My top three reads of 2014 were, coincidentally, books published in 2014; I did a lot of contemporary reading, perhaps more than usual, this year because I got to write lots of reviews. I really appreciated that opportunity, because it led me to books like Life Drawing, A Highly Unlikely Scenario, and The Secret History of Wonder Woman that I might not have encountered otherwise.
TOTAL BOOKS READ: 47, plus at least four begun and, through no fault of their own, put aside for later; and lots of rereading of old favorites for comfort
BY ROXANE GAY: 2, both impressively good
BY DIANA GABALDON: 8, for an estimated total of 50,000 pages. These basically took over my life.
GRAPHIC NOVELS: 3, all remarkable
GENRE NOVELS: Kind of a lot
THEMES: Sexual violence, feminism, high-brow sequels, the Midwest
An Untamed State (Gay) – A
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Chast) – A
Lila (Robinson) – A
A Bintel Brief (Finck) – A-
A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Gabaldon) – A-
Americanah (Adichie) – A-
Bad Feminist (Gay) – A-
Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel (Ulinich) – A-
Life Drawing (Black) – A-
The Flamethrowers (Kushner) – A-
The Magician’s Land (Grossman) – A-
Voyager (Gabaldon) – A-
Written In My Own Heart’s Blood (Gabaldon) – A-
Demon Camp (Percy) — B+/A-
The Goldfinch (Tartt) – B+/A-
The Secret History of Wonder Woman (Lepore) – B+/A-
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage (Patchett) – B+/A-
We Were All Completely Beside Ourselves (Fowler) – B+/A-
A Highly Unlikely Scenario (Cantor) – B+
An Unnecessary Woman (Alameddine) – B+
Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway (Gran) – B+
Not That Kind of Girl (Dunham) – B+
Small Victories (Lamott) – B+
Some Luck (Smiley) – B+
The Fault in our Stars (Green) – B+
Half Bad (Green) – B/B+
I Am Half-Sick of Shadows (Bradley) – B/B+
Lay It On My Heart (Pneuman) – B/B+
The Fiery Cross (Gabaldon) – B/B+
Outlander (Gabaldon) – B/B+
The Frangipani Hotel (Kupersmith) – B/B+
The Quick (Owen) – B/B+
A Dragonfly in Amber (Gabaldon) – B
A Dual Inheritance (Hershon) – B
Bone Clocks (Mitchell) – B
California (Lepucki) – B
Can’t and Won’t (Davis) – B
Drums of Autumn (Gabaldon) – B
How Should a Person Be? (Heti) – B
The Price of Salt (Highsmith) – B
We Are Called to Rise (McBride) – B
An Echo In The Bone (Gabaldon) – B/B-
Frog Music (Donoghue) – C+
Good In Bed (Weiner) – C+
Too Hard to Be Objective
Cutting Teeth (Fierro) – N/A
Tender (Rikhter) – N/A
When I First Held You (Gresko) – N/A
Lovely But Unfinished — Will Return
A Fine Old Conflict (Mitford)
Cold Mountain (Frazier)
One Summer (Bryson)
The Paying Guests (Waters)