best books of all time, and 2005

This list was recently published by Time magazine - it's supposed to be the 100 best English-language books since 1923. I've read many of them, and many are pretty good. It was good to see William Gibson on the list.
http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html

Now, I'm going to include a list of every book that I gave a five-star review to in 2005. They weren't all published in 2005, though. You'll be able to get to the full reviews, if you want to, by clicking on the "books 2005" tag at the bottom of this page. And yes, it's possible that I may read another five-star book (though probably not two) before the year is over. If that happens, I'll come back and edit the entry. I promise. For those who have just tuned in, I give five stars to a book that I feel is excellently written and has profoundly changed the way I think in some way.

My Husband Betty by Helen Boyd
Fledgling by Octavia Butler
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge
Outwitting History by Aaron Lansky
The Impossible Takes a Little While edited by Paul Rogat Loeb
Earth Logic by Laurie J. Marks
The Merro Tree by Katie Waitman

That's eight books out of ninety-one. (Kind of a low total for me this year. Not sure why, but it might have to do with all of my crafty time. Also, I stopped including books that I had read before.)

old and new

mrpet got me a new parka for the winter. It is an exciting shade of purple, which should be helpful if I ever get lost in the woods and they send out search and rescue helicopters. It's from LL Bean, so it should last forever. It is warm and comfy and not puffy, and I'm loving it. (Watch for my old parka, and other winter gear, on bostonbarter.)

On the other hand, today I noticed a crack in the screen of my cell phone. It's only about six months old. I guess I was pretty hard on it. Also, I found the Palm features unreliable - if the battery ran out, the data would be lost, and that happened to me more than I'd like to admit. In the New Year, I'm going to try to find a phone that is small, cheap, and indestructible.