Reflections on Reading in 2014

It really doesn’t feel like it was an entire year ago that I was writing down my reflections on 2013’s reading adventures. 2014 was a full personal year for me, outside of the books and the blogging about books, which required me to share less often here on Literary Inklings, particularly in the last few months. I even attended a few literary events and met some wonderful authors whom I wasn’t able to introduce on here in 2014. (I intend to remedy that sometime in the boundless void that is 2015.) To everyone who reads this blog, thank you for stopping by this year. I’m so thrilled that you consider this corner of the web worthy of your time, and I hope in the year to come what’s shared here won’t disappoint you.

Of the past year in books…where to begin? I covered some of my favorite new-to-me female writers that I discovered this year, and also my favorite new releases for 2014. I don’t want to reiterate too much of what I shared in those posts, but it goes without saying that they included some favorite cornerstones of my reading year. Kalyan Ray’s No Country and Robin Oliveira’s I Always Loved You were two favorites, as were Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Oleander Girl and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Elisabeth Gifford’s The Sea House. Katie O’Rourke’s novel of challenged friendship, A Long Thaw, and Rajeev Kurapati’s insights into spirituality in Unbound Intelligence; I parted from John A. Heldt’s Northwest Passage series in The Mirror and journeyed into a world of reality blurred into fantasy with Jane Rosenberg LaForge’s unforgettable experimental memoir, An Unsuitable Princess; I stole away to Joanne DeMaio’s idyllic Connecticut charm in True Blend and traveled to India with Terin Miller (Kashi) and Manju Kapur (Difficult Daughters); I reconnected with sassy private eye Gen Delacourt twice (Molly Greene’s Paint Me Gone and A Thousand Tombs; I savored the glitz and heartbreak of New York City with rock music’s mind-bending elite in Leslie Wells’s Come Dancing and explored the emotional scope of a high court judge in Ian McEwan’s The Children Act; I spent some time with Dorothy Richardson and H.G. Wells in Louisa Treger’s The Lodger and relived the story of Briseis and Achilles with Judith Starkston in Hand of Fire; I uncovered the remarkable true story of Huguette Clark in Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.’s Empty Mansions and I got lost in the poetry of Tyler Knott Gregson (Chasers of the Light) and Mary Oliver (Dog Songs, Thirst).

Of the past year in adaptations…I have one word. Sassenach. 2014 was most definitely the year of the Sassenach. We finally, finally saw Outlander adapted for the screen and it was just such a delight. I wrote reviews of every episode and beyond those I’m not sure if I could satisfactory put into words how wonderfully I think that adaptation has worked out. The team behind it is so dedicated to preserving the authenticity of the books; they’re the folks every book wishes was responsible for their transition from paper to film. There was also Shane Salerno’s Salinger documentary, which of course gave us our most in-depth look at the life of the ever-secretive J.D. Salinger. As a Salinger fan that was a really fabulous experience (combined with no small amount of guilt at wanting to pry into this obsessively private writer’s life – sorry, Jerry).

This happened! I still can’t believe it.

Of the past year in events…I only shared one in particular on here, but it was a big one and very, very, extremely, wonderfully special to me because it involved meeting Neil Gaiman which was essentially a dream come true. You can read all about that here, but here above is a picture of me and Neil sharing our mutual admiration for the lovely hardback gift edition of his novel Stardust.

Of the past year in the TBR Pile reading challenge… I did it! I read twelve books among the list that I had curated back in January, one book every month and all of them longstanding, patient dwellers of my towering to-be-read pile. Some were instant favorites – particularly Love in the Time of Cholera, Life of Pi, and Attachments – and on the whole I enjoyed each one. The full list, in order, is…

January: The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
February: Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
March: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez (my favorite review of the year)
April: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
May: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
June: The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
July: Life of Pi by Yann Martel (one of my favorite reads of the year)
August: Midwives by Chris Bohjalian (another favorite read and review)
September: Half the Sky by Nick Kristof and Sherryl WuDunn (extraordinary)
October: The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie
November: A Rose for the Crown by Anne Easter Smith
December: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green*

*This was supposed to be Orhan Pamuk’s Snow, but I just didn’t have the time for that one with the busyness of the holidays, so I swapped it out for one of my alternates. This was also the only month in which I didn’t review my selected book – but I did read it, so I think it counts.

Of the past year in other random bits…I wrote about my first experience shopping with BetterWorldBooks and I also shared my writing process as part of a fun (and, apparently, years-old) blog tour. I did a slightly more personal post for my birthday, which allowed me to sort of re-introduce myself. (Sometimes I wonder if I’m all that visible behind all these words on the cyber-page.)

And lastly, when the world lost its beloved source of laughter, the wonderful Robin Williams, I shared What Dead Poets Society Taught Me About Writing. (Some of the videos I embedded into that post are no longer available, sadly, but hopefully sometime soon I’ll be able to track them down anew.)

It was a year of a lot – a lot – of ups and downs, of troubling lows and spectacular highs, and I’m so grateful that you chose to share a bit of it with me here. Have a safe and utterly fabulous New Year’s celebration, and I’ll see you on the blog in 2015!