Best Fiction Read 2004
Discover the best fiction reads of 2004 with our curated list of top books. Explore award-winning novels, hidden gems, and must-read titles from a standout year in literature.
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The Lord of the Rings Box Set
by J. R. R. Tolkien
The three books that make up Tolkien's famous trilogy of Middle-earth are here boxed together in hardcover editions. Set contains The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King.
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Iron Council
by China Miéville
A new cast of characters shares mythical adventures in the sprawling, phantasmagoric city of New Crobuzon.
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The Ghost Writer
by John Harwood
Plagued with unpleasant memories of his mother's death, shy Gerard Freeman is obsessed with the manuscript of a century-old ghost story written by his great-grandmother and entrusted to his care.
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Double Play
by Robert B. Parker
In a brilliant novel about a very real man, Parker tells the story of the 1947 baseball season--when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier--through the eyes of a difficult, brooding, wounded man hired to guard Robinson.
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Alice Adams
by Booth Tarkington
Over the pictures, the vases, the old brown plush rocking-chairs and the stool, over the three gilt chairs, over the new chintz-covered easy chair and the gray velure sofa--over everything everywhere, was the familiar coating of smoke and grime.... Yet here was not fault of housewifery; the curse could not be lifted, as the ingrained smudges permanent on the once white woodwork proved. The grime was perpetually renewed; scrubbing only ground it in. --from the novel This is the story of a middle-class family living in the industrialized "midland country" at the turn of the 20th century. It is against this dingy backdrop that Alice Adams seeks to distinguish herself. She goes to a dance in a used dress, which her mother attempts to renew by changing the lining and adding some lace. She adorns herself not with orchids sent by the florist but with a bouquet of violets she has picked herself. Because her family cannot afford to equip her with the social props or "background" so needed to shine in society, Alice is forced to make do. Ultimately, her ambitions for making a successful marriage must be tempered by the realities of her situation. Alice Adams's resiliency of spirit makes her one of Tarkington's most compelling female characters.
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Edward Maret
by Robert I. Katz
Edward Maret is a happy man. He is young rich, carefree and engaged to be married, but Edward Maret has enemies. His cousin Philip envies him his money. Vincent FitzMichael envies him his fiancee, and Jason Deseret, a man with a dangerous secret, fears that Edward Maret can destroy him. An innocent man is framed by jealous pretenders to the hand of his fiancee...Edward is disappeared by the authorities, only to return years later to exact a transmogrifying revenge.--Publishers Weekly.
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The Middle of the Night
by Daniel Stolar
A collection of short stories explores a world of love and loss, desire and longing, as it examines key moments in people's efforts to understand the paths their lives have taken.
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Somewhere In Time
by Richard Matheson
Like What Dreams May Come, which inspired the upcoming movie starring Robin Williams, Somewhere in Time is the powerful story of a love that transcends time and space, written by one of the Grand Masters of modern fantasy. Matheson's classic novel tells the moving, romantic story of a modern man whose love for a woman he has never met draws him back in time to a luxury hotel in San Diego in 1896, where he finds his soul mate in the form of a celebrated actress of the previous century. Somewhere in Time won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and the 1979 movie version, starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, remains a cult classic whose fans continue to hold yearly conventions to this day.
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Ilium
by Dan Simmons
The first installment of a new saga based on themes from "The Iliad" and "The Tempest" places classical characters and gods in such settings as the Plains of Ilium, the terraformed oceans of Mars, and Jupiter space.
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A modern classic—both poignant and funny—about a boy with autism who sets out to solve the murder of a neighbor's dog and discovers unexpected truths about himself and the world. “Disorienting and reorienting the reader to devastating effect.... Suspenseful and harrowing.” —The New York Times Book Review Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.