Recommendations from 2006

Many (some? a few? one?) of you know that I've been writing my blog since January 2011.  And you also know (maybe) that I started rating books at that time.  But what you probably didn't know is that I started to keep track of books and pages read way back in 2006.  I thought it would be fun to go back to the years before 2011 and give you a list of the books that I really liked.  I can't remember them all well enough to rate each one individually, but I can certainly list the ones that I enjoyed the most.  I read 76 books and 28,185 pages in 2006.  And here are the 27 listed in the order that I read them (with a little side note here and there):

W.E.B. Griffin - The Hostage - book 2 in the Presidential Agent series with Charlie Castillo.
Greg Iles - Blood Memory - the 1st of 6(!) Iles I read this year - obviously, this is when I
     became aware of him - and of the 6, 4 were murder/mystery/suspense novels, and 2
     were WWII-related - all very good
Jodi Picoult - Second Glance - I liked her then, and I like her now - 1st of 2 books from
     this year
Steve Berry - The Templar Legacy - book 1 out of 9 in the Cotton Malone series -
     suspense with history - good, fun books
Christopher Moore - Lamb - I stopped reading him a number of years ago now - but this
     was my favorite
Greg Iles - Mortal Fear
Harlan Coben - Promise Me - they're all good, Myron Bolitar or not
Jodi Picoult - Vanishing Acts
Dean Koontz - The Husband - I like all of his books, but not so much the Odd Thomas
     series
Greg Iles - Spandau Phoenix
Daniel Silva - The Messenger - #6 of 14 in the Gabriel Allon series - probably my favorite
     series
Greg Iles - Black Cross
Greg Iles - Turning Angel
Joel Rosenberg - The Copper Scroll - #4 of 5 in the Last Jihad series - very good -
     all with an interesting Middle East perspective
Deborah Wolf - With You and Without You - 1 of 2 that that she's written (I've read them
     both) - "women's fiction?" - perhaps
Alex Berenson - The Faithful Spy - book 1 in the John Wells series - very creative premise
     - Wells, a CIA operative, has spent 10 years undercover with Al Qaeda when book 1
     opens
Brad Meltzer - Book of Fate - I'm not a huge fan, but this is a good one
Christopher Reich - The Patriots Club - the 1st one of his that I read - really liked his
     accountant-as-hero standalones - not so much his series with Jonathan Ransom
Vince Flynn - Act of Treason - #9 in the Mitch Rapp series (#1 & #2 were prequels written
     in 2010 and 2012 respectively) - Flynn died at the ridiculously young age of 47
David Baldacci - The Collectors - #2 in the Camel Club series, which I really liked a lot
Barry Eisler - Rain Fall - #1 in the John Rain series - 1/2 Japanese-1/2 American assassin
Nicholas Sparks - Dear John - I'm a sucker for Sparks' sappy books - my 1st was The
     Notebook
Lolly Winston - Happiness, Sold Separately - 1 of only 2 books Lolly has written so far -
     another "women's fiction" selection
Nelson DeMille - Wild Fire - the 4th in the John Corey series - not my favorite DeMille
     books (loved Charm School) but still better than most everybody else
Lolly Winston - Good Grief
Michael Crichton - Next - the last one published while he was still alive
Greg Iles - True Evil

SERIES NOTE:  I just saw that Emily Bestler, who was Vince Flynn's only publisher, has signed a 3-book deal with author Kyle Mills to continue the Mitch Rapp series.  The next book will come out in 2015.