Best Books of the
Year
Fiction
- All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
- Lila, Marilynne
Robinson
- The Children Act, Ian McEwan
- 10:04, Ben Lerner
- Nora Webster, Colm Toibin
- Redeployment, Phil Kay
- The Invention of Wings, Sue Monk Kidd
- The Secret Place, Tana French
- The Drop, Dennis Lehane
- Fourth of July Creek, Smith Henderson
Non-Fiction
- In the Kingdom of Ice, Hampton Sides
- The Most Dangerous Book, Kevin Birmingham
- How About Never Is Never Good For You? Bob Mankoff
Graphic Novels
- Can’t We Talk About
Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast
- March (Book One), John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell
- The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains, Neil Gaiman and Eddie Campbell
- Bone, Jeff Smith
- The Graveyard Book, Vols. 1 & 2, adapted by P. Craig Russell from the novel by Neil Gaiman
- The Shadow Hero, Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew
A few thoughts on the
“best” books:
There is no particular order to the best fiction of 2014.
If, however, I were to pare the list from 10 to two, I would recommend All the Light We Cannot See and Lila.
Sue Monk Kidd’s The
Invention of Wings has been overlooked in the year-end rush to compile
“bests” lists. Her fictional history of the Grimke sisters is powerful and
moving.
Ben Lerner grew up in Topeka. He went to high school with my
daughter. I judged the kid in forensics. I’ve said all that to explain my pride
in Mr. Lerner, who is going to put Kansas on the literary map. He is brilliant,
and his second novel, 10:04, is receiving praise from such disparate sources as
NPR, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
The Drop and The Secret Place are
thrillers/mysteries. I thoroughly enjoy the genre and these writers.
The Most Dangerous
Book is a riveting account of efforts to bring James Joyce's Ulysses to publication.
Roz Chast’s graphic memoir could have been listed among the
non-fiction. I chose to put it with the “graphic novels” to demonstrate the
range and quality of books now being published under that broad and unwieldy
designation.
For the same reason, I listed March (Book One) and Bone. Both
were issued prior to 2014. Normally, I would not include books not published in
the calendar year on my “best of” list. (March
is also a work of non-fiction.)
The Truth is a Cave in
the Black Mountains isn’t strictly a graphic novel, but I had to put it
somewhere. It’s another in a long line of brilliant efforts from Neil Gaiman.
The Shadow Hero is
the only graphic novel on the list featuring a super-hero. Again, it is not my
customary practice to include such books on this list, but Yang and Liew
warrant a broader audience for this comic book. It’s fun with purpose.
Scattered throughout the list are several books (Aqualung and Harvest, among them) from the 33 1/3 series. The series is ideal
for the music lover. The books vary greater in how they approach each album,
but are equally rewarding.
Reading Results
I read a record 175 books in 2014. That’s roughly a book
every 2.08 days or every 50 hours. My previous personal high was 161 in both
2009 and 2013.
Typically, I am read a portion of three books each day; a
story collection, a novel and a work of non-fiction. I read one short story each morning, which
allows me to complete several story collection or anthologies in the course of
a year. Novels take from two to four days depending upon the length of the book
or the complexity of the writing. (I can vanquish a good thriller in one day.)
I usually limit myself to a single chapter of non-fiction.
My daily goal is a minimum of 100 pages in the novel. The
story collection and non-fiction do not count toward that goal.
Rarely, a day goes by that I don’t read a graphic novel.
Some are listed here, most are not. (See best of.)
Reading the Classics
I introduced a tiny, but significant, framework to my
reading this past year. At the beginning of each month I read or re-read a book
considered a literary classic.
In 2014 I started with Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Amazingly, for someone who considers himself a
Dickensian devotee, I had never read Great
Expectations, which easily ranks among Dickens’ finest novels.
Dickens will launch my 2015 reading too. I know of no finer
writer.
The classics, by month, were:
January – Great
Expectations, Charles Dickens
February – Death Comes
for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
March – The Grapes of
Wrath, John Steinbeck
April – A Farewell to
Arms, Ernest Hemingway
May – The Hobbit,
J.R.R. Tolkien
June – Brighton Rock,
Graham Greene
July – Fahrenheit 451,
Ray Bradbury
August – Slaughterhouse
Five, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
September – The
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
October – Crime and Punishment,
Fyodor Dostoevsky
November – The House
of Mirth, Edith Wharton
December – Lord of the
Flies, William Golding
The books I enjoyed most were by Dickens, Cather, Tolkien,
Vonnegut and Chabon.
Death Comes for the
Archbishop isn’t my favorite book by Cather – that’s My Antonia – but it’s close; it is so finely written, elegant, and
true. I first read The Hobbit as a high school freshman and
have returned to it through the years, and will again in the future.
