2014: The Year in Books

It being traditional for me, at the start of a new year, to take a look back at the last year's reading:

I read a total of 137 books in 2014. That's actually a handful less than last year, which is a little bit surprising, since I figured that orgy of reading in the downtime after my surgery would make a big contribution to the total. But I think there was a bit of a bounce-back effect after that, where my reading was below average for a few months after I went back to work.

If you're curious to see what all I finished this year, you can find the list here (or here, if you prefer to see a pretty arrangement of covers).

Once again, my To-Read Pile was significantly bigger at the end of the year than at the beginning. I blame those darned library sales.

I did read a lot of good stuff this year, though. Here's my (somewhat arbitrary) best-of list:

Fiction:

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology edited by Christopher Golden
Locke & Key Volume 6: Alpha & Omega by Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It by David Wong
Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Attwood
Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin
Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Non-Fiction:

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Shulz


Hmm. Bit light on the outstanding non-fiction there, maybe, but I think the fiction list is entertainingly diverse.

Now, my goal next year is to read everything. Wish me luck!