EL Doctorow, Ragtime, Glyn Parry, The Arch Conjuror of England: John Dee, Andrew Caldecott, Rotherweird, Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, Alan Johnson, Please Mister Postman: A Memoir

Snuck the latest Asterix in there somewhere, too. 'Ragtime' was the first of the '100 essential novels' that I've read in a long time that I either understood or enjoyed. Written as a knowing attempt to write the Great American Novel, what I liked about it was that unlike so many of the novels I have read on the list, it wasn't purely the east coast, wealthy intellectual elite with no real problems writing about themselves (Roth, deLillo, Updike. . .). Instead it was a more real vision of the American Dream - by the hard work and application of others, people born into riches can become even richer. Just when I think I'm back on top, along came Pynchon, which nonplussed me for 170-odd pages.