Book Loving Kiwis discussion

A place to list and discuss your best reads of 2014! Share the books you enjoyed with other members.

Book I would recommend to a friend
The Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver


Best series
Wool by Hugh Howey



Best YA
The reapers are the angels by Alden Bell



Best NZ and a book that still lingers in my mind
The Blessings of Stefan by John Zanetti


Best re-read
Here be Dragons by Sharon Penman

Blimey that is tough.

I'd better look up my reviews.

I really enjoyed a number of books I read in 2014. A handful have stayed foremost in mind, and I find myself often thinking of their characters and stories and the writing.


Overwhelmed by this man who played his cello everyday, same place, same time, in protest at the war in his country. A fictionalised story based on fact.


Trying his best to fly under the radar and be neutral in Nazi occupied France, the architect reluctantly agreed to a proposal put to him. The story is as much about his growth as a person as his talent as an architect, and took me through a range of emotions.


I had always meant to read this book, and finally I did. It is every bit a great as touted, and I've seriously thought about owning it!


(aka The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
From the blurb I did not expect to get as involved this book as I did. I found myself cheering the characters along, laughing out loud with and at them, at times chastising A.J., and quietly weeping.


Described as romantic suspense, and it certainly is. I enjoyed the story and suspense, but particularly liked the writing style.


Gentle, moving, warm story of daily life of recently widowed man who has moved into old age but still has a personal, private goal to achieve. A debut novel that whimsically touches your heart.

There are a few more I put on my Favourites for 2014 shelf, but these are the ones that leapt to mind when I saw Sweetp's post.

Looking at her selection I have to read John Zanetti's The Blessings of Stefan. I have had it for a long while but lost my cable to my Kindle. Now that I've located it again, I can move the book file to it's rightful place for reading. :)

I've had trouble reading my copy of Here Be Dragons, but have recently been given a sheet magnifier of decent quality, so I can see that really small print more easily. Makes me happy, and maybe this will be on my Faves for 2015 shelf!

I just have to work out how I can knit and read at the same time - used to do it but now ...

I put my awards up on my profile!

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2...

My top book of the year would be;



My favourite new to me new author is Carolina de Robertis
Carolina De Robertis

She has a new book out next year & I can't wait.

Even though I haven't had the time to participate in challenges and do reviews I do watch what is going on in here :).
In 2014 have read 22 books – astounding for me – and that isn’t counting all the books I am required to read for study purposes. Here are my favourites:
Teenage fantasy and NZ fiction:
.
General fantasy:

Yes, I am a bit of a fantasy nut but I do read other genres.
Light Romance:

Thriller:

One book I loved but can’t categorise is It took me by surprise and is a superb piece of writing.
A long list, but then I find it hard to pick favourites!

My favourites of the year are not new books. I finally read Doomsday Book, and it was even better than I'd been lead to believe. I also read Stardust, having thoroughly enjoyed the film, and loved the book even more. (note to self: read more Neil Gaiman next year). I found Last Chance to See: In the Footsteps of Douglas Adams in the bookcase of a friend and devoured it. I then borrowed the tv series from the library and gobbled that up too. Marvellous. My final top book of the year is A King's Ransom (speaking as a SKP hardcore fan). So sad that we've reached the end of this particular sequence of books.

Snuff and Raising Steam, can't live without Pratchett's satire, Anne Perry's latest which titles I forget, 'Mr Mac and Me' Esther freud is a find, so many more I cannot remember which made stop and think.

Very difficult. I read some really good books this year.

Children's Books:
So many good books come to mind, but three top books are Flora and Ulysses , by Kate DiCamillo; Fortunately the Milk both editions, and The Lions of Little Rock . Also, from NZ Dunger and The Three Bears, Sort of .

Best Young Adult:
A tie between Bugs Bugsby Whiti Hereaka, and The Impossible Knife of Memory The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halsey Anderson. Honourable mention to When We Wake and While We Run by Karen Healy.

Best book from my husband's shelf:
The Paris Architect The Paris Architect by Charles Balfour.

Best Professional Reading:
Falling in Love with Close Reading: Lessons for Analyzing Texts--And Life Falling in Love With Close Reading.

Best Classic Reread:
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller Catch-22

Best Fiction that I read because that was what I felt like reading:
Children of the Jacaranda Tree .

It's been a good year, and I look forward to the next one.

My best books of the year:

Most thought-provoking and best NZ: My Name Was Judas

Best YA: Looking for Alaska and Eleanor & Park

Funniest: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

Best short stories: Unaccustomed Earth

Best memoir: When We Were the Kennedys: A Memoir from Mexico, Maine

Best Aussie: Jasper Jones

Looking forward to 2015!

I am so impressed by the way you all note 'em down. I always forget to then can't remember at the year's end!!!

I only had about 50ish to scan through on my Goodreads profile so I could remember the ones I liked most fairly easily...would be harder if i'd read 100+ books I'm sure :)

Trouble is I read so much - a book a day or two days - and a lot of the books are okay but they blend into each other. It takes an exceptional book to hit home. Not many like that in a year but I can't remember without taking time out from preparing this court case and I cannot do that right now.

As kiwis how can we go past The Rosie Project? This international hit proves that little NZ can play with the big boys

A five star favorite read from 2014

Nah! He ran away to Oz.

P.d.r. wrote: "Nah! He ran away to Oz."

Yeah, I agree. The clue is in his bio - "Graeme C. Simsion is a New Zealand born Australian author..." You can be born in NZ but if the bulk of your life and education are in Australia, then that is the influence on your writing surely.

Not like, say, Clarrie Grimmett who was born in NZ, spent all his childhood here where he learned his cricket, then moved to Australia to further his career cricket.