THE BOOKS OF 2014

Starting in 2011, I have kept a journal about all the books I have read or listened to.  And then in the first few days of January I’ve been making Facebook post with the list of the books I have completed in that previous year.  So here are the books of 2014, along with small reviews.  If you have any recommendation for 2015 let me know.  However, I have a piles of books at home that I need to read and I am not the quickest reader.  Enjoy!!
** = Audio Book         SSBC = Books we read in Short Stories Book Club

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin (1999)
This is the second book in the series, "A Song of Ice and Fire," and it was amazing.  I can't believe I have not read the third book yet, but book club keeps me busy and I have so much to read, but I will be starting A Storm of Swords in the next few weeks.  My favorite quote from this book comes from Ser Rodrick:
"When we speak of the morrows nothing is ever certain." (p 194)

Night Shift by Stephen King (1979)  

I picked up this collection of 20 short stories for $1.00 at my local Goodwill.  The second to last story, "One for the Road," two old men are hanging out in a small town bar in Maine, of course.  There is a blizzard going on outside and they are about to close up, when a stranger reports his family car broke down outside of a abandoned town called Jerusalem's Lot.  Unknown to the man there is a local legend that vampires lurk in this mysterious place.  Against there better judgement the two older men drive the family man back to his car, but his wife and child are missing.  Things don't end well in this cold and snowy night.



Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn** (2007) 
My wife, Ashley, and I share a car together, so occasionally we listen to audio books together on many car rides.  Prior to this I had already listened to Gone Girl, which I prefer over this book, but both books kept me guessing who did it to the very end.  My problem with this one is the main character, Camille, who returns to home town to investigate the murder of two little girls.  Camille had a difficult childhood, but she makes some stupid choices at times in my opinion, such as when she decides to do LSD with her half sister, who is only 13 years old.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (1999) (SSBC)
The stories in this collection focus either on people living in India or people from India who now live in America. I found all the characters intriguing in this book, such as in the final story, "The Third and Final Continent."  Where a young man leaves India and moves to Boston and briefly lives with an elderly woman, who turns out to be 103 years old.  He ends up staying in Boston and raising a family there, but always thinks of the old woman when he passes by her old house.  Here's the final sentences of the story:  Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept.  As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it was beyond my imagination. (p 198)

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P.D. James** (1972)
This is the first installment in the mystery series of Cordelia Gray, who is a 20 year old private detective who is still new to the field get's her first big case.  Here is a capable and smart female detective whom goes to Cambridge to investigate a supposed suicide of a young student.  I was just reading over my notes and just put something together.  At the end of the novel she ends up being questioned by Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard.  Which if you know Jame's work Dalgliesh is protagonist of most of her work and I will actually listened to one of his mysteries this past year, see The Lighthouse.  For Christmas I just go the second Cordelia Gray mystery, The Skull Beneath the Skin, which was voted one of the top 10 mysteries of all time by Entertainment Weekly. 

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1898) (SSBC)
This book written well over a 100 years ago is often described as a "classic ghost tale."  However, it left most of the book club very confused by what was going on.  Was the governess who came to the strange mansion crazy or were the creepy little girl and boy actually hanging out with dead people?  I am still not sure what was going on here.  I let this quote from the story sum it up:
Wasn't it just a story-book over which I had fallen a-doze and a a-dream?  No; it was a big ugly antique but convenient house, embodying a few features of a still order, half-displaced and half-utilized, in which I had the fancy of our being almost as lost as handful of passengers in a great drifting ship.  Well, I was strangely at the helm." (p 96)


Hush by Nancy Bush (2011)
I have gotten sick of reading the same old magazines while using my bathroom, so I have started putting cheap paper backs in there so I have something to read.  Maybe this is more information than you need to know.  However, I knew this book wasn't going to be amazing, but it did keep my interest.  Same old story, a group of high school girls sit around a fire telling their deepest secrets, later on that night the boy they all had a crush on falls off a cliff to his death.  Now 12 years later they reunite and more people start dying off.

The Lighthouse by P.D. James** (2005)
 I am a huge fan of mysteries, if you haven't noticed that most of audiobooks include death and detectives.  Adam Dalgliesh makes his second appearance, this time his team is sent isolated island to solve the death of an author.  I just got into Ms. James this year and she was an amazing writer, that passed away this last November at age 94.  She first introduced us to Dalgliesh in 1962 and his last adventure was in 2008, pretty amazing.


Stay Close by Harlan Coben** (2013)
My good friend, Tina, moved to Oakland this last fall and for her long road trip I got her copy of this audiobook.  No one can keep you hooked to a story like Coben in my opinion,  I would never put him and Bush into the same category.  Coben knows how to come up with unique plots and you feel like your on this constant roller coaster the whole time. 

The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatics" by Yann Martel (1993) (SSBC)
These are early four stories from the author of Life of Pi.  The title story "The Facts Behind.." was about a college student who befriends a younger student and quickly it is discovered that he has AIDS.  Martel explains in the introduction that he knew someone who passed away from AIDS.  The main character becomes a true friend and helps him by coming up with an idea that they will tell a story together and go back and forth creating the narrative to distract him from the disease and him dying.  A lovely piece, but also very sad. 


Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell (2013) (SSBC)
The book club choose this one for October and all the stories have some kind of supernatural element about them.  Some pretty weird plots, such as vampires sucking on lemons to quench their thirst and in "Reeling for the Empire," young girls are shipped to a sweatshop to make silk and end up transforming into silkworms.  The funniest and my favorite tale was "The Barn at the End of Our Term," where former United States presidents pass away and end up returning as horses.  In this barn half of the horses are former presidents and the majority want to break free from the farm and return to D.C. and get back into politics.  Except, for former President Rutherford, who's main desire is to find his wife.  He starts suspecting that a particular sheep may be his Lucy.  

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith** (2014)
This is the second book featuring detective Cormoran Strike this time he is hired to find a missing novelist.  Strike finds him, but the author has been killed and leaves behind many suspects.  In case you don't know already, Robert Galbraith is pen name used by J K Rowling.  If the only thing you've read by her is Harry Potter, I would definitely recommend checking out any of her other books.  They do not all include wizards and magic, but they are all brilliant pieces of work.

 Bossypants by Tina Fey (2011) (SSBC) 
I had heard many good things of this book and I was excited to read it.  I enjoyed it overall, but maybe not as amazing as I had hoped for.  My favorite chapters were "That's Don Fey," about her bad-ass dad and "I Don't Care If You Like It," where Tina recalls Jimmy Fallon telling Amy Poehler to stop doing something because it wasn't cute.  Amy responded, "I don't fucking care if you like it."   I'll admit that I have only watched a few episodes of  30 Rock, but the book has sparked my interest in watching the series. 

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (1993)
My Aunt Renee often gives me books to read after she's done with them and I actually found the time to read this one.  This was one of the best books I read this year.  It is the fictional autobiography of Daisy Goodwill Flett, a seemingly ordinary woman whose life is marked by death and loss from the beginning, when her mother dies during childbirth.  Here's a grand quote close to the end of the book: Words are more and more required.  And the question arises: what is the story of life? A chronicle of fact or a skillfully wrought impression? (p 340)