Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week this group of college aged and twenty somethings provide a prompt so that other book lovers can join in with their own top ten list.
This week's theme is “Top Ten Books Read in 2014”.
As the year's end approaches, I know I'm going to be asked to rank the books that I read and select the top book or books. I suppose I could go by the ratings that I assign to the books, starting with a list of those books which I felt deserved five stars. There are two problems with this: first, I haven't reviewed every book and assigned a rating; second, sometimes one of my favorites for the year might not be a five-star book. What? A favorite or “best” book that didn't rate five stars? Sure. Sometimes the story sticks with me, but there are some flaws in the book which cause me to withhold a star. So, this list will consist of the better books I read during 2014 rather than the highest-ranking ones.
Another thing I want to do is highlight a couple of series that were outstanding. While the individual books themselves weren't candidates for “Best of 2014”, the series collectively falls in to that category.
I will point out that the order of appearance in this list is the order in which they were read. There is no ranking of the books against each other.
- The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley
- Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear
- The Martian by Andy Weir
- Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
- The Gauguin Connection by Estelle Ryan
- Nightmares! by Jason Segel & Kirsten Miller
- The Paper Magician by Charlie N Holmberg
- Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
- Phryne Fisher Mysteries (series) by Kerry Greenwood
- Diana Tregarde Psychic Detective (series) by Mercedes Lackey
Books mentioned in this post: (links lead to Amazon.com):
Phryne Fisher Mysteries (series) by Kerry Greenwood
Diana Tregarde Psychic Detective (series) by Mercedes Lackey
Great list! I haven't heard of a lot of these titles. :) I decided to list my books in the order I read them, too - trying to rank them would be too hard!
ReplyDeleteI'd never have gotten this post completed and online if I had had to rank the books. I took a peek at your list and see a couple of books that I plan on reading in 2015. Thanks for stopping by.
DeleteGreat picks. I haven't read any of these, but some of them look really good. here's my TTT
ReplyDeleteAlso, I still have my $30 Amazon giveaway going.
Hey Danica -- thanks for taking a look at what I've been reading. I see that you've read a lot of YA/NA books in 2014. I'll be looking at your reviews for recommendations for my 2015 reading.
DeleteInteresting list! I've only heard of one of these book but from looking at them them I know I need to add some of them to my TBR. Thanks so much for sharing. Have a great week and happy reading. My TTT
ReplyDeleteMandy, I *strongly* recommend Nightmares!. It was a delightful story. And, if you haven't discovered Flavia de Luce, the 11-year-old "star" of Alan Bradley's mysteries, pick up the first book, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.
DeleteNice list! I have all of the Winspear books, but I've only read the first one. Blasphemy! My MIL is a huge fan, though. Are the Phryne Fisher ones similar?
ReplyDeleteThe Phryne Fisher mysteries are less "intellectual" or "literary" than the Maisie Dobbs books by Winspear. I find them delightful cozy mysteries. Set in the roaring 20s, Phryne is a wealthy young (20-ish) "modern" woman who has immigrated to Australia and promptly set herself up in business as a private investigator. She's surrounded herself with a number of of able assistants from her household staff Mr. & Mrs. Butler, her personal assistant Dorothy, two adopted daughters, aides-de-camp Bert and Cecil, and even the venerable detective inspector Jack Robinson.
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