I read for pleasure. I read to learn about the world. I read to become a better writer. But mostly, I read because if I didn't, the books on my "to be read" pile would fall and crush Packrat and me.
In 2014, I managed to get through 65 books and plays, covering 8 centuries and at least 8 countries. (66 if I finish The Casual Vacancy by tomorrow, but it's not like JK Rowling ever wrote a short book.) So here's my year in books, with recommendations (and one un-recommendation).
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So here's my 2014 in books.
Political/Current Events Nonfiction:
Jimmy Carter, A Call to Action: Women, Violence, Religion & Power
Michael Eric Dyson, Come Hell or High Water: Hurrican Katrina & the Color of Disaster
William Ecenberger, Kids for Cash (Review here.)
Valerie Hudson et al, Sex & World Peace
Timothy Patrick McCarthy & John McMillan, Protest Nation
Catherine Redfern & Kristin Aune, Reclaiming the F Word: Feminism Today
Matt Taibbi, Griftopia
Alice Walker, The Cushion in the Road
Sent By the Earth
James E. Waller, Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide & Mass Killing
Obviously, some of these do not make for good bedtime reading. I recommend reading the Waller and Dyson books a little at a time, because they're depressing and infuriating (but very informative). Sex & World Peace makes an interesting case that there's a connection between international aggression and the oppression of women within a country. And Alice Walker always manages to make me feel hopeful in spite of the odds.
Memoir:
Cupcake Brown, A Piece of Cake
Frederick Douglass, The Life & Times of Frederick Douglass
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
Primo Levi, The Drowned & the Saved
Jack London, The Cruise of the Snark
Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave
Mario Vargas Llosa, Aunt Julia & the Scriptwriter
Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala (Review here.)
My taste in memoir runs toward people standing up against injustice, whether it's slavery (Douglass, Prince, and Equiano), the Holocaust (Levi), or the Taliban (Malala). The Douglass book should be required reading in every high school history class. Cupcake Brown isn't a well-known name, but she should be: she grew up in foster care, went through pretty much every bad thing that can happen to a kid, hit rock bottom, and went on to become an attorney and advocate for foster kids. (And yes, that's her real name.) I wasn't sure whether to put the Vargas Llosa book under memoir or fiction: it's ostensibly the story of his first marriage, but one gets the feeling he took a few liberties with the facts. (The movie Tune in Tomorrow is an Americanized version of this book.)
Misc Nonfiction:
Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Stephen Dinan & John Robbins, eds, Radical Spirit: Spiritual Writings from the Voices of Tomorrow
Both decent books, but if you haven't read Jared Diamond before, Guns, Germs & Steel is better.
Classics:
Jane Austen, Emma
James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain
Aphra Behn, Ooronoco
Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron
Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
Franz Kafka, Selected Short Stories
Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote, or Arabella
William Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Hamlet
Macbeth
The Merchant of Venice
Othello
Romeo & Juliet
The Taming of the Shrew
The Winter's Tale
I don't have anything terribly original to say about the awesomeness of Shakespeare or Austen (except that All's Well That Ends Well doesn't really end well: two jerks get married.) I believe Shakespeare's greatest play is As You Like It, because I totally adore Rosalind, both as herself and as Ganymede.
As I Lay Dying was my first foray into Faulkner, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it; I'd heard he's a difficult read, but this book is a small masterpiece. Some of the Kafka stories, I just didn't "get," and I don't think it was just the translation. Lennox took the premise of Don Quixote - someone mistakes medieval romances for real life - and tried it with a female protagonist. The Femal Quixote gets repetitious in places, but it's still entertaining.
The book that really blew me away was Baldwin's Go Tell It On the Mountain. He takes an experience that's almost impossible to describe - religious ecstasy - and makes you feel like you're living it.
SF/Fantasy:
Sage Blackwood, Jinx's Magic
Octavia E. Butler, Kindred
Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl & the Last Guardian
Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games trilogy
Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
Making Money
H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds
No contest, the best book on that list is Jinx's Magic. And if you have to ask why, you're probably not reading the weekly Write On! dkos diary by SensibleShoes - also known as Sage Blackwood.
Kindred is a brilliant exploration of slavery, and what it means to live so intimately with one's oppressor. The Hunger Games series was well done; the moment that summed it up for me was the hair-and-makeup crew burbling about how "exciting" the games were as they sent Katniss out to her likely death. The ending was painfully dark, but it kind of had to be. For fun reading, I'll take anything by Pratchett. I don't know how he's manged to churn out so many Discworld novels, but I can't get enough.
Mystery/Suspense:
Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone
Janet Evanovich, Takedown Twenty
Top Secret Twenty-One
Carl Hiaasen, Skinny Dip
Star Island
Stig Larsson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy
Donald Westlake, What's the Worst That Could Happen?
I'm not a big mystery reader, and most of the ones on this list are comedies: Hiaasen, Westlake, Evanovich. I read Evanovich mostly for the love triangle - I hope Stephanie never makes up her mind. On the serious side, the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series has a truly kickass heroine.
Misc Fiction:
Guy Gavriel Kay, Ysabel
Leslea Newman, Every Woman's Dream
Emmanual Royidis, Pope Joan
Zadie Smith, White Teeth
With both Ysabel and White Teeth, I kept reading in the hopes that they would get better. They didn't. Every Women's Dream is an excellent short story collection. It's only 20-something years old, but seems to belong to a different era, when AIDS was a quick death sentence and the most basic LGBT civil rights were under fire.
Poetry:
Julie R. Enszer, ed, Milk & Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry
Martin Espada, ed, Poetry Like Bread: Poets of the Political Imagination
Luella Hill-Dudley, ed, Sistahs With Ink: Voices
Alice Walker, The World Will Follow Joy
Linda Zeiser & Trena Machado, eds, What I Want From You: Voices of East Bay Lesbian Poets
And we're back to politics, because I like poetry that's actually about something. The Espada book includes side-by-side English and Spanish versions of a lot of the poems, which adds a whole extra dimension. And once again, Alice Walker rocks.
Other:
The one book I put down without finishing this year was A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. For the morbidly curious, Mnemosyne pointed me to this Amazon review, which pretty much covers it. Memo to authors: the world really doesn't need another book about a "strong, independent woman" who's happy to ditch that strength and independence the moment she meets a control-freak vampire. In fact, that plot can be shelved even if the guy's not a vampire.
On to Top Comments!
From tmservo433:
Here you go. Nice wry assessment there. (Note from Tara: comment is from AoT, in tmservo433's diary DeBlasio reduces crime between 66-94% instantly as NYPD tries the Bunny Colvin method.)
From
Angie in WA State:
This comment by quaoar in this diary by MTmofo.
It's self explanatory why:
Looks like Grimm's career just got thrown from the balcony.
Thanks for all your hard work TC Team!
-- Happy Holidays and a wonderful New Year!
angie
From
enhydra lutris:
In La Feminista's diary on the Scalise - KKK fiasco "Republicans get easily confused" here, awmaz delivers a brilliant strategic ploy that we need to be using often and widely here.
From
Your humble (if antisocial) diarist:
In Hunter's diary 12 Signs of the Apocalypse: August and the national Review opines on race in America, the featured photo caused Tunk to make this observation.
Top Mojo, courtesy of mik:
1) Sit back and watch how they make his life hell. by RhodeIslandAspie — 168
2) Here's one good cop; where are the rest? by a2nite — 162
3) Even if they hadn't turned their back, the Mayor by GeorgeBurnsWasRight — 142
4) One year when I was a kid by ItsJessMe — 123
5) This story is eerily similar to by OregonWetDog — 100
6) This in so many ways explain why they turned by NedSparks — 97
7) I had some neighbor kids that were messing with by 88kathy — 95
8) They already did by a2nite — 88
9) I think its amazing by gjohnsit — 85
10) And there's more to come, I predict. by RhodeIslandAspie — 82
11) Well, that's one way, 88kathy. :) What I love by Leslie Salzillo — 65
12) Serpico had to leave the country because his life by Azubia — 65
13) Ironic that, in the birthplace of democracy, by psnyder — 64
14) Austerity doesn't work by gjohnsit — 59
15) Another example of Serpico as exemplary cop. by thirty three and a third — 59
16) My sis had a total lemon beater by Joieau — 57
17) In the Schoolcraft article, the NYPD by OregonWetDog — 56
18) I recall an example of that which was so obvious.. by LiberalCanuck — 56
19) Wonderful response on your mom's part. nt by caryltoo — 55
20) I just want to add one other thing. by cany — 55
21) Why'd yu stick me behind dis door? by Horsefeathers — 55
22) Google "Richmond CA police chief" or by slowbutsure — 53
23) It was a tough year at casa blue jersey. by blue jersey mom — 52
24) Is yu whisperin' about mah fundament by Horsefeathers — 51
25) Pedantry is a virtue sometimes! by leftykook — 50
26) This is just about the time when one hopes by corvo — 49
27) It's time for another year already? by jwinIL14 — 49
28) Lemme out! by Horsefeathers — 47
29) Looks like Grimm's career by quaoar — 46
30) But the good news is that we did adopt Kinki! by blue jersey mom — 45
31) I can lip read, ya know! by Horsefeathers — 45
32) What else was he supposed to do? by roundhead — 45
Photo quilt, courtesy of jotter: