Sunday, December 28, 2014

The Year in Review 2014 - Literature

After reading almost no fiction at all in 2013, I got back on that particular horse and managed to get in a decent amount of fiction reading this year.

At the halfway point of the year, posted in summary here on June 30, I had read 11 books by ten different authors. Over the second half of the year I was mainly reading history and wargaming stuff, but did mange to get in 4 more fiction books, all by authors I had read before.

Total books: 15 (by 11 different authors, including 6 new ones for me).
Total pages: 4,386.

Best books of the year for me in 2014 (in order):
  • The Painter by Peter Heller. A marvelous work by someone I hadn't read before. My only five star book this year.
  • The Son by Philipp Meyer. Another sensational (and big) book by the author of American Rust, one of my favorite books of 2009.
  • A terrific pair by Wiley Cash (another new author for me); This Dark Road to Mercy and the almost equally good A Land More Kind than Home.
There were other good books, but these were cream of the crop this year for me.

Full year summary (new authors for me in italics):
  • 5 - The Painter (Peter Heller)
  • 4.5 - The Son (Philipp Meyer)
  • 4.5 - This Dark Road to Mercy (Wiley Cash)
  • 4 - A Land More Kind Than Home (Wiley Cash)
  • 4 - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Diaz)
  • 4 - The Realm of Last Chances (Steve Yarbrough)
  • 4 - Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather [Stories] (Gao Xingjian)
  • 4 - St Burl's Obituary (Daniel Akst)
  • 3.5 - Netherland (Joseph O'Neill)
  • 3.5 - The Burgess Boys (Elizabeth Strout)
  • 3.5 - There Must Be Some Mistake (Frederick Barthelme)
  • 3.5 - The Brothers (Frederick Barthelme)
  • 3.5 - Drown [Stories] (Junot Diaz)
  • 2.5 - Two Against One (Frederick Barthelme)
  • 4.5 - The Vintage Caper (Peter Mayle) 
I was fortunate enough to get a pair of fiction books for Christmas that I have been looking forward to reading, and I am partway into one of those but will likely not finish it before the end of the year. (All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr - absolutely terrific so far).

No comments:

Post a Comment