If I recall correctly, I vowed to myself this past January that I would read fifty books this year.

As usual, I bit off more than I could chew. However, I read as much as I could find the time to, and I’m proud to say that I not only worked more new books into my rotation this year, I also managed to discover a new series to obsess over that isn’t set in Middle Earth or Westeros and doesn’t feature a boy wizard. Though, to be fair, it does include Sherlock Holmes.

2015 is looking like it’s going to be a far better year than 2014 was, personally speaking, so maybe I might actually have a shot at reaching my goal this coming year.

Here is a list of what I managed to read this year–we’re talking start and finish, since there are several books I am currently making my way through. I recommend all of these, just to be clear, but there are some I enjoyed much more than others. Right now I am trying to finish The Hobbit and process the emotional devastation of “The Battle of the Five Armies.” New reads are marked with an asterisk. Also, I didn’t include them, but I read some magazines throughout the year, my favorites being Vogue, Food Network Magazine, and National Geographic.

1) Downton Abbey Season 2 Scripts*. I eagerly await the publication of Season 3.

2) The Annotated Persuasion

3) The Annotated Sense and Sensibility

4) The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola*

5) The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824 by Harvey Sachs

6) The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman*. (An excellent read.)

7) The Annotated Northanger Abbey

8) 11 Doctors, 11 Stories*. (Also includes Neil Gaiman)

9) Who-ology*

10) Saudade by Miriam Winthrop* (A wonderful book, and I’m happy to say it led to a new friendship for me this year!)

11) Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling*

12) Rick Steves’ Portugal*

13) and 14) Attack on Titan Volumes 1 and 2* (The manga and the anime are both excellent. Some call this Japan’s version of “The Walking Dead,” and I can see that, but this story has a more positive spin on things, though the gore and horror is on par with the things Rick Grimes and his group have suffered thus far.)

15) The Monuments Men by Robert Edsel*

16) Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire* (This puts a spin on the classic “Cinderella” tale and is equal parts brutally honest and whimsical.)

17) Beowulf, as translated by J.R.R. Tolkien

18) The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman*

19) The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King* (I cannot stop reading these Mary Russell books. And I will not hear her called a Mary Sue. She is just as intelligent as her husband, Sherlock Holmes, and the only reason she gets any flack for her intellect and her humanistic capacities is because she is a woman. Oh, and she’s a feminist like me.)

20) A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King*

21) Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman*

22) A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

23) The Quotable Doctor Who*

24) 101 Great American Poems*

25) Lidia’s Common Sense Italian Cooking by Lidia Bastianich* (Her programs are frequently on PBS and Create TV, and I want nothing more than to move in next door to her and to cook all day long.)

26) Several volumes of The Walking Dead

27) Astrophel and Stella by Sir Philip Sidney

28) The Road to Nyn by Brian Michaud* (He’s a local author and a rather talented one at that. This book is set to be part of a series too, for those who are like me and can’t stop at just one.)

29) Lust for Life by Irving Stone

30) A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

31) Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie*

32) Marvel’s 1602

33) The U.K. to U.S.A. Dictionary*

34) Well-Read Women*