And so, the Donoghue Interregnum comes to an end! In the following year, I created Stevereads and lost no time in pontificating on books new and old, with scarcely a backward glance at the unseemly gap I’d left in the published history of such pontifications. That gap is now filled, and today, with barely a moment to catch your breaths, the annual Stevereads Best – and Worst – Books of the Year commences for its ninth consecutive year. But before the back-patting and bloodletting begins, I wanted to take a moment to thank all the readers who wrote in praise of what I was doing with the Interregnum. Everybody who wrote seemed to find it at least intriguing, and several correspondents mentioned making sizable additions to their ‘books to read’ lists. About two dozen people requested some kind of extension of the Interregnum – perhaps back to the beginning of my reading years (on the perhaps-tenable assumption that not everybody has back issues of The Daily Iowan at their fingertips), perhaps even back to the beginning of the century! Which would make for a Hell of a lot of book-lists!

Whatever may come of such suggestions, they were great fun to read, and it was very gratifying to know this little trip down Memory Lane was appreciated. Now have some tea, discard all those clipped ‘Year’s Best Books’ lists from other venues (well-intentioned but anemic little lists, fit only to serve as preparations for the real thing), and prepare to have the year’s books sorted in fine order!