My favourite reads in 2014

After some reflection, these are my favourite reads in 2014. 

If I wrote a review of the book, I've added a link to that review. Unfortunately I didn't manage to write a review of many of them. They were all five star reads for me on goodreads, all books that really stood out for me, that I thoroughly enjoyed, was moved by, gripped by, and I would certainly recommend them. 

Have you read any of these? Will you be adding any to your wishlist?

Happy New Year!

All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque

All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr

The Engagements - J. Courtney Sullivan

My review

Still Missing - Beth Gutcheon

The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith

Lacey's House - Joanne Graham 

My review

Black Swan Green - David Mitchell

The Easter Parade - Richard Yates

11.22.63 - Stephen King

The People in the Photo - Helene Gestern 

My review

The Mesmerist - Barbara Ewing

Gillespie and I - Jane Harris

American Wife - Curtis Sittenfeld

84 Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff

Perfect - Rachel Joyce

Six Months of Books - 2014

I took part in this half-year round up last year and enjoyed it very much; rather than just trying to write a list of best books read so far in 2014 it highlights different aspects of our reading. It was introduced by Jo at The Book Jotter and you can adapt the categories to suit. The same book can feature in more than one category. All you have to do is pick 6 categories that you want to use - there are lots of category suggestions by Jo here or you can choose your own. Then pick 6 books that fit into those 6 categories and post to your blog in July. 

Here are my six sixes from the first half of 2014 - six authors or books in six different categories, covering some of the books I've read in the past six months! (You'll find reviews of many, though not all, of them, here on the blog.)

Six authors who are new to me:

1. Grace and Mary by Melvyn Bragg
2. The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg
3. Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens
4. Ghostwritten by Isabel Wolff
5. Love and Treasure by Ayelet Waldman
6. In Too Deep by Bea Davenport

Six authors I've read before:

1. Perfect by Rachel Joyce
2. Fire and Brimstone by Colin Bateman
3. The Goddess and the Thief by Essie Fox
4. Brilliant by Roddy Doyle
5. The Apple Tart of Hope by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
6. Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford

Six books that I particularly loved and would recommend:

1. The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan
2. Lacey's House by Joanne Graham
3. The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith
4. Gillespie and I by Jane Harris
5. American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
6. The Lost Duchess by Jenny Barden

Six debut novels I've been impressed with:

1. Lacey's House by Joanne Graham
2. The Book of You by Claire Kendal
3. Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey
4. The Visitors by Rebecca Mascull
5. The People in the Photo by Helene Gestern
6. Jellybird by Lezanne Clannachan

Six books I've read in an English translation:

1. Lifetime by Liza Marklund
2. Cold Hearts by Gunnar Staalesen
3. Zenith Hotel by Oscar Coop-Phane
4. The Blue Room by Hanne Orstavik
5. The People in the Photo by Helene Gestern
6. ...eek, it appears I need to get more translated fic read this year!!

Six books that took me by the hand and led me into the past:

1. The Lost Duchess by Jenny Barden
2. Ghostwritten by Isabel Wolff
3. Before the Fall by Juliet West
4. Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford
5. Gillespie and I by Jane Harris
6. The Visitors by Rebecca Mascull

And, as a little extra 'six', though goodness knows there are far more than six sitting patiently waiting...

Six books I wanted to have read by now, this year, but haven't yet! (Very soon, I hope):

1. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
2. Fallout by Sadie Jones
3. The Spring of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson
4. Wake by Anna Hope
5. A Song for Issy Bradley by Carys Bray
6. The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker

How about your choices this year so far?

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly meme, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine which spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

My choice this week of an upcoming book I am really looking forward to getting hold of is this one, by one of my favourite writers, who wrote one of my all time favourite novels, The Outcast:

Fallout  by Sadie Jones
expected UK publication 1st May 2014, Chatto & Windus

Synopsis

Luke Kanowski is a young playwright: intense, magnetic, fleeing a disastrous upbringing in the North East. Arriving in London, he meets Paul Driscoll, an aspiring producer, and beautiful, fiery Leigh Radley, the girl Paul loves. 

Luke, Paul and Leigh set up a radical theatre company, living and working together, a connection forged in the smoky late-nights of Chelsea’s run-down flats and damp rehearsal rooms above pubs, candlelit during power cuts, where a new generation of writers and directors is fighting for its place.

Nina Jacobs is a fragile actress, bullied by her mother and in thrall to a controlling producer. When Luke meets Nina he recognises a soul in danger and loyalty, friendship, everything he has fought for, is drawn into the heat of their collision. How much must he risk to save her?

As Luke ricochets between honesty and deceit, the promise of the future and his own painful past, suddenly the fallout threatens to be immense.

Books to look out for in 2014 - We Love This Book feature

It was brilliant to be asked by We Love This Book to briefly write about a new book that I was most looking forward to coming in 2014. 

Despite a very big to-be-read pile indeed and a strong determination this year to read more of the books on said pile and focus on it, (more of that in another post), it is impossible not to notice some of the new books that are due to appear during the coming year, and to want to read one or two of them.

I'm sure there are hundreds that I don't yet know about that I'll discover this year, but the one that sprang to mind immediately, from amongst the ones I had heard about, well, actually there were two, (the other one was the new Sadie Jones novel), but in the end I had to go for this one - Road Ends by Mary Lawson, because her last book The Other Side of the Bridge was a very memorable and cherished read for me and because it has been a bit of a wait for a new novel by this author, so I'm very glad indeed that her new book is now on the way. 


Here's the synopsis:

The new novel from Mary Lawson, set in the frozen north of Canada, and London in the 60s, about a family which is falling apart.

On a perfect August morning in 1967, above a river just outside a small town in the north of Canada, a young man meets his death. And so begins the unravelling of his best friend Tom’s already precarious family…

Eighteen months on, and the town of Struan is in the grip of winter. Still reeling from his friend’s death, Tom has dropped out and spends his days driving a snow plough. His mother has yet another new baby and is nesting upstairs, increasingly lost in her own world. His father, Edward, retreats to his study and his diaries, unable to cope with his growing, unruly family. There are so many brothers in the house that Tom has almost lost count, but Adam, who is only four, somehow can’t be ignored… Their one sister – capable, dependable, formidable Megan – who used to run the show, has escaped to London and is finally living her own life. But then come disturbing letters from home…

In this masterful, enthralling, and tender novel, which takes us from the silver rush in Northern Ontario in the early 1900s to London in the 60s, Mary Lawson gently reveals the intricacies and anguish of family life, the push and pull of responsibility and individual desire, the way we can face tragedy and, in time, hope to start again.

Click here to read the list of other choices highlighted by book bloggers and see if there's anything you might add to your wishlist for 2014.

If you had to pick just one new book that you are looking forward to in 2014, what would it be from those you've heard about so far?