Thursday, January 1, 2015

Jenny's Best of 2014 - the full list of five-starred books


I have taken the books I rated five stars in 2014 and categorized them below. Scott and I talked about some of this list already in our wrap-up podcast episode, but I wanted to include it in its entirety. I'm not even going to try to come up with a top ten since I rated over 40 books 5 stars! I've also added another five-star book to the list since we recorded.

 

Fiction - non-speculative ("literary," short stories, world lit)
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us by Laura van den Berg
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt
One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B. J. Novak
Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
Orfeo by Richard Powers
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor

 

Fiction - speculative (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, weird, dystopia)
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year (Volume 8) edited by Jonathan Strahan
The End is Nigh edited by Hugh Howey and John Joseph Adams
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr.
Chimpanzee by Darin Bradley
The Future for Curious People Gregory Sherl
Annihilation (Southern Reach Trilogy, #1) by Jeff VanderMeer

Poetry
There's a Box in the Garage You Can Beat With a Stick by Michael Teig
The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy
Fifteen Iraqi Poets
Modernist Women Poets: An Anthology
Blue Horses by Mary Oliver
The Open Door: One Hundred Poems, One Hundred Years of "Poetry" Magazine
Slow Lightning by Eduardo C. Corral


Non-fiction - business, informational, history
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon
A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power by Jimmy Carter
The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses by Kevin Birmingham

Non-fiction - essays, memoir, creative non-fiction, writing
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction
Rough Likeness: Essays by Lia Purpura
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard

Non-fiction - cookbooks

Heritage by Sean Brock
Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round by Marisa McClellan

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