My 2014 in Books

As part of the Goodreads reader challenge, I intended to read 25 books over the course of 2014. I only got to 17. I struggled in the summer months to find the motivation to read. James Clear's system to read 30+ books a year gives me hope that I can read a less ambitious 20 books this year.

Screenshot from Goodreads showing the covers of the books I read in 2014

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman were books I finished having started in 2013, the former being a book club selection. I read The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers after hearing about references to it in commentary about True Detective (see also io9's report). I read Endgame by James Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton in anticipation of the multi-media experience about to come (and as part of its connection to the game Ingress). Hotel Eden by Ron Carlson was the selection for the 24-Hour Book Club, but I read it over the course of a month. I devoured The Morning After by Chantal Hébert and Jean Lapierre over the course of 18 hours late in the year. I also devoured Great Expectations by reporters Shi Davidi and John Lott as they catalogued the disastrous 2013 Toronto Blue Jays season. On a trip to Vancouver Island, I saw Unbreakable: The Ujjal Dosanjh Story by Douglas P. Welbanks in the ferry gift shop and thought "Someone wrote a book about Ujjal Dosanjh and didn't inform me?" In my quest to read everything she's written, I read the very short The Embassy of Cambodia by Zadie Smith in one sitting. I made a purchase request for and read Chasing the Perfect: Thoughts on Modernist Design in Our Time by Natalia Ilyin on Joe Clark's recommendation, and posted three passages from the book on my Tumblr about home, amber, straight lines. The rest were books I borrowed from my dad or about electronics.

I liked the blog posts that Amy Qualls and Diana Kimball wrote about their year in books.