2014 Booklog
Sometime in October or November, I abandoned hope of keeping my sidebar booklog up to date. By then I was deeply immersed in reading YA Fiction for the CYBIL awards. Between 10/15 and 12/26, I read a total of 78 nominees. (In yesterday’s post I said 79. Counted wrong!) Ten of those titles are listed below, but the other 68 haven’t made it into this compilation yet. Was too busy reading to fuss with links and things. Eventually I’ll get them listed here. For now, I’m pulling the January-October(ish) list into this post to serve as my master book log for 2014. Time to wipe the slate clean for 2015!
Some of the links below go to GoodReads; others are Amazon Affiliate links because I have a hundred* children to put through college. You understand.
*More or less.
This list goes backward, with most recently read titles first. If I manage anything new before the end of the year, I’ll update this post. High high high on my list is Sarah Elwell’s novel, Deep in the Far Away, which she published as a serial these past few months. I subscribed eagerly and would have loved to enjoy it in periodical-fashion but the timing coincided with the Cybils onslaught. Also enticing: the prospect of another Forster binge (I know, I know, it’s only been six months since the last one) and maybe some Patricia McKillip. Heir of Sea and Fire jumped off the shelf at me yesterday and I thought ohhhh….(I think that one’s my favorite of the Riddle Master trilogy.)
A final note! I hope to come back here and add commentary to some of the entries below, or links to posts about them. But for now I just want to move the list out of my sidebar. 🙂
Without further ado:
Books I Read (or Listened To) in 2014
117. Matilda (audio with Rilla while we draw—we’re midway through as of this post but I expect we’ll finish by New Year’s)
116. Syllabus by Lynda Barry
Kortney tweeted me about this book, which she correctly pegged as being right up my alley. She caught me at the perfect time, with birthday money from my parents burning a hole in my pocket! And ohhh was she ever right. Utterly marvelous. Inspirational. Possibly life-changing (if only because I was already itching to head in this direction, having so recently resolved to make art journaling and sketching a daily practice).
48-115 (if my math is right): 68 young adult novels to be listed later. So many good books!! (Other Cybils nominees are starred below—some read earlier in the year before they were nominated.)
UPDATED TO ADD: 47. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
(I read about half of this 768-page tome in 2014 and decided that’s enough to warrant inclusion in this list, especially since it inspired numerous lecture-watching rabbit trails, including this excellent talk on George Eliot: Intellect and Consciousness by Catherine Brown of Oxford. Perhaps I’ll finish next year the tome in 2015.)
46. Story of the World Vol. 3
45. Roomies*
44. Conversion*
43. She Is Not Invisible*
42. The BFG (audio)
41. OCD Love Story
40. I’ll Give You the Sun*
39. The Boxcar Children
38. Always Emily*
37. A Mad, Wicked Folly*
36. Girls Like Us*
35. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
34. Pointe*
33. Perfectly Good White Boy*
32. The First Bad Man
31. The Fourteenth Goldfish
30. The Importance of Being Earnest
29. Maurice
28. Dear Committee Members
27. The Blue Castle
26. The Life to Come and Other Stories
25. The Longest Journey
24. A Passage to India
23. We Were Liars*
22. The Rosie Project
21. The Turn of the Screw
20. The Secret Garden
19. The Wheel on the School
18. The Tuesday Club Murders
17. The Remains of the Day
16. The Giver
15. The Blue Flower
14. The Art of Writing, Lecture 1
13. Where Angels Fear to Tread
12. Queen of England: Elizabeth
11. Howards End
10. Howards End Is on the Landing
9. A Room With a View
8. Underfoot in Show Business
7. Q’s Legacy
6. The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
5. 84, Charing Cross Road
4. The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook
3. Gone Girl
2. Paperless Home Organization
1. The Fault in Our Stars
sarah says:
So many wonderful books! I’ll be looking up some of these to add to my summer reading list. I recently finished reading McKillip’s Alphabet of Thorn, which I didn’t like the first time I read it but really very much enjoyed this time around.
On December 27, 2014 at 9:23 pm
Kathryn says:
I have been puttering through book lists looking for inspiration to get myself out of the reading doldrums, saw these and thought of you. Have you seen or read either of them?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/10681337/Arctic-Summer-by-Damon-Galgut-review.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7800901/EM-Forster-A-New-Life-by-Wendy-Moffat-review.html
On December 31, 2014 at 5:52 pm