At Least There Were Books

Well, I have to say, 2014 was a pretty crappy year. While I did have a few things published here and there, my writing output was sorely diminished, and if it hadn't been for an excellent Grub Street class taught by Ron MacLean, I might not have worked on anything new at all. Blogging suffered in tandem with my other writing, although as usual I did manage blogging about a few of those things that kept me from writing (like cancer, nerve pain, a death in the family, and, well, laziness, of course).

At least there were books.

Fifty-two, according to my Goodreads account, an average of one per week and 16,315 total pages. More books than I would have guessed, although down from sixty-nine books in 2013. I gave five stars (Goodreads' highest rating) to eleven this year (alpha by author):

DARK PLACES, Gillian Flynn
SHARP OBJECTS, Gillian Flynn
BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK, Ben Fountain
RED DRAGON, Thomas Harris
DEAR LIFE: STORIES, Alice Munro
THE COMPLETE STORIES, Flannery O'Connor
HIDE ME AMONG THE GRAVES, Tim Powers
1 DEAD IN ATTIC, Chris Rose
THE BRAINDEAD MEGAPHONE, George Saunders
THIS IS NOT A TEST, Courtney Summers
COUNTDOWN CITY, Ben Winters

Hmm. That's a pretty dark reading list. Two Gillian Flynn novels, Thomas Harris's prequel to SILENCE OF THE LAMBS,  a great (but depressing) young adult zombie apocalypse book (THIS IS NOT A TEST), a Tim Powers historical vampire-ish story, and every short story that the queen of Southern Gothic ever wrote. The Saunders collection of essays, and Chris Rose's collected columns from New Orleans, Post-Katrina, are the only non-fiction works in my top selections.

Although the bulk of the year's reading received a solid three or four stars, I did give a meager two stars to a few books in 2014; one collection of short stories, one "humorous" non-fiction travel book, and a science fiction novel from an author who's written plenty of much better books, so he's allowed one stinker. I'm not going to list those here, but as a person who's congenitally unable to give up on a book once they've started it, let's just say I more-or-less regret the time spent with those three slabs of paper. At least nobody received the dread single star in 2014 (*shakes fist at the sky* "Thomas Pynchon!").

My favorite book of the year? Hard to say. COUNTDOWN CITY held up well, but wasn't quite the stunner that the first book in the Last Policeman series was. I raved about THIS IS NOT A TEST when I finished it, but it hasn't stuck with me as strongly as, say, Flynn's DARK PLACES has. Alice Munro's quiet majesty, Ben Fountain's Iraq-vets-at-a-Dallas-Cowboy's-football-game tour de force, etc., etc., they were all good, and I would recommend any of them to anybody.

Well, that is anybody who likes their reading served... dark.

So, Happy New Year, May Your Books Be Many, and as always,

Thanks for Reading.

Stephen