Tigers need not apply... two years of books, the long list

No tigers, dogs, or wild things in this list.

Here’s the full list (as far as I can remember) from my two years of not much reading.

This is minus my five fiction faves, pregnancy guides, baby name handbooks, and books about hungry caterpillars, wild things, dogs with Scottish surnames and tea-taking tigers.

Back to Blood, Tom Wolfe – Bonfire of the Vanities was ace. Vitriolic and cuttingly clever. This is kind of more of the same but set in Miami and less ace. Stereotypes abound.

Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel – before Henry VIII and her two Booker prizes, Hilary Mantel wrote Beyond Black. Black it is… it's about psychics, ghosts and personal demons. Funnily, it’s one of those stories that haunts me  from time to time -- I think about the characters as if they were real people and wonder what happened next.

Chaos Walking trilogy, Patrick Ness – young adult fiction. The trilogy’s central idea is a good one (a world where men’s thoughts are heard by everyone yet women’s remain private) but, for me at least, the new Dark Materials trilogy it ain’t.

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens – sadly this has been spoiled by every sitcom ever to have made a Christmas episode. Ghosts of sitcoms past.

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn – a well-written, twisting and, umm, twisted thriller. Might make you look at your significant other in an unfavourable light for a few days.

Goodbye to all that, Robert Graves – anti-war memoir detailing Graves’ life up to the late 1920s, including his time in the trenches. Had been meaning to read it for ages but didn't get to it until I was 8 months pregnant. Poor timing. Pretty harrowing.

Jeeves and Wooster Omnibus, P.G. Wodehouse – silly old Bertie Wooster. Luckily he’s got his right hand man Jeeves to skillfully extricate him from a multitude of scrapes and capers. Good fun, what.

Mortal Fire, Elizabeth Knox – young adult fiction. Magic and fantasy set in the New Zealandesque Southland of Knox’s two previous Dreamhunter works. Canny Mochrie meets a mysterious 17 year-old boy, held captive in his own home by strong magic. A mining accident is central to the plot and you can’t help but feel Knox’s writing is informed by the Pike River disaster. It's pretty good stuff.

Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut – World War II, satire and sci-fi. Billy Pilgrim is ‘unstuck in time’ and jumps between 1945’s Dresden bombing, his later life as an optometrist and abduction by two-foot tall aliens. Irreverent, sad and funny. Not for those who only like fiction based in the realms of the probable.

The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller – narrated by Greek demi-god Achilles’ friend, or in this telling, boyfriend, Patroclus, this is a love story and a retelling of the Trojan War. It’s accessible and entertaining. Winner of the 2012 Orange Prize for fiction.

State of Wonder, Ann Patchett – set in the Amazon jungle. Far-fetched but Brazilliant. Obstetrics and wonder drugs. I read this before my sparkly-eyed, raisin-scoffing imp came on the scene. Parents, watch out for what now seems a fairly brutal finish…