2014: The Year in Books

I checked back a couple years to see how I've done this in the past. In 2012 I thought this title (only, with "2012" instead of "2014", obviously!) was pretentious. But I used it anyway, which tells you something (either that I'm actually okay with pretentious, or that I was pressed for time and lacking imagination that year too).

Anyway, 2014 has been a pretty fantastic year for me, reading-wise! Aside from a few notable duds (and I will note them), most of what I read this year was really good, and some of it was really great!


January

On Stories and Other Essays on Literature, by C.S. Lewis
The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary, by Robert Alter
The Warden, by Anthony Trollope
The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy Sayers
Aeschylus I: Oresteia , translated by Richmond Lattimore

February
Confronting the Classics, by Mary Beard
The Oresteia, translated by Robert Fagles
Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, by Corey Olsen
The Three Theban Plays, translated by Robert Fagles
Cordelia Underwood, by Van Reid
Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope

March
The Frogs, by Aristophanes (translator blessedly forgotten, and nearly forgiven)
Selected Literary Essays, by C.S. Lewis
Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters, by Lesley Blume
The Sign of the Four, by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Crown Tower, by Michael Sullivan
The Rose and the Thorn, by Michael Sullivan
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett
J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth, by Bradley Birzer
A Study in Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Aeneid, by Virgil, translated by Robert Fitzgerald
Virgil: The Aeneid, by K.W. Gransden

April
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, by Tom Stoppard
Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare
Lord and Lady Bunny -- Almost Royalty! by Polly Horvath
The Death of the Necromancer, by Martha Wells
Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic, by Tom Holland
When Asia Was the World, by Stewart Gordon
The Fall of the Roman Empire, by Peter Heather

May
Silas Marner, by George Eliot
Magician's Ward, by Patricia Wrede
A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole
Religion in the Roman Republic, by James B. Rives
A Damsel in Distress, by P.G. Wodehouse
The World of Late Antiquity: 150-750, by Peter Brown
Aristotle for Everybody, by Mortimer Adler
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, by Aristotle and Robert Bartlett


June
The Republic of Plato, by Plato and Allan Bloom
The Glorious Adventures of the Sunshine Queen, by Geraldine McCaughrean
Blood Song, by Anthony Ryan
Beowulf, translated by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
The Aunt Paradox, by Chris Dolley
The Essential Plotinus, by Plotinus, Elmer O'Brien, translator
The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Thinking Medieval: An Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages, by Marcus Bull
The Prose Edda, by Snorri Sturlson, trans. by Jesse Byock

July
Theft of Swords, by Michael Sullivan
Rise of Empire, by Michael Sullivan
Heir of Novron, by Michael Sullivan
Agricola and Germany, by Tacitus, trans. Anthony Birley
The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius, trans. Scott Goins
The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch
What Were the Crusades? by Jonathan Riley-Smith
The Saga of the Volsungs, trans. by Jesse Byock
Red Seas Under Red Skies, by Scott Lynch
The Republic of Thieves, by Scott Lynch
Georgics, by Virgil, trans. Peter Fallon
Viking: The Norse Warrior's Manual, by John Haywood
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling *
Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues, by N.T. Wright

August
The Hammer and the Blade, by Paul Kemp
A Discourse in Steel, by Paul Kemp
The Blade Itself, by Joe Abercrombie
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by Douglas Adams
Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, by Peter Brown
A Distant Mirror, by Barbara Tuchman
The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Life, the Universe, and Everything, by Douglas Adams
Godric, by Frederick Buechner

September
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
Storm Front, by Jim Butcher
Fool Moon, by Jim Butcher
Grave Peril, by Jim Butcher
Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Truman Capote
Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama, by Sam Leith
Beowulf: The Oldest English Epic, trans. Charles Kennedy
Summer Knight, by Jim Butcher
Death Masks, by Jim Butcher
Why Homer Matters, by Adam Nicolson
Blood Rites, by Jim Butcher
What Makes This Book So Great, by Jo Walton

October
The Confessions: Saint Augustine of Hippo, trans. Maria Boulding
The Song of Roland, trans. Robert Harrison
The Medieval Hero on Screen, by Martha Driver
Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero, by James Romm
Dead Beat, by Jim Butcher
Proven Guilty, by Jim Butcher
On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State, by Joseph Strayer
The Medieval World View: An Introduction, by William Cook and Ronald Herzman
White Night, by Jim Butcher

November
A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III, by Janice Hadlow
Richard II, by William Shakespeare
The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas
Beowulf and Other Old English Poems, by Craig Williamson
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation , by Simon Armitage
Give War and Peace a Chance, by Andrew Kaufman
The Palace Job, by Patrick Weekes
Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity, by Prue Shaw

 December
War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Henry IV, Part 1, by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, Part 2, by William Shakespeare
Reading Dante, by Giuseppe Mazzotta
The Divine Comedy, by Dante, trans. by Clive James
King Henry V, by William Shakespeare


There. I count 107.

The "Of Value Only for Birdcage Liner" Award goes to Mindy Kaling, for Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? The Aunt Paradox and The Medieval Hero on Screen were both also pretty bad. Oh, and The Frogs. That was pretty incomprehensible.

Top awards for "Classics that Deserve Their Status" go to the Greek plays translated by Robert Fagles; The Five Books of Moses (with Robert Alter's commentary); The Aeneid (so good!); Plato's Republic; Augustine's Confessions; Beowulf, especially Tolkien's; everything by Shakespeare but especially Richard II; and War and Peace.

I read a lot of good history, but Peter Brown's Augustine of Hippo was particularly brilliant.

Tolkien and Trollope get trophies for always being wonderful, and Scott Lynch, who wrote The Gentlemen Bastards series (starting with The Lies of Locke Lamora) wins the award for Favorite New Fantasy Author (though I do Not recommend him if you'll be bothered by extravagantly creative profanity).

And I am feeling very enthusiastic about next year's reading! I've made myself a "challenge" list over at Goodreads (here) with 129 books. A mix, like this year, of the "fluffy" and the "somewhat less fluffy." I haven't actually read that many yet in a year, but I figure that since I have them all "lined up and ready to go" I can read more (since I'll be saving hours of "whatever shall I read?" dithering!). Anyway, I'm now off to read in the new year and wish you a very happy 2015!