Kavalier & Clay
is a raucous tribute to the men who launched the comic book industry.
Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five is a
high-wire act, using the fantastic to lay bare the horrors of war. I liked the
movie; love the book.
Here's a list of all the books I read in 2014 month by month:
January
1. Jar of Fools, Jason Lutes.
2. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens.
3. Stalin’s Ghost, Martin Cruz Smith.
4. Blue Heaven, C.J. Box.
5. Iron Council, China Mieville.
6. The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker,
Stanley Crouch.
7. The Astral, Kate Christensen.
8. The Silver Dream, Neil Gaiman, Michael
and MalloryReaves.
9. Ten Years in the Tub, Nick Hornby.
10. Below Zero, C.J. Box.
11. The Yankee Years, Joe Torre & Tom
Verducci.
12. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,
J.K. Rowling.
13. The Rapture of the Nerds, Cory Doctorow
and Charles Stross.
February
14. Kings of the Road, Cameron Stracher.
15. Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa
Cather.
16. Andrew’s Brain, E.L. Doctorow.
17. This is the Story of a Happy Marriage,
Ann Patchett.
18. The Invention of Wings, Sue Monk Kidd.
19. March (Book One), John Lewis and Andrew
Aydin, illustrated by Nate Powell.
20. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, Alan
Bradley.
21. The Pagan Lord, Bernard Cornwell.
22. Catch and Release, Lawrence Block.
23. A Compendium of Collective Nouns, Woop
Studios.
24. Orfeo, Richard Powers.
25. Tom’s Town, William M. Reddig.
26. The Kept, James Scott
27. This Dark Road to Mercy, Wiley Cash.
28. The Free, Willy Vlautin.
29. Granta #124 Travel.
March
30. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck.
31. Super Boys, Brad Ricca.
32. The Valley of Amazement, Amy Tan.
33. After I’m Gone, Laura Lippman.
34. A Land More Kind Than Home, Wiley Cash.
35. One Summer, America, 1927, Bill Bryson.
36. The Lords of Discipline, Pat Conroy.
37. Redeployment, Phil Kay.
38. Nowhere to Run, C.J. Box.
39. Chomp, Carl Hiaasen.
40. The News: A User’s Manual, Alain de
Botton.
41. Relentless,
From Redshirt to the Rock of the Jayhawks,Travis Releford w/Matt Fulks.
42. The Final Country, James Crumley.
43. The Renegades, T. Jefferson Parker.
44. Tracks on a Page, Louise Erdrich, Her Life
and Works, Frances Washburn.
April
45. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway.
46. The Best of McSweeney’s, edited by Dave
Eggers and Jordan Bass.
47. The Lion Seeker, Kenneth Bonert.
48. Life is a Wheel: A Passage Across America by
Bicycle, Bruce Weber.
49. Three Weeks to Say Goodbye, C.J. Box.
50. Scratch Monkey, Charles Stross.
51. All Our Names, Dinaw Mengestu.
52. Fortunately, The Milk, Neil Gaiman.
53. Game Six, Mark Frost.
54. The Best American Short Stories 2005,
ed. Michael Chabon.
55. The Wounded and the Slain, David Goodis.
May
56. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien.
57. B.B. King’s Lucille and the Loves Before Her,
Eric Dahl.
58. The Blazing World, Siri Hustvedt.
59. How About Never Is Never Good For You? Bob
Mankoff.
60. A Permanent Member of the Family,
Russell Banks.
61. Cold Wind, C.J. Box.
62. Dusty in Memphis, Warren Zanes.
63. Congratulations, by the way, George
Saunders.
64. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,
J.K. Rowling.
65. American Romantic, Ward Just.
66. In Paradise, Peter Matthiessen.
67. Toast, Charles Stross.
68. Flyover Lives, Diane Johnson.
69. All Clear, Connie Willis.
70. Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
Roz Chast.
71. Force of Nature, C.J. Box.
June
72. Granta #125, After the War.
73. Brighton Rock, Graham Greene.
74. A Long and Happy Life, Reynolds Price.
75. The Contract With God Trilogy, Will
Eisner.
76. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony
Doerr.
77. Wake, Anna Hope.
78. Hyde, Daniel Levine.
79. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
Robert Lois Stevenson.
80. Aqualung, Allan Moore.
81. Breaking Point, C.J. Box.
82. The Painter, Peter Heller.
83. The SFWA Grand Masters, Vol. 3, edited
by Frederik Pohl.
84. The Dragon Masters, Jack Vance.
85. The
Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics, ed. by Art Spiegelman and
Francoise Mouly.
