Books 2014

Most of my reading this year has been about gardening and canning, or topical non-fiction; the list below features only the fiction, because I did not bother to track the political or autobiographical or cookery or crafting or whatever this year.

The List of good, bad, and indifferent reading this year, in exactly no order:

Finished:
The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen Rudolph Erich Raspe (C) (1.b.1)
Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish: A Novel David Rakoff (B) (2.b.2)
The Girl Who Chased the Moon Sarah Addison Allen (B) (2.b.2)
The Sun King Gaston Derreaux (C) (1.b)
The Aggravation of Elmer Robert Arthur (C+) (1.b)
The Widow’s Cruise F. R. Stockton (A) (1.b)
Night and Day Virginia Woolf (B-) (1.b)
The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco (B) (1)
All Shall Be Well, and All Shall Be Well, and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well Tod Wodicka (B-) (1)
The Vicar of Wakefield Oliver Goldsmith (C+) (1.b.1)
The magicians Lev Grossman (B+) (2.b.2)
Dreamspinner Lynn Kurland (C) (2.b.2)
The book thief Markus Zusak (A-) (2.b.2)
The Alchemist of Souls Anne Lyle (B-) (2.b.2)
The Golem and the Jinni Helene Wecker (A-) (2.b.2)
On the Decay of the Art of Lying Mark Twain (A) (1.b)
Seraphina: The Audition Rachel Hartman (B-) (1.b)
Sorrow’s Knot (C+) (2.b.2)
Chalice Robin McKinley (C+) (2.b.2)
Spindle’s End Robin McKinley (A) (2.b.2)
A Place in Her Heart Trish Milburn (C) (2.b.2)

In progress:
Books are considered in progress if I read at least a few pages now and again and plan to continue through to the end.

Life of Pi Yann Martel
Agnes Grey Anne Bronte
A Game of Thrones George R.R. Martin
Great Expectations Charles Dickens
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll (a re-read)
Uneasy Bones: Dark Works by Women Elise C. Boucher & Kora Hennings, ed. ****
Cryptonomicon Neal Stephenson
Thoughtcrime Experiments Sumana Harihareswara & Leonard Richardson, editors
The Custom of the Country Edith Warton
Midwestern Gothic Summer 2011, Issue 2, edited by Jeff Pfaller, Robert James Russell
The Jungle Upton Sinclair
Night Train to Lisbon Pascal Mercier
The Invisible Man H.G. Wells
The Time Machine H.G. Wells
The Eye of the World Robert Jordan
Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Grimms Fairy Tales
One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Year of the Unicorn Andre Norton (this is a reread)

Abandoned:

Books are considered abandoned when I don’t intend to continue reading them, but may finish at some future point. This is not the same as the grades of D or F–those are books I hated and am done with.

Dark Witch Nora Roberts

—–
Key to codes:

(1) Purchased, Gifted to me, or freely available.
(1.a) Used
(1.b) Ebook
(1.b.1) Audiobook

(2) Borrowed
(2.a) Personal
(2.b) Library
(2.b.1) Audiobook
(2.b.2) ebook
(2.c) ebook (not from library)

Grade:
C+ or better is acceptable reading to me. C is, obviously, on the fence, C- is a book I would read but not buy and will release into the wild if it happens to be something I own, and D or F is something I will never read again and may not have bothered to finish. A double dagger grade (‡) indicates that this multi-author compilation has works that I would range across the whole spectrum, whereas a (+) is a multi-author work I mostly enjoyed and a (-) is a multi-author work I mostly disliked.

—
Some books also get notes added:

****This call for submissions generated so much reading material that I want to represent it here. I’m so happy about that, but it is also true that it’s preventing me from reading things already published.