Books of 2014

Every year around this time, I take stock of my reading habits over the past year, noting my favorite reads and changes in my reading habits. Every year, I feel increasingly like the only one reading physical books, as most of the people I know have either converted to a Kindle or have stopped reading altogether (sigh). I’m still at it, though, because I love it and it enriches my life. It was a big, busy year for me with lots of life changes, so I didn’t read as many of books as I usual do. However, the quality of what I read was higher than usual. Here are my favorites from 2014:

1) Donna Tartt – The Goldfinch: Donna Tartt only publishes a book every ten years or so, but she certainly makes them count. This story starts with a boy who survives a terrorist attack in a museum and the explodes in a million unexpected directions.

2) Matt Taibbi – The Divide: In the year of Ferguson, Matt Taibbi best explained the huge gulf between a punitive police state for working and poor people and a lenient judicial system for the 1% sociopaths.

3) Nathan Rabin – You Don’t Know Us But You Don’t Like Us: Nathan Rabin’s deep dive into the culture of fans of Phish and The Insane Clown Posse was my favorite book of popular sociology this year. You don’t have to be a fan of either band to be fascinated.

4) Ian McEwan – The Children Act: Opening up a new Ian McEwan book is like having a coffee with an old friend. In his latest, McEwan details a courtroom drama involving a case that pits religious freedom against parental negligence.

5) Glenn Greenwald – No Place to Hide: Glenn Greenwald’s story of meeting NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in Hong Kong would have made for a great John Le Carre novel…if it weren’t true. An important book about our broken democracy.

6) Mark Goodman, et al – VJ: As an 18 year college student, I was glued to MTV from its first broadcast in the early 80s. Reading the memories of its first five VJs just made me lament the channel’s on-going policy of not showing music all the more. I miss my MTV!

7) Jonathan Lethem – Dissident Gardens: Jonathan Lethem’s novels have left me cold up until this point. However, his look at Communist Party cells in 1950s NYC was right up my alley.

8) Robert McChesney – Digital Disconnect: For some reason, the issue of net neutrality is confusing or boring to some. Robert McChesney lays out the case for the need to rein in corporations from creating a hierarchical Internet that it out of bounds for most of us.

9) Lena Dunham – Not that Kind of Girl: I have a love/hate relationship with the HBO show “Girls” and its creator Lena Dunham. I had the same reaction to this memoir.

10) Nick Hornby – Ten Years Soaking in the Tub: This large compendium of Nick Hornby’s columns about books from The Believer is only necessary for Hornby completists like me.

Notable Others:

*Nicholson Baker – Traveling Sprinkler
*Nelson George - Seduced
*Alissa Nutting - Tampa

I'd love to hear what the rest of you have been reading this year!