Wednesday, January 1, 2014

2014 Reading List: Part One


Last spring, during my book club addiction, I joined the Goodreads Choice Award Book Club. It has been a great supplement to the traditional book club because the discussions are ongoing.

As part of that reading group, I created an A-Z reading list. Basically, you pick a title for every letter of the alphabet and try to get through all 26 books by the end of the year. I got close! And by close, I mean slightly more that halfway through...

So now I'm creating next year's A-Z reading list. Part one will be the books from last year's list that I didn't get to. Part two will be the 2014 new releases I'm most excited about. Part three will be the completed 2014 reading list.

Of course, I hope to read more than 26 books in 2014, so if you have any recommendations, send them on over!


Edge by. Jeffrey Deaver


I just started this book on Sunday, so it will officially be the first book I finish in 2014.

Jeffrey Deaver's been one of my favorite authors since high school. This story is the first time he uses first person POV.




The job of keeping the Kessler family alive falls to a man named Corte, a senior federal protection officer known as a "shepherd." Uncompromising, relentlessly devoted to protecting those in his care and a passionate board game aficionado, he applies brilliant gaming strategy to his work. For Corte, the reappearance of Loving--the man who, six years earlier, had tortured and killed someone close to him--is also an opportunity to avenge his friend's death. The assignment soon escalates into a fast-paced duel between Corte and Loving, a dangerous volley of wits and calculated risks. (Goodreads)








A Place of Execution by. Val McDermid


I met Val McDermid at The Center for Fiction during their Crime Fiction Academy Master Class. At the time, I read The Distanct Echo, which I really enjoyed. A Place of Execution is her first novel. I went on a spree several years back where I read the first novel of all the authors I enjoyed. This will continue the marathon.




A Greek tragedy in modern England, A Place of Execution is a taut psychological thriller that explores, exposes and explodes the border between reality and illusion in a multi-layered narrative that turns expectations on their head and reminds us that what we know is what we do not know. (Goodreads)








If You Were Here by. Alafair Burke


Last year, I saw Alfair Burke's Long Gone in the library and the cover shouted READ ME. I am a big fan of whoever does Alafair's cover art. The book was delightful. As for If You Were Here, I read the first three chapters during Alfair's Facebook promotion and now I'm excited to read the rest (Fun fact: Alfair Burke does a lot of fun book promotions on her website).

What would have been a short-lived metro story sends McKenna on a dangerous search for the missing woman, a twisting journey through New York City that will force her to unearth long-buried truths much closer to home-to her own husband, who seems to know much more about Susan than McKenna could have ever imagined... (Goodreads)









Sharp Objects by. Gillian Flynn



Yes, I too am on the Gillian Flynn bandwagon. And I too read Gone Girl before her earlier, just-as-fantastic novels. Dark Places was glued to my hands for 48 hours straight and now it's time for Sharp Objects. This treasure happens to be sitting on my bookshelf right now after a spectacular B&N sale.

Since she left town eight years ago, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed again in her family’s Victorian mansion, Camille is haunted by the childhood tragedy she has spent her whole life trying to cut from her memory. (Goodreads)








One Last Thing Before I Go by. Jonathan Tropper

Six words - This Is Where I Leave You. If you haven't read it, go now. It's not my typical mystery indulgence, but still I was hooked. I read this for a book club, which led to us reading another Tropper and jokingly renaming ourselves the Jonathan Tropper Book Club. One Last Thing Before I Go has been on my list since this summer.



Silver has begun to accept that life isn't going to turn out as he expected. The exwife he's remained friends with is about to marry a terrific guy Silver can't quite bring himself to hate. And his Princeton-bound teenage daughter has just confided in him that she's pregnant—because he's the one she cares least about letting down. As the wedding looms and the pregnancy sinks in, this broken family struggles, bonds, and wrestles with each member's individual anxieties. Lives begin anew, change radically, or, in Silver's case—as he discovers that he could die at any moment without an operation he refuses to have—may be about to end in an instant. (Goodreads)







A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire #4) 
by. George R. R. Martin



Oh yes - these. My family and my boyfriend got me hooked on the A Song of Ice and Fire series over the summer, which put the rest of my reading list on hold. I finished the first three, took a break to read some other books on my shelf, and now I'm on to the fourth.

With A Feast for Crows, Martin delivers the long-awaited fourth volume of the landmark series that has redefined imaginative fiction and stands as a modern masterpiece in the making. (Goodreads)










The Circle by. Dave Eggers

This one was from a book club session I missed this fall. I hadn't heard of The Circle, or Dave Eggers for that matter, until someone brought it up in book club.




When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency...Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in America—even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.
(Goodreads)






4 comments:

  1. That is going to keep you exceedingly busy!

    Happy New Year to you!

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  2. Thanks - you too!

    Every year I start with the goal of reading 100 books and get almost to 30...we'll see...

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  3. Deaver! I just picked up The October List from the library, but it's next in line behind The House of Silk.

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  4. Somehow I missed The October List altogether! One my reading list for this year. Sounds good.

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