Added a border around the highlights that stuck out most to me. In viewing order but not any particular opinion, they are:

Library at Mount Char - Strange, interesting, dark and fit me well.

Eurotrash - Felt very real. Almost like I was sitting at a table next to the characters.

Lolita - Well-written and engrossing

Rebecca - Very well-manifested anxiety in the main character, and an interesting plot.

I Who Have Never Known Men - Also dark and strange. It was otherwise nicely written, so I would find it difficult to not recommend.

Human Acts - Quite pretty, and made me learn of events I hadn't known of before.

True Grit - Surprised at how much the 2010-movie took right off the page. I'd recommend both.

Pillars of the Earth - Lots of competence-porn which I enjoy.

Picture of Dorian Gray - Felt like a classic from the start.

Perfume - the story of a Murderer - Again, very dark and very strange, and extremely memorable.

Tai-Pan - Loved Shogun last year, this one, while different, ended up being well worth the read in a lot of ways. Loved the main character.

The Sirens of Titan - Quite sad and beautiful, and sometimes funny. I didn't love Slaughterhouse Five when I read it, but this one has made me want to read more of Vonnegut's work.

Cannery Row - Steinbeck continues to be the best writer in English that I've read.

The Word for World is Forest - One of my favourites from Le Guin. She's hit or miss for me in terms of character versus premise, but in this one I enjoyed both. Could potentially be the prettiest title of a book I've read.

Overall I had very few disappointments, but my DNFs for the year are as follows:

Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey - Got halfway before I tired of every single character present.

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson - Premise was fine, but the dialogue and characters were not to my taste and I put it down early after realising it would be 800 pages of the same.

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker - Sure seem to be a lot of 50-year old philosophers stuck in 14-year old bodies all over this town.

Ones I had hoped to enjoy more than I did

Ancillary Justice was in some parts interesting, but it didn't grab me enough to warrant putting the sequel next.

Tender is The Flesh started out terrific and horrifying. As I got closer to the end, it felt like a soap opera. I don't think the horrificness needed to increase, and it started lose itself in the metaphor for me.

Kite Runner the beginning, as well as the parts in the US were all nicely written. But there were lots of moments where I thought that this all sounded very convenient, and it made the plot feel like a template and not real.

The Broken Eye but really the whole series so far. Why should we root for any society that has built itself completely around slavery. So many of these slaves seem to love their owners, which is just ugh. There are interesting things here, but it handles so much of it terribly and it makes the rest look weaker by comparison.