Cedar Falls Public Library discussion

For the month of December we're going to talk about the best books we have read that came out in 2014.
Here are some of the books that Amazon thinks are the best:






Have you read any of these? What have you read that came out this year that you think deserves to be considered one of the best books of 2014?

I read and liked "All the Light We Cannot See."
I would nominate "The Invention of Wings" by Sue Monk Kidd for inclusion in "Best Books of 2014."

I also liked "All the light we cannot see" I second your nomination of "The Invention of Wings" I was surprised it was not on Amazon's list or Publisher Weekly's list. I wonder if it will be on Goodreads list. The voting is closed and the winners will be announced on December 2nd.

What books have you read from Publisher's Weekly and Amazon's lists?

On the Amazon list I have read "All the light we cannot see" which is #2 and "Big little lies" by Liane Moriarty (the author of The Husband's secret) That was #9 on the list. Publisher Weekly has a top 10 and they have categories like fiction, mystery / thriller etc. Unfortunately even though the fiction list is quite long, I have not read any of the top 10 or fiction books.

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

Thanks Dan. "Waking up" has over 350, 5 star reviews on Amazon and it came out in September so I would say lots of people agree with you. I think it was a finalist for Goodreads best books of the year too.

I really liked All the Light We Cannot See, and I've also read Everything I Never Told You, which was one of those fraught-family books and kind of reminded me of The Husband's Secret. I'll have to check out the list on Amazon to see what else is there.

"Everything I never told you" is number one and "All the light we cannot see" is number two on Amazon's list. I have Everything I never told you on hold so I will get to see soon if I think it's the best of the year.
Here is the rest of the list:
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10

I like "Fraught Families" - the best I could do was "disduncrional." (Or is FF something different?) I'm avoiding those for now. I got saturated.
What's the list called that's published by the independent booksellers?

i liked Grisham's Grey Mountain. Although it was a topic book about coal mining ravaging the environment, I liked the characters and would love to see a sequel.

I just read my earlier comment. I don't know what "disduncrional" means, but "dysfunctional" is what I meant.

Maelou, I like "Fraught families" as a category name.
Do you mean the IPPY awards? If so it looks like they are accepting nominations for books published from Jan 1 2013 to March 10, 2015.
Dave, thanks for the nomination. I didn't realize "Grey Mountain" was about that. That sounds good.

I see that Sarah Waters' The Paying Guests and David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks also made the list on Amazon's best books of 2014. I enjoyed both of the those; Sarah Waters is one of my favorite writers. The Bone Clocks was...dense and long, but interesting; the structure of the book and the interconnected characters remind me very much of his book Cloud Atlas.

Thanks Jessica. I did not realize The Bone Clocks and and Cloud Atlas were written by the same author. I like interconnected characters. I still need to read Sarah Waters. I bought Fingersmith for my Kindle but have not read it yet. So many books, so little time!

I would like to nominate "The storied life of AJ Fikry" by Gabrielle Zevin. I was happy to see it was number one in the list compiled by the Library Reads staff. Library Reads is a column in Book Page, the magazine the Friends of the Library purchases for our library so everyone can just get a copy for free when visiting.

I looked back on my Goodreads books I read in 2014..and found they were all 2013 copyrights...guess I am always behind! Of those my favorites have to be DOCTOR SLEEP by Stephen King..and GONE GIRL. Since those don't count..let me say I am currently reading STILL LIFE WITH BREAD CRUMBS by Anna Quindlen...and am loving it!!!

Cindy, Have you read Revival or Mr Mercedes by Stephen King? Revival is on the Amazon list of best books and Mr Mercedes is the Goodreads Choice award winner for mystery and thriller. Still life with bread crumbs sounds like it's a "nice" book and sometimes it is good to read something like that.

Both the King books are on my MUST READ list..guess no copies were available last time I was in the library, but hope to soon! I like Anna Quindlen and the ease of her style of writing. Before I realized it, I liked the character of Rebecca and felt I knew who she was!!

I love when you know a character!

I was surprised at some of the results of Goodreads Best Books. For example, Rainbow Rowell's Landline won Best Fiction, which was only so-so in my opinion. I know it's based on votes, but jeepers!

I had heard Landline was so-so. There are two problems. One, they gave you a list of books to vote from. Two, most of the books on the list are on the light side. Maybe they need a separate category.

I also noticed that many of the winners were either part of a series or by authors everyone has heard of. As readers, have we lost our sense of adventure?

I noticed that too. I wonder how they decide which books to have people vote on. Do they go with which books have the most 4 star and above reviews?

I finished reading "Everything I never told you" by Celeste Ng. It was Amazon's #1 book. It was well written, but I didn't love it. I started reading "Station eleven" by Emily St. John. It was Book pages #1 book and Amazon had it #10.

Any books that anyone has read that came out in 2014 they really enjoyed?

For a few weeks I was reading horror/speculative fiction, and I highly recommend The Bird Box by Josh Malerman, a story that follows a woman who has been living alone with two children for four years without outside contact because a mysterious phenomenon has killed off everyone else she knows, and now she is going to risk everything in order to find a sanctuary with other survivors. I also enjoyed Black Moon by Kenneth Calhoun, in which the population has been struck with a condition that inhibits sleep, resulting in a divide between insomniacs driven insane with rage and "sleepers," who must hide their ability to sleep or be killed by mobs of the "sleepless."

Station Eleven looks interesting, you'll have to let me know how it goes Amy; I'm adding it to my to-read list.

Both "The Bird Box" and "Black Moon" sound really good. I like those kinds of stories. I think you'll like "Station Eleven" I really like it so far. It flips back and forth in time (Before and after a flu epidemic wipes out most of the earth's population)

I have finished Station Eleven and I really enjoyed it. It definitely was one of the best books I read in 2014.