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Best Reads of 2014 - Peder

Peder

Peder

Well-Known Member
Best Reads of 2014 - Peder

Literary Fiction: Stoner by John Williams. Life, Love and Death of Professor Bill Stoner. Excellent.

General fiction: The Time In Between by Maria Duenas. Tangier, Madrid, Lisbon, espionage.

Classics: Daniel Deronda by George Eliot. Glorious, glorious, glorious! Plot, characters, and prose.

Post-Apocalypse: On The Beach by Nevil Shute. Living, loving, dieing in the modern Post-Apocalypse.

Spy Thriller: I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. Sensational spy/terrorism thriller.

Police Procedural: The Intercept by Dick Wolf. Excellent Ah-wooo! /wolf baying/

Sci-Fi: The Martian by Andy Weir. An astronaut stranded on Mars.

Biography: Salinger by David Shields and Shane Salerno. By the many people who knew him.

Best of the Best
Fiction
Literary Fiction: Stoner by John Williams. Life, Love and Death of Professor Bill Stoner. Excellent.

Non-Fiction
Biography: Salinger by David Shields and Shane Salerno. By the many people who knew him.
= = =
So, create your own genres. Remember the books you enjoyed most. And add your own lists here.
Join the fun. :)
Peder
 
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I'll play :

Literary Fiction : All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Superb.
Literary Fiction Runner Up : The Dog of The South by Charles Portis. A riot.

Detective Fiction : Rose Gold by Walter Mosely. Good old Easy Rawlins.

Historical Fiction : The Good lord Bird by James McBride. Funny, educational and superbly written.

Thriller : Blacklands by Belinda Bauer. Couldn't stop reading it. Edges out Gillian Flynn because it had a heart.
Thriller Runner Up : Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. Had to find out what happened. Had to.

Short Story Collection : Tenth of December by George Saunders. Weird but highly entertaining.
 
753C:
Glad to see your recommendation for Tenth of December. It's in the pile here waiting its turn; now I'll bump it up. Thanks.

Still finishing Salinger here. Even at the halfway mark, it is clearly a best non-fiction read of 2014 for me. Couldn't resist listing it.

Looks like it is too early for people to be thinking about the end of 2014. But the time will come, and I hope the readers here can at least remember one outstanding book they have read recently and mention it.

Happy holiday season! :)
 
Happy Holidays to you too Peder!
I have got to read I Am Pilgrim. I have heard great stuff about it. Maybe after the December book of the month...
 
Bumped up. One day remaining to the year. During December, I added one more to my Best Reads Of 2014 :

Popularized Science: The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne. A readable intro to the imaginative time and space bending seen in the movie, Interstellar. See the movie, read the book, repeat again as necessary! :)

Meanwhile, anyone else care to mention a book, either here or elsewhere, that they would call their own best read of 2014? Or has it been a dreary year all around?

Last chance.
 
This was a great year for me Peder. I read some great stuff this year and it was actually difficult to pick favorites. I'm finishing the year out with this years Booker winner, The Narrow Road To The Deep North, by Richard Flanagan. It is pretty much excellent so far, so I might have to alter my list.... :)
 
753C said:
This was a great year for me Peder. I read some great stuff this year and it was actually difficult to pick favorites. I'm finishing the year out with this years Booker winner, The Narrow Road To The Deep North, by Richard Flanagan. It is pretty much excellent so far, so I might have to alter my list.... :)
Click to expand...

It is great that you are having a hard decision between excellent books. :)
Glad that you had a wonderful reading year and I hope the new year goes well for you in all respects, reading and other.
Most sincerely
Peder
 
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I missed this somehow.

Most of what I read last year was for my research, but I have managed to do some non-university related reading. :)

Short Story: Jean Teulé: Eat Him if You Like
As disgusting as it is, I rather enjoyed it.

Autobiography: Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
I can't decide which I like better as they are very different from one another.

Fiction: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Americanah
 
Polly Parrot said:
I missed this somehow.

Most of what I read last year was for my research, but I have managed to do some non-university related reading. :)

Short Story: Jean Teulé: Eat Him if You Like
As disgusting as it is, I rather enjoyed it.

