I’m a little late with my book year in review. Oh well. It’s still on time for the lunar new year.

Total read:

This adds up to 22,352 pages. (I keep meticulous spreadsheets). The longest book was The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (771 pages). Shortest was Have You Seen Marie? by Sandra Cisneros (101 pages, it’s a picture book)

One book was by two authors. I read 3-4 books by a number of writers. The most read author was Rainbow Rowell. Most authors were new to me (84%) and several have become new favorites. I can’t wait to read more by them.

I read a pretty diverse group, which isn’t new for me.

I definitely read more books by women, but that’s probably because when I read multiple books by a writer, they tended to be by women (e.g., Rowell, Gillian Flynn, Ruth L. Ozeki, Jhumpa Lahiri, Meg Wolitzer, Ann Patchett).

I didn’t spend much on books. In fact, I didn’t buy any actual books and only bought e-books. I started reading a lot more when I took advantage of the e-book lending program through the LA Public Library. It also helps that the UCLA libraries are well stocked with both new and older fiction.

A plurality of the books I read were published in 2014 (9), 2013 (13) or 2012 (5). I didn’t read read anything older than me. The oldest, Of Love and Other Shadows by Isabel Allende, was published in 1984.

I read a lot of novels. I didn’t really break down the novels by type (e.g., suspense, literary fiction, speculative or science fiction), but I think literary fiction would’ve been the largest category.

I read a lot more later in the year. This is probably because I started reading more e-books which I read a little faster.

The graphic is wrong, but I’m too lazy to make a new one. 29 books got 3 stars. The average was 3 1/3 stars.

Fiction [alpha order] – Trimming this down from 20 to 15 and then to 10 was tough.
At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcón
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth L. Ozeki
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
Lotería by Mario Alberto Zambrano

Favorite(s) I need to add to my library so I can read them over and over or look up favorite passages:
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Short story collection
No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories by Miranda July
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak

Non-fiction
The Death Class: A True Story About Life by Erika Hayasaki
All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior
Devil’s Highway: A True Story by Luis Alberto Urrea

Memoir
What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng: A Novel by Dave Eggers [“novel” is in the title, but it reads like a memoir]
Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. by Luis J. Rodriguez

Graphic novels/memoir
Have You Seen Marie? by Sandra Cisneros [not sure if this counts, since it’s more like a picture book with a short essay at the end]
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me by Ellen Forney

Favorite new (to me) authors:
Daniel Alarcón
Kazuo Ishiguro
Anthony Marra – best debut novel
Ruth L. Ozeki

Favorite covers

Book that lived up to the hype
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Most over-hyped
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt – I would’ve liked it more if it wasn’t 771 pages long
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Favorite quotes

I keep notes of my favorite quotes. I noticed that a number of my quotes related to being a parent and especially to motherhood. Below are some of my favorites that really hit me as I grappled with new mom life.

From All Over Creation by Ruth L. Ozeki (p. 405)

Time plays tricks on mothers. It teases you with breaks and brief caesuras, only to skip wildly forward, bringing breathtaking changes to your baby’s body. Only he wasn’t a baby anymore, and how often did I have to learn that? The lessons were painful.

From The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer (p. 320)

The minute you had children, you closed ranks. You didn’t plan this in advance, but it happened. Families were like individual, discrete, moated island nations. The little group of citizens on slabs of rock gathered together instinctively, almost defensively, and everyone who was outside the walls – even if you’d once been best friends – was now just that, outsiders. Families had their ways. You took note of how other people raised their kids, even other people you loved, and it seemed all wrong. The culture and practices of one’s own family were the only way, for better or worse.

From The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (p. 51)

Small children believe themselves to be gods, or some of them do, and they can only be satisfied when the rest of the world goes along with their way of seeing things.

From Landline by Rainbow Rowell (p. 220)

Having kids sent a tornado through your marriage, then made you happy for the devastation. Even if you could rebuild everything just the way it was before, you’d never want to.