This was the year that was ... reading during 2014 #2014Books #2014inReview

I started the year with the short story extract from Underworld, "Pafko at the Wall" by Don DeLillo. For my trip to Australia, I read the still brilliant, On the Beach by Nevil Shute and The Mystery of the Hansom Cab, an interesting 19th century mystery by Fergus Hume. Carl Malamud sent me a couple of his printed works and those were quite interesting. Also for travelling, I read The Singapore Grip, by J.G. Farrell was an excellent read for my visit to the City-state.

For my trips to Panama and Sweden, I ready David Mcullough's brilliant The Path Between the Seas, an early 20th century travel account, Prowling About Panama. Dr. Glas and Delusions by Hjalmar Söderberg were undiscovered gems; August Strindberg's The Red Room, less so.  Tomas Transtromer's memoir, Memories Look at Me was an excellent read.

Following on my reading of On the Beach, I read some more nuclear era books, Red Alert (which Dr. Strangelove was based on), Fail Safe, Alas Babylon, The Manchurian Candidate (a brilliant and darkly funny book), and The Day the Earth Stood Still (and other stories).

Classic Arthur C. Clarke works for the year included 2001: A Space Odyssey, Expedition to Earth, and Rendezvous with Rama. Likewise, I continued to work my way through the Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. canon reading Welcome to the Monkey House, Deadeye Dick, Breakfast of Champions, Timequake, and Bluebeard.

Robin Sloan's novella, Ajax Penumbra 1969 (a follow on to his novel from last year) was very good. The Museum of Literary Souls by John Connolly, along with Ajax, were among the best books I read this year.

From the Wool/Silo series, I read works by Ann Christy, W.J. Davies (ed. of a short story collection), Michael Joy, and Patrice Fitzgerald. I also re-read LeGuin's Earthsea books (the first four), Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, and Herman Hesse's The Journey East.

Biographies this year included Patti Smith's memoir, Just Kids, a biography of Leonard Cohen, and an excellent biography of Led Zeppelin, When Giants Walked the Earth.


Short stories included "The Six Fingers of Time," and three stories/novellas by Steve Berry. Rod Sterling's Twilight Zone collection, and Episode 4 of Margaret Atwood's Positron series.

Poetry included Vikram Seth's brilliant collection, All You who Sleep Tonight, Ezra Pound's Diptych Rome-London, Virgil's Ecologues, Leonard Cohen's 15 Poems. Lynda Barry's The Freddie Stories was my foray into graphic novels.

In non-fiction, I focused on a lot of reports, including the NY Times Innovation report, a number of OCLC reports, Hugh McGuire's collection, Book: A Futurist's Manifesto, a collection of writings about the Japanese earthquake, a dialog between E.O. Wilson and poet Robert Hass, and also Peter Morville's disappointing Intertwingled, but also consumed Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw.

I closed out the year with Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors and Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano (which I started for my trip to Mexico and was still reading as the year was ending).