You could really tell Haldeman is a veteran just by reading his story.
Thrown out her randomly and in no order of errr betterness? (yeah, I know not a word)
The Last Apocalypse: Europe at the year 1000 AD - James Reston jr
When America met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail - Eric Jay Dolin
The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Northern new England Women 1650-1750 - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
I shall Wear Midnight - Terry Pratchett
The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaimon
Fortunately, the milk - Neil Gaimon
Snuff - Terry Pratchett
The Rook - Daniel O’Malley
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Hard to narrow down from over 140 books total (audiobooks included) … but in no particular order:
The Rook by Daniel O’Malley - An amnesiac who slowly discovers she is a high ranking supernatural field agent. I listened to the audiobook, which was marvelous & bought my own copy.
An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield. A memoir & gentle self-help guide - written with humility and humour.
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. A young woman with a supernatural skill twice crosses paths with a force of evil, who drives a Rolls Royce.
The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde. A young woman manages an employment agency for magicians, and inadvertently becomes the title character. Another audiobook.
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. Nearly all of humankind is struck blind by a strange meteor, and genetically engineered plants start roaming the earth.
Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith. The story of Balthazar (aka the Antioch Ghost), a thief bent on revenge who becomes the saviour of The Saviour.
Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach. A light-hearted, well-researched look at various aspects of the physiological and sociological aspects of eating.
The Shining by Stephen King. A troubled writer and his family stay in an isolated, haunted hotel in the Colorado mountains.
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. An English woman, born in 1910, lives her life over and over from the beginning, surviving childhood maladies, accidents and more, as if she is destined for something greater. Audiobook
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan. Self-descriptive title; heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time.
Not IMHO - if I recall correctly, Shardik got rather bizarre… The Plague Dogs is more like Watership Down, in that the story is told from the viewpoint of the animals, but it is Heartbreaking!
And Dung Beetle - I swear I put my list together before reading yours - I considered adding Joyland and The Golem and the Jinni as well. To be fair, I’ve gotten many reccos from your “Whatcha Readin’” posts 
This past year was the first year a really started reading a lot of books so my list contains a lot of older books. Finished the year with 40 books read. Tended to stick to Series/Trilogies.
- Game of Thrones Series - George R.R. Martin
- Divergent Trilogy - Veronica Roth
- The Maze Runner Trilogy - James Dashner
- Matched Trilogy - Ally Condie
- The Goddess Test Series - Aimee Carter
- The Giver Series - Lois Lowry
- Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card
- The Incarnations Of Immortality Series - Piers Anthony
- The Relic Master Series - Catherine Fisher
- Under the Dome - Stephen King
I’ve done well mining your posts also!
Listed alphabetically:
Kate Atkinson - Life After Life on several people’s choices already!
Alan Averill - The Beautiful Land quirky multiverse thriller
Iain Banks - The Quarry Iain’s final novel
Eric Brown - Starship Seasons linked sf stories
Robert Cargill - Dreams and Shadows modern day fantasy with changelings.
James S. A. Corey - Abaddon’s Gate 3rd in sf series about huge changes in the colonised Solar System
Stephen Lawhead - The Shadow Lamp 4th in fantasy time travel series
Robert Lyndon -* Hawk Quest* epic Viking/Norman quest adventure across Europe and the Near East
Kim Stanley Robinson - Shaman novel about the creation of some specific prehistoric paintings
Nevil Shute - Ruined City trying to turn around a depressed city in pre-war Britain. I see someone else listed A Town Like Alice, which I re-read last year as well and nearly made the ‘top ten’ cut…
Best of the year was probably Shaman, followed by Life After Life.
I read 132 books in 2013, which is a little low for me.
[ol]
[li]Katherine Boo: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity [/li][li]Karen Armstrong: The Spiral Staircase: My Climb out of Darkness [/li][li]Matthew Goodman: Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World [/li][li]Karen Joy Fowler: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves [/li][li]Jo Walton: Among Others [/li][li]Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, & Fréderic Lemercier: The Photographer [/li][li]Gary Snyder: Passage through India: An Expanded and Illustrated Edition [/li][li]Neil Gaiman: Odd and the Frost Giants[/li][li]Khamboly Dy: A History of Democratic Kampuchea 1975-1979[/li][li]Philip Roth: The Human Stain[/li][/ol]
This was a great year for me for graphic novels, mysteries, and fantasies.
Best, in no certain order:
- Bill Willingham’s Fables series. Read 1-3 this year. Totally hooked and am on volume 6 now.
- Taylor, Craig. Londoners: The Days and Nights of London Now. Fascinating perspective from many niches of contemporary London, including from those who have chosen to leave it.
- Roach, Mary. Gulp: Adventures in the Alimentary Canal. Fascinating nonfic that reads like fic.
- Ballard, J.G. The Drowned World. The images in this book are still vivid i my mind, and I finished it last April 23. Haunting.
- Colin Cotterill’s Siri Paiboun series. I read 2 & 3 this year (33 Teeth, Disco for the Departed). I have to force myself to read them slowly, one every few months, because ideally I’d like them to last forever: each one is like a visit to Laos.
- Wooding, Chris. Retribution Falls. To whomever recommended it: yes, you’re right; it does ‘feel’ like Firefly. Wonderful sci fi.
- Nix, Garth. Sabriel series. This fantasy series set partially in the realm of death was so inventive, I wish I hadn’t read it so I could read it for the first time all over again.
- Cline, Ernest. Ready, Player One. Every gamer gene I possess loved the geekery and puzzles.
- Abercrombie, Joe. The First Law trilogy. Such well-developed characters in fantasy that’s familiar - but all fresh too.
- Everything I read by Neil Gaiman.
Honorable mentions: Everything I read by John Green; Helene Wecker’s The Gollum and the Jinni; Lyndsey’s Faye’s Gods of Gotham; Simon Winchester’s Their Noble Lordships; Timothy Hallinan’s Poke Rafferty series; Richard Crompton’s The Honey Guide
[ol]
[li]Ready Player One[/li][li]Ghost Wars[/li][li]Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs[/li][li]Nudge[/li][li]Thinking Fast and Slow[/li][li]The Things They Carried[/li][li]On the Grand Trunk Road[/li][li]Pygmy[/li][li]Ham on Rye[/li][li]Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal[/li][/ol]