12/31/14 –
In 2014 I read 142 books, 102 fiction and 40 nonfiction. (I hope I counted that right.) These are the best of the year – I’m not counting classics or books I read for the second time in the “best of” list but I counted them in the total count – I did go on a French classics kick though and read Manon Lescaut (Andres Prévost – 1735) , The Red and the Black (Stendhal 1830) and The Ladies’ Paradise (Zola 1883) – all great stuff.
Here’s the rest of the story – the “best of’s” 2014:
Fiction:
An Unnecessary Woman
by Rabih Alameddine
2014 / 306 pages
read by Suzanne Toren 10h 28m
rating 9.5 / fiction –
Those Who Stay and Those Who Leave
by Elena Ferrante
2014 /400 pages
rating 8.5 / contemp fict. (Italy)
The Blazing World
Siri Hustvedt
2013/359 pages
rating – 9.5 / contemp US
That Deadman Dance
by Kim Scott
2010 / 355 pages
rating 9.5 / contemp Aust.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
by Richard Flanagan
2014 /334 pages (Kindle)
rating: 9.5 / historical fiction
Orfeo
by Richard Powers
2014/369 pages
rating 9.5 / contemp lit
In the Light of What We Know
by Zia Haider Rahman
2014/ 499 pages
rating 9.5/ contemp lit
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
by Louise Erdrich –
2003/ 355 pages
rating – 9 / contemp fiction
A Constellation of Vital Phenomenon
by Anthony Marra
2013/ 397 pages
rating – 9 / contemp fiction
All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr
*2014 / 531 pages (Kindle)
*Read by Zach Appelman / 16h 2m
Rating: 9 / historical fiction (WWII)
(both listened and read)
The Quincunx: The Inheritance of John Huffam
by Charles Palliser
1989 / 781 pages (Kindle)
rating 9 / 20th century fiction
Nonfiction –
Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China
by Evan Osnos
2014 / 417 pages
rating: 9 / nonfiction
Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt
by Michael Lewis
2013 / 274 pages
Rating 8.5 / nonfiction- business (but great fun!)
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
by Barbara Demick
2013 309 pages
rating 9.5 / nonfiction
Devil in the Grove:
Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys and the Dawn of a New America
by Gilbert King
2013 / 361 pages
rating 9.5 / nonfiction- crime
The Idea of Israel: A Study in Power and Knowledge
by Ilan Pappé
2014 / 313 pages (Kindle)
rating: 9 – historiography/memoir
No Place to Hide:
Edward Snowden, the NSA and U.S. Surveillance State
by Glenn Greenwald
May 2014 / 288 pages
rating 8 / current events
Capital in the 21st Century
by Thomas Piketty
2014 / 696 pages
rating 10 (yes) / non-fiction – economics
The Bully Pulpit:
Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
2013/ 928 pages
rating: 9 / US history – 19th/20th century
The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
by Walter Isaacson
2014 / 560 pages
Rating 9.5 / nonfiction – science
Mystery/Crime
Fourth of July Creek
by Smith Henderson
2014 / 480 pages –
read by MacLeod Andrews, Jenna Lamia 15h 41m
Rating 8 / literary thriller
The Chatham School Affair
by Thomas Cook
1996 / 335 pages / 10h 6m read by George Guidall
Rating A+ (8) / literary crime
The Silkworm
by Robert Galbraith
2014/ 464 pages
narrated by Robert Glenister – 17h 22m
Rating A+ / crime
Wayfaring Stranger
by James Lee Burke
2014 / 449 pages
read by Will Patton 13h 10m
Rating A++ / literary crime
Big Little Lies
by Liane Moriarity (Australia)
2014/ 462 pages
read by Caroline Lee 16 h
Rating A / 8 – crime (literary)
The Handsome Man’s Deluxe Café
The Ladies #1 Detective Agency
by Alexander McCall Smith
2014 / 257 pages
read by Lisette Lecat / 9h 55m
Rating: 10 – A / contemp fiction / fun / Botswana
Broken Harbor
by Tana French
2012 / 456 pages
read by Stephen Hogan 19h 56m
Rating: A+ / crime
(4th in the Dublin Murder Squad series)
