Books I read 2014

Here is a list of (nearly) all the books I read in 2014*. Perennial favourites continue to be Muriel Spark and Graham Greene. I’m having great fun going through Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Chronicles — Framely Parsonage was another enjoyable chapter in that work — and I’ve almost rounded off my sequential read-through of James Bond. You Only Live Twice astounded me in how far the author took his creation, whereas The Man With The Golden Gun proved to be nothing more than a padded novella which unsettled the satisfying end of its predecessor. Tehanu was as good as any fantasy book could hope to get, and the same could be said of Children of Dune, which is definitely more Fantasy than SF. I’ve started revisiting past favourites as well and while A Little Princess completely lived up to the joy I found on its first reading, American Gods by Neil Gaiman did not. I read the extended version of AG this time around, and I think that the swiftness of the punch was lost in the extra material that was added; it still rightly deserves the acclaim it has received, however.

*Exempted are the books I read as research for my writing.

The Shadow Lamp, Stephen Lawhead

Doctor Who: Ten Little Aliens, Stephen Cole

Thunderball, Ian Fleming

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Ian Fleming

Robinson, Muriel Spark

May We Borrow Your Husband? Graham Greene

Clothe Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris

The Unbearable Bassington, Saki

You Only Live Twice, Ian Fleming

Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void, Tim Lebbon

Children of Dune, Frank Herbert

A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Man With The Golden Gun, Ian Fleming

The Blue Fairy Book, Andrew Lang

We, Yevgeny Zamyatin

Common Sense, Thomas Paine

The Thirteen Clocks, James Thuber

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Catherynne Valente

Tehanu, Ursula K Leguin

Who Goes There? John W. Campbell jr

The Odyssey: A Retelling, Simon Armitage

Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls, David Sedaris

Framley Parsonage, Anthony Trollope

How to Speak Money, John Lanchester

Travels With My Aunt, Graham Greene

The House at Pooh Corner, A. A. Milne

American Gods (Author’s Own Edition), Neil Gaiman

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