86. Midnight in Europe, Alan Furst.
July
87. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury.
88. The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains,
Neil Gaiman; illustrations,
Eddie Campbell.
89. Thunderstruck, Elizabeth McCracken.
90. Stone Cold, C.J. Box.
91. Lion Heart, Justin Cartwright.
92. Updike, Adam Begley.
93. The Noble Hustle, Colson Whitehead.
94. We Are Not Ourselves, Matthew Thomas.
95. Back of Beyond, C.J. Box.
96. Adventures in the Dream Trade, Neil
Gaiman.
97. The Jaguar, T. Jefferson Parker.
98. The Snow Queen, Michael Cunningham.
99. Fourth of July Creek, Smith Henderson.
August
100. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut.
101. The Zhivago Affair, Peter Finn and Petra
Couvee.
102. The Raw and the Cooked, Jim Harrison.
103. Harvest, Sam Inglis.
104. Woke Up This Mornin’, Poetry of the Blues,
ed. A.X. Nicholas.
105. The Great Glass Sea, Josh Weil.
106. Deadly Beloved, Max Allan Collins.
107. Was, Geoff Ryman.
108. Iron River, T. Jefferson Parker.
109. The Highway, C.J. Box.
110. Good Omens, Neil Gaiman & Terry
Pratchett.
111. Eye of Vengeance, Jonathon King.
112. The 50 Greatest Cartoons, ed. Jerry
Beck.
113. Unmanned, Dan Fesperman.
114. Equoid, Charles Stross.
115. About Town, The New Yorker and the World It
Made, Ben Yagoda.
116. Zombie Baseball Beatdown, Paolo
Bacigalupi.
117. The Fallen, T. Jefferson Parker.
118. Wolves Eat Dog, Martin Cruz Smith. 36
119. Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor,
Jon Scieszka.
September
120. Binocular Vision, Edith Pearlman.
121. In the Kingdom of Ice, Hampton Sides.
122. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier &
Clay, Michael Chabon.
123. American Recordings, Tony Tost.
124. The Long Way Home, Louise Penny.
125. Bone, Jeff Smith.
126. The Secret Place, Tana French.
127. Bill Self: At Home In The Phog, Bill
Self with John Rohde.
128. Kill My Mother, Jules Feiffer.
129. Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel.
130. The Famous and the Dead, T. Jefferson
Parker.
131. The Best American Mystery Stories 2005,
ed. Joyce Carol Oates and Otto Penzler.
October
132. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky.
133. The UnAmericans, Molly Antopol.
134. Wolf in White Van, John Darnielle.
135. Personal, Lee Child.
136. Men of Tomorrow, Geeks, Gangsters and the
Birth of the Comic Book,
Gerard Jones.
137. Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link.
138. An Unnecessary Woman, Rabih Alameddine.
139. The Drop, Dennis Lehane.
140. Highway 61 Revisited, Mark Polizzotti.
141. Lila, Marilynne Robinson.
142. Abattoir Blues, Peter Robinson.
143. The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher,
Hilary Mantel.
144. The Art of Neil Gaiman, Hayley Campbell.
145. Some Luck, Jane Smiley.
November
146. Shots Fired, C.J. Box.
147. The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton.
148. The Peripheral, William Gibson.
149. The Children Act, Ian McEwan.
150. Stone Mattress, Margaret Atwood.
151. The Burning Room, Michael Connelly.
152. The Most Dangerous Book, Kevin
Birmingham.
153. My Dog Skip, Willie Morris.
154. Wait For Signs, Craig Johnson.
155. Old Books, Rare Friends, Leona
Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern.
156. The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell.
157. Mort Walker’s Private Scrapbook, Mort
Walker.
158. 100 Things Royals Fans Should Know & Do
Before They Die, Matt Fulks.
159. The Narrow Road to the Deep North,
Richard Flanagan.
160. The Laughing Monsters, Denis Johnson.
December
161. Lord of the Flies, William Golding.
162. Let Me Be Frank With You, Richard Ford.
163. Full Measure, T. Jefferson Parker.
164. The Secret History of Wonder Woman, Jill
Lepore.
165. 10:04, Ben Lerner.
166. The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters.
167. The O. Henry Prize Stories 2014.
168. All My Puny Sorrows, Miriam Toews.
169. Rose Gold, Walter Mosley.
170. Nora Webster, Colm Toibin.
171. Deep Down Dark, Hector Tobar.
172. The Lewis Man, Peter May.
173. The Empathy Exams, Leslie Jamison.
174. Revival, Stephen King.
175. A Map of Betrayal, Ha Jin.
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