The Best Book Ever Part 2: Cypher's Fall

The Best Books Ever: Part Two Cipher’s Fall.

Okay so the sub title doesn’t make sense, but what did you really expect in a sequel? It caught your attention and that is all a subtitle is really for, anyway here’s the list.


Note: These are my favorite books of all time, the year that I read them has nothing to do with the year they were released.


11. My favorite book of 1989 was…The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis. I was in fourth grade, and I loved this book. The way the children entered Narnia was super awesome to me, it was years until I realized that social services probably should have taken the children from their guardian. Can anyone say child neglect?

12. My favorite book of 1990 was… The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. I blame this book and the Lord of the Rings series for all the $$ that I have spent on epic fantasy since then. Reading it was…well…epic.

13. My favorite book of 1991 was…Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. This book started a frenzy of Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms reading and got me interested in D&D. So it is one of the contributing factors to my severe case of dateless-iotis in high school. But don’t let that dissuade you it really was a good book.

14. My favorite book of 1992 was...All The Weyrs of Pern by Anne McCaffrey. Science fiction dragons??? Wow!

15. My favorite book of 1993 was…The First Book of Swords by Fred Saberhagen. The god’s created a great game and hand out magic swords to humans, just to see what happens. How fucking cool is that?

16. My favorite book of 1994 was... The Eye of the World by Roberts Jordan. Okay can you say coolest book ever? I was just starting high school and while I never really minded school and I did fake the flu for a couple of days so I could stay home and finish this one. Yeah I played hookie to read a book, I never claimed to be cool so stop laughing.

17. My favorite book of 1995 was… Guards, Guards by Terry Pratchett. While I knew that books could be entertaining and moving I never guessed that could be this funny. And while my sense of humor had matured slightly I still think this is funny today.

18. My favorite book of 1996 was.. Fire Sea by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. I read the first two books in the Death Gate Cycle and thought they were good, but this one blew me away. An underground kingdom by a lake of fire whose inhabitants were Necromancers. That is all I needed to know. The cover pic for this is still the background on my cell phone.

19. My favorite book of 1997 was.. Homeland by RA Salvatore. This was a busy year for me, graduating high school and all. But I still found time for Drizzt, though I never did figure out how to say his name.

20. My favorite book of 1998 was… A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin. The good guys can die. What a concept.

21. My favorite book of 1999 was… The Bartender’s Black Book. I struggled with this one for awhile the year I turned twenty is a little hazy but I remember reading this one pretty often.

The best book ever...

Ever wonder what books inspire a writer to write? Ever wonder how a super fantasy nerd is created?

Well I started to today at work (the library for those of you who don't know) when a seven year old was telling me about their favorite book, and had a very different favorite book than the one he told me about back in March.

Well, here it is folks, my list of my favorite books of my lifetime(haha I new I could use the word my three time in 8 words, I can cross that off my bucket list). Anyway this a year by year guide to all that is awesome in fiction, at least to me. As a precursor I have to say that this list took a bit of research, after all how am I suppose to remember what my favorite book was back in 1980?

I was only a year old for Christ’s sake, and trying to memorize your favorite book for a blog you are going to write thirty years later is just too much pressure for a one year old. Luckily my aunts and uncles had no problem remembering what my favorite books were, apparently I liked to have them read to me over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. Much the way I reread The Lord of the Rings every other year.

In a side note I have broken this posting into three parts, because…well thirty books is a heck of a lot of reading, even when you are just reading about them.

So without further ado, here it is:

1. My favorite book of 1979 was… the letter A. In the months leading up to my milestone one year birthday I found the letter A to be a master work of literature. The two sweeping slopy sides connected by a hard horizontal slash, who could possibly disagree?

2. My favorite book of 1980 was…Duck. A simple book made on thick cardstock that had no author, the book Duck thrilled me with its wonderful graphics, until I tried to flush it down the toilet.

3. My favorite book of 1981 was…Go Dog, Go by PD Eastman this wonderful book included the timeless passage remembered by all “Now it is night. Three dogs at a party on a boat at night.” It still gets to me.

4. My favorite book of 1982 was… Sesame Street: The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone. Can you say surprise ending? This one was a shocker! The only thing that has even come close since was the sixth sense.

5. My favorite book of 1983 was… Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. I would eat them in a box with a fox!

6. My favorite book of 1984 was…The Knight and the Dragon by Tomie DePaola. In this epic 32 page tale a knight and a dragon prepare to do battle but at the end decided to open up a BBQ restaurant instead. Dragons and BBQ? Come on, you know you want to read it now.

7. My favorite book of 1985 was... a He-man mini-comic that came with my He-Man action figure. Skeletor vs He-man, do I need to say anything else?

8. My favorite book of 1986 was… a tough one to pick, I was entering first grade and my tastes were maturing. But I finally went with a Spider-man comic book. It doesn’t matter which comic, they were all super awesome.

9. My favorite book of 1987 was… Time Life Books Legends of Valor. If you have never tried any of the Time Life Enchanted Worlds books I still highly recommend them. They are an invaluable resource for any fantasy writer or eight year old boy.

10. My favorite book of 1988 was…Time Life Books The Fall of Camelot. This was my first introduction to King Arthur and his knights. For the rest of the year I read anything and everything I could find about the round table.

Ten down, only twenty-one to go. I promise the books will get a little more main stream as it goes. I knew I could find a way to procrastinate and put off nanowrimo, I just had to put my mind to it.