Tag Archives: 2014

December 29, 2014 · 4:59 pm

The 2014 End of Year Book Survey

2014-end-of-year-book-surveyI do this survey every year so here it is again….

1. Best book you read in 2014? (You can break it down by genre if you want)  The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt was a great start to the year and The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber was another highlight. For non-fiction, H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald really stood out for its original blend of memoir, biography and nature writing.

2. Book you were excited about and thought you were going to love more but didn’t? As with The Rehearsal, the overly complex structure of The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton prevented me from enjoying it as much as I had hoped.

3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2014? It’s a very intense read but The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud was a pleasant surprise as I didn’t really get on with The Last Life at all last year. Continue reading →

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December 21, 2014 · 5:06 pm

9 Books I Read in 2014 But Didn’t Review

I review the majority of the books I read. However, mostly due to lack of time, I don’t blog about all of them. Here are my thoughts about nine other books I read in 2014 but didn’t review earlier in the year.

Clever GirlFamily LifeThe Reluctant Fundamentalist

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November 29, 2014 · 7:46 pm

Reading Women in 2014

This week, analysis of 40,000 active Goodreads users (20,000 men and 20,000 women) revealed that readers prefer books by authors of the same gender. The results found that women rate books written by female authors more highly than those written by men and 90% of the 50 most read books by men were written by men.

Bookmarks_walsh

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March 23, 2014 · 3:31 pm

New Books Coming Soon in 2014

One of of my reading resolutions this year has been to get through more of the books I already have on my shelves and Kindle.  I have been making some slow and steady progress recently but, as always, I still have my eye on the latest books.  Here are a few I am particularly looking forward to which have not yet been published:

The Paying Guests Frog Music The Silkworm

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December 30, 2013 · 3:00 pm

The 2013 End of Year Book Survey

2013 book survey

I did this survey last year so here it is again….

1. Best Book You Read In 2013? (You can break it down by genre if you want)  This is hard… in terms of fiction, highlights definitely include ‘A Tale for the Time Being‘ by Ruth Ozeki, ‘Life After Life‘ by Kate Atkinson and ‘Red Joan‘ by Jennie Rooney. The best non-fiction book was probably ‘Quiet‘ by Susan Cain.  I don’t give books star ratings in my reviews so it is difficult to judge and compare a whole year’s worth of reading.

2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t? I was not so much disappointed but just rather perplexed by ‘The Orphan Master’s Son‘ by Adam Johnson.  I was intrigued by the story’s setting in North Korea but it didn’t really grab me as much as I thought it would. Continue reading →

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