Autobiography: Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
I can't decide which I like better as they are very different from one another.

Fiction: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Americanah
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply, Polly, adding to the very slim number who have taken the time this year.
Glad to see your recommendations, also; I have been on the fence about some of them.
Have a good new year. :)
 
Belated entry re best of 2014:
1. THE MARTIAN, by Andy Weir.
2.THE RISE OF SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY, by Hans Reichenbach. (Re-Read.) Beautifully lucid exposition. Some credit for this is probably due to his wife, Maria Reichenbach, who did the translation from the original German. Anyone who doubts the value of the translator should read Mark Twain’s essay bitching about the French translation of his jumping frog contest short story. Also, there is a website on which a poem by the Portugese poet, Fernando Pessoa, is set out, with thirteen translations. They differ markedly in effectiveness.
3. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO, by Monique-Marie Robin. There is something on nearly every page to elicit outrage at the company’s morally corrupt pursuit of profit.
4.THIRTEEN BANKERS, by Simon Johnson and James Kwak. Puts the Wall Street financial meltdown in historic context. It does not cause the reader to admire the bankers or the response of the Obama administration.
5. THE MONEYCHANGERS, by Upton Sinclair. This was a good fit with "Thirteen Bankers". The plot centers around the 1907 market crash and general economic panic. Sinclair clearly was not an admirer of J. Pierpont Morgan. The villain of the plot is a fictionalized Morgan.
6. WHY I AM NOT A MUSLIM, by Ibn Warraq. A serious critique of the religion from the Koran up (or down). A more detailed and scholarly analysis than Bertrand Russell’s "Why I Am Not A Christian." Warraq’s rationalist analysis applies more broadly than just to Islam.
7. FURY, by G.M. Ford. Very enjoyable, well-written mystery by a writer new to me.
 
A Listener said:
Belated entry re best of 2014:
.
Click to expand...
Thanks for an interesting list, especially the Sinclair. That 1907 panic/crash sent families of both my sets of grandparents back to Europe because times were too tough to earn a living in the US. They later came back and set down roots here for good.
Glad you enjoyed Andy Weir.
As for #6, I am a Christian and not a Muslim, so it takes all kinds, Russell notwithstanding. :) Challenging reading, anyway, if one is serious about one's religion; easier reading if one is not.
So far, not too much new for 2015 to talk about from here.
Thanks for responding, and welcome.
 
A Listener said:
Belated entry re best of 2014:
1. THE MARTIAN, by Andy Weir.
2.THE RISE OF SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY, by Hans Reichenbach. (Re-Read.) Beautifully lucid exposition. Some credit for this is probably due to his wife, Maria Reichenbach, who did the translation from the original German. Anyone who doubts the value of the translator should read Mark Twain’s essay bitching about the French translation of his jumping frog contest short story. Also, there is a website on which a poem by the Portugese poet, Fernando Pessoa, is set out, with thirteen translations. They differ markedly in effectiveness.
3. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO, by Monique-Marie Robin. There is something on nearly every page to elicit outrage at the company’s morally corrupt pursuit of profit.
4.THIRTEEN BANKERS, by Simon Johnson and James Kwak. Puts the Wall Street financial meltdown in historic context. It does not cause the reader to admire the bankers or the response of the Obama administration.
5. THE MONEYCHANGERS, by Upton Sinclair. This was a good fit with "Thirteen Bankers". The plot centers around the 1907 market crash and general economic panic. Sinclair clearly was not an admirer of J. Pierpont Morgan. The villain of the plot is a fictionalized Morgan.
6. WHY I AM NOT A MUSLIM, by Ibn Warraq. A serious critique of the religion from the Koran up (or down). A more detailed and scholarly analysis than Bertrand Russell’s "Why I Am Not A Christian." Warraq’s rationalist analysis applies more broadly than just to Islam.
7. FURY, by G.M. Ford. Very enjoyable, well-written mystery by a writer new to me.
Click to expand...
The Martian was an excellent read, surprisingly so from a technical standpoint.

James Brennan Hawaii
 
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