2014: The Year in Books

Long story short: I read 90 books this year! I’m quite pleased because that is nearly double last year’s 46 books.

I made a more detailed list this year, noting whether books were from the library or not, digital or analog, or written by a man or a woman. Here are some statistics about my 2014 reading habits:

  • Page count: approximately 35,177 pages. I used the page count from each book’s LibraryThing page.
  • Library use: 55 of this year’s books I borrowed from the library. The other 35 are books I bought.
  • Female and male authors: I read 30 books by female authors and 59 by male authors. I read more than one book from some authors. In total, I read work by 26 female authors and 34 male authors.
  • Digital and analog: I read 39 books analog (also known as “dead tree”) books and 51 digital books.
  • Fiction and Non-Fiction: I read 23 non-fiction and 67 fiction books
  • Series: I tend to read a lot of series (the lot of a genre reader). I finished Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy and Vinge’s Zones of Thought. I read through all extant Dresden Files (that’s 14 books plus a volume of short stories), Leckie’s Imperial Radch as it stands so far, Butler’s Xenogenesis, the Jemisin’s Inheritance Triology, Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, and Grossmans’ The Magicians.
  • Favorites: I think my favorite books this year were Ancillary Justice, Station Eleven, The Bread We Eat in Dreams, and The Girl in the Road. That said, I read a lot of really great novels this year. I think there are a lot of interesting, fresh stories coming from women in science fiction and fantasy right now, in particular.

Books read by month:

A bar graph displaying how many books I read per month in 2014

Here’s the full list of what I read in 2014:

  1.  Schooled: How the System Breaks Teachers by Dalton Jackson
  2.  The Hobbit by J.R. R. Tolkien
  3.  Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now by Douglas Rushkoff
  4.  MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood
  5.  Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser
  6.  A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
  7.  From Asgard to Valhalla by Heather O’Donoghue
  8.  Storm Front by Jim Butcher
  9.  Makers by Cory Doctorow
  10.  Fool Moon by Jim Butcher
  11.  The Children of the Sky by Vernor Vinge
  12.  A People’s History of the United States: From 1492 to the Present by Howard Zinn
  13.  The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
  14.  Grave Peril by Jim Butcher
  15.  Homeward Bound: Why Women are Embracing the New Domesticity by Emily Matchar
  16.  The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma
  17.  Sea Change by S. M. Wheeler
  18.  Loki by Mik Vasich
  19.  Notes from the Internet Apocalypse: A Novel by Wayne Gladstone
  20.  In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People by George K. Simon
  21.  Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss
  22.  The Undertaking of Lily Chen by Danica Novgorodoff
  23.  The Bread We Eat in Dreams by Catherynne Valente
  24.  Queen of Kings: A Novel of Cleopatra, the Vampire by Maria Dahvana Headley
  25.  Summer Knight by Jim Butcher
  26.  The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
  27.  Lexicon by Max Berry
  28.  City of Dragons by Robin Hobb
  29.  The Pilgrims by Will Elliott
  30.  Death Masks by Jim Butcher
  31.  Parasite by Mira Grant
  32.  Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb
  33.  Writing Effective Policies and Procedures: A Step-by-Step Resource for Clear Communication by Nancy J. Campbell
  34.  Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
  35.  A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski
  36.  Lockstep by Karl Schroeder
  37.  Blood Rites by Jim Butcher
  38.  Dead Beat by Jim Butcher
  39.  Jennifer Government by Max Berry
  40.  No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the U.S. Surveillance State by Glenn Greenwald
  41.  Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher
  42.  Three Princes by Ramona Wheeler
  43.  White Night by Jim Butcher
  44.  Artemis Awakening by Jane Lindskold
  45.  When We Wake by Karen Healey
  46.  The Waking Engine by David Edison
  47.  Small Favor by Jim Butcher
  48.  Turn Coat by Jim Butcher
  49.  Changes by Jim Butcher
  50.  Side Jobs by Jim Butcher
  51.  Ghost Story by Jim Butcher
  52.  Cold Days by Jim Butcher
  53.  The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx & Friedrich ENgels
  54.  The Googlization of Everything by Siva Vaidhyanathan
  55.  The Girl in the Road by Monica Bryne
  56.  Skin Game by Jim Butcher
  57.  Supercapitalism by Robery Reich
  58.  Lock In by John Scalzi
  59.  The Bone Flower Throne by T. L. Morganfield
  60.  Dawn by Octavia Butler
  61.  Adulthood Rites by Octavia Butler
  62.  Imago by Octavia Butler
  63.  The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin
  64.  The Broken Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin
  65.  The Kingdom of Gods by N. K. Jemisin
  66.  The Great Glass Sea by Josh Weil
  67.  Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
  68.  Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Force by Radley Balko
  69.  The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
  70.  Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
  71.  The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
  72.  The Queen of the Dark Things  by C. Robert Cargill
  73.  The Last Colony by John Scalzi
  74.  Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi
  75.  Vicious by V. E. Schwab
  76.  Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy by Noam Chomsky
  77.  Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
  78.  When Google Met Wikileaks by Julian Assange
  79.  The Human Division by John Scalzi
  80.  The Magicians by Lev Grossman
  81.  God’s War by Kameron Hurley
  82.  The Magician King by Lev Grossman
  83.  The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman
  84.  Without You, There Is No Us by Suki Kim
  85.  Krampus: The Yule Lord by Brom
  86.  Revolution by Russel Brand
  87.  I, Q by John De Lancie and Peter David
  88.  The World Split Open (multiple authors)
  89.  WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy by David Leigh and Luke Harding
  90.  This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein