What I Read ~ 2014

I don't really know why I keep lists of the books I read other than the fact that I like lists...  And this list is coming pretty late since 2014 ended like two months ago, but better late then never, right?  Well, at least if you actually care what I read last year!

Stand out author for me this year would probably be Jojo Moyes.  I really, really enjoyed the two books I read by her this past fall.  I love that they take place in England and enjoy reading all the British-isms.  To top it off, the story lines were intriguing - all that human condition stuff I like - and the characters were believable.  Both books had me in tears...especially Me Before You.  I am looking forward to reading more by her this year!

As for a favorite book that I would recommend to anyone...that's a tough one!  I got a kick out of An Abundance of Katherines, and I loved Conversion because of the history tied into the storyline.

On my "least favorite" list would be the entire Beautiful Creatures series.  It's far from the worst thing I've ever read (and I've endured a lot of bad), but I didn't love it.  If I hadn't received the books as a Christmas gift, I probably wouldn't have bothered to finish the series.  Turns out I just don't have a lot of patience for the "tortured teenage love story" anymore. 

I didn't read a lot of nonfiction this year, but what I did read, I enjoyed.  Killing Lincoln appealed to the history buff in me, and Jennie Allen, Jen Hatmaker, and Rob Bell kept me thinking about God and life. 

Probably my biggest accomplishment (in my opinion anyway) would be how much of the Bible I read.  I actually started this project about a year and a half ago when I realized how little of the Bible I had ever read.  I was supposed to finish up in July, but of course I have gotten off "schedule," but I still knocked quite a bit of it out!  The Old Testament about did me in at a couple of points (laws and more laws!), but there were bright spots in there.  Loved the book of Esther!

Anyway, enough rambling.  If you're looking for a good book, here's a list of things that I read in 2014!

Reading List – 2014

 FICTION

Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451

 J.C. Carleson

The Tyrant’s Daughter

 Kiera Cass

The Selection
The Elite
The One

 P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast

Betrayed
Chosen

Melissa de la Cruz

Witches of East End

Lauren De Stefano

Fever
Sever

 Janet Evanovich

Twelve Sharp
Plum Lovin’
Lean Mean Thirteen
Plum Lucky

Gayle Forman

If I Stay
Where She Went

 Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Beautiful Creatures
Beautiful Darkness
Beautiful Chaos
Dream Dark
Beautiful Redemption

 Jane Green

Family Pictures
A Walk in the Park
Another Piece of My Heart

 John Green

An Abundance Katherines
The Fault in Our Stars
Will Grayson, Will Grayson

 Elin Hilderbrand

The Castaways

 Jeff Hirsch

The Eleventh Plague

 Katherine Howe

Conversion

 Lauren Kate

Torment
Passion
Rapture
Fallen in Love

 Wally Lamb

She’s Come Undone

Marie Lu
Legend
Prodigy

 Richelle Mead

Frostbite
Shadow Kiss
Blood Promise
Spirit Bound
Last Sacrifice
Bloodlines

 Jojo Moyes

Me Before You
One Plus One

 R.J. Palacio

Wonder

 Tracie Peterson

House of Secrets

 Kathy Reichs

Death Du Jour

Ransom Riggs

Mrs. Peregrine’s House of Peculiar Children
Hallow City

 Rick Riordin

The Lightning Thief

 Veronica Roth

Four
Divergent

 Neal Shusterman

Unwind
UnWholly
UnSouled

 Heather Wardell

Go Small or Go Home
Planning to Live

 Jennifer Weiner

In Her Shoes

 Lee Woodruff

Those We Love Most

 NONFICTION

 Jennie Allen

Anything

 Rob Bell

What We Talk About When We Talk About God

 Candance Cameron Bure

Reshaping It All
Balancing It All

 Karen Ehman

Let. It. Go.

