I just realized I never did a books post for 2014! Ah well, better late than never.
Goodreads did this nice summary for me (click through the graphic for a full-size version which links to all the books), which shows that apparently I gave lots of books 4 stars and didn’t give any books only 1 star. I’d guess that this is probably more because I abandon what would be 1-star books pretty quickly rather than being an easy marker.
The number is approximate; I’m sure there are a few books in there marked as abandoned and on the other side a few I didn’t bother to enter. Whatever. Reading is about pleasure, not accuracy.
Of particular note this year —
Fiction
- Elizabeth Gilbert, The Signature of All Things. I would never have guessed that Elizabeth Gilbert had this book in her and I dearly hope she continues along this line. A really lovely book; even her science was good (I can overlook some bad science in an otherwise good book, but in this case I didn’t have to).
- Kate Atkinson, Life After Life. A nicely done conceit. Some readers feel the war parts were too long but I don’t share that criticism. Hard to put down.
- Jonas Jonasson, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared. Starts off more or less straight but the humour and absurdity build and build. One of those ones to avoid reading on the subway if you don’t like giggling uncontrollably in public. There’s even an elephant. I give bonus points for elephants if they can be worked into the plot at all plausibly.
- Jo Baker, Longbourn. Lovely and elegant.
- Allie Brosh, Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened . Her wonky illustration style is so totally perfect.
- The whole Peter Grant / Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovich. Supernatural police-procedural mysteries with dry humour, amusing pop culture references and a clear love for London. The last one had enormous invisible carnivorous unicorns. (Apparently I give bonus points for all manner of absurd large animals.)
Non-fiction
- Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. All of Atul Gawande’s books are excellent, but this book about what does happen vs. what should happen in end-of-life situations is particularly good. Full of compassion and practicality.
- Melanie Warner, Pandora’s Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal. Don’t be put off by the slightly hyperbolic title. There’s lots of interesting stuff in here about exactly how food is processed, and it’s an exploration, not a rant. Really interesting. It confirmed my hunch that most breakfast cereal is pretty weird stuff.
- Katha Pollitt, Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights . Just what it says on the tin. A good and very readable summary of some of the horrifying legal nonsense happening in the US and in what specific ways it’s problematic.
- David Byrne, How Music Works . Insight into music theory as well as the workings of David Byrne’s singular creative process, and a well-thought-out summary of the pros and cons of the various ways to make money from music in the 2010s.
- Mark Carwardine and Stephen Fry, Last Chance to See: In the Footsteps of Douglas Adams. In 1990 Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine wrote the first Last Chance to See, which — in Douglas Adams’ inimitable style — explored various endangered species. For this follow-up book, Carwardine enlisted Stephen Fry, with predictably successful results. I’d offer some choice quotes but it would be hard to stop so I won’t start.
I’ll leave it at that. Feel free to plunder my Goodreads account for other ideas to read or avoid, depending on how your taste lines up with mine…