A Reader’s List of 2014 Best Books

Here’s my 2014 reading list of puzzlement and head-scratching wonder.

I read 30 books this year — abandoned 5 — and loved only 9 of them.

Top Nine Books of Wow 

(In the Order of Wow-ness)
1. The Signature of All Things
2. The Boys in the Boat
3. A Tale for the Time Being
4. Destiny of the Republic
5. The Paying Guests
6. The Club Dumas
7. Eleanor and Park
8. Treasure Island
9. Me Before You

I Read This? Are You Sure? I Don’t Remember It At All

(Most Unremembered First)
1. The Dirty Parts of the Bible
2. The Giver
3. American Gods
4. One Plus One
5. The Thirteenth Tale
6. Possession
7. State of Wonder
8. The Shining Girls
9. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches

In the Land of Meh-bee

(Most Meh of Them All First)
1. The Outlander
2. Voyager
3. Dragonfly in Amber
4. Drums of Autumn
5. What Alice Forgot
6. Tell the Wolves I’m Home
7. I Am Pilgrim
8. The Goldfinch
9. Murder as a Fine Art
10. The Professor and the Madman

What Was I Thinking? (AKA Why Did I Spent Time on This?)

(Most “Why?!” First)
1. Murder on the Orient Express
2. The Midwife of Venice

Abandoned Books

1. The Sherlockian
2. The Paris Wife
3. Life After Life (the one by Jill McCorkle)
4. Quicksilver
5. The Cuckoo’s Calling