 Jen Hatmaker

Seven
Out of the Spin Cycle

 Bill O’Reilly

Killing Lincoln

 BIBLE

1 Kings
Obadiah
Jonah
Amos
Hosea
Nahum
2 Kings
1 Chronicles
Joel
Micah
Isaiah
Zephaniah
Lamentations
Ezekiel
Jeremiah
2 Chronicles
Daniel
Haggai
Zechariah
Esther
Ezra
Psalms
Malachi
Nehemiah
Matthew
Mark
Luke

The 2013 Book List

I think this is everything I read this past year - I'm not always so good about making sure it all gets written down these days!  There are a lot of books here, so I figure I'm pretty close to having them all.

I'm not sure I read any books this year that I would consider super-awesome-oh-my-goodness-everyone-should-read-this-book.  For fiction, I might have thought that about the Divergent series...until I read the last book and felt totally let down.  Despite that, though, it's a good read, and I totally do recommend it you're planning to go see the movie this spring.  As for nonfiction...Kisses from Katie was probably the highlight of my reading - I happened to really enjoy that one!

Anyway...here's the list!

(And in case you're curious...I do keep a reading list each year.  Here's 2012 and 2011!)

FICTION

Mitch Albom

The Time Keeper

Jefferson Bass

Carved in Bone

P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast

Marked

Cinda Williams Chima

The Warrior Heir

The Wizard Heir

The Dragon Heir

Cassandra Clare

City of Fallen Angels

City of Lost Souls

Clockwork Angel
Clockwork Prince
Clockwork Princess

Andrea Cremer

Bloodrose

Sylvia Day

Bared to You

Reflected in You

Janet Evanovich

Eleven On Top

Becca Fitzpatrick

Finale

Sue Grafton

Kinsey and me

Jane Green

To Have and to Hold

Bookends

Charlaine Harris

Dead Ever After

After Dead

Julia Heaberlin

Playing Dead

Elin Hilderbrand

Summer People

Amanda Hocking

Switched

Torn

Ascend

William Joyce

E. Aster Bunnymund

Lauren Kate

Fallen

Richelle Mead

Vampire Academy

Brad Meltzer

The Inner Circle

Lauren Oliver

Delirium

Pandemonium

Requiem

Delirium Stories

James Patterson

Along Came a Spider

Kathy Reichs

Déjà  Dead

Beth Revis

Across the Universe

A Million Suns

Shades of Earth

Veronica Roth

Divergent

Insurgent

Allegiant

Free Four:  Tobias Tells Knife-Throwing Scene

The Transfer:  A Divergent Story

Mary Ann Schaffer & Annie Barrows

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

Neal Shusterman

Unwind

John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men

NONFICTION

Rob Bell

Love Wins

Robert Brooks, Ph.D., & Sam Goldstein, Ph.D.

The Power of Resilience

Wayne Cordeiro

Doing Church as a Team

Katie Davis

Kisses from Katie

Jim Gaffigan

Dad is Fat

Jen Hatmaker

Interrupted

Susie Larson

Your Beautiful Purpose

Dr. Kevin Leman

When Your Best Isn’t Good Enough

The Birth Order Book

Phil Robertson

Happy, Happy, Happy

Si Roberston
Si-cology
 

Willie & Korie Roberston

The Duck Commander Family

 

Ann Voskamp

One Thousand Gifts

The Greatest Gift

BIBLE

Job

Genesis

Exodus

Leviticus

Numbers

Deuteronomy

Joshua

Ruth

Judges

1 Samuel

2 Samuel

Proverbs

Song of Songs

Ecclesiastes

The 2012 Book List

Every year I keep track of what I read.  Don't really know why, just do.  I guess I like to look back and see what I've spent all of my free time doing!  This year introduced me to some great new authors:  Jane Green, Elin Hilderbrand, Gillian Flynn.  It also found me perservering through some not-so-great ones...E.L. James, I'm sorry, but I don't understand the big to-do about your Fifty Shades series.  I aslo found myself reading a lot of young adult novels - turns out I liked the Hunger Games so much last year that I was ready to find some similar distopian society literature and I found most of it in the young adult section.  Ally Condie's Matched series wasn't too shabby.  And then there was the nonfiction.  Read quite a bit of that this year (in comparison to past years).  This happened mainly because I started counseling and a women's Bible study group.  Those two things managed to drag me out of the world of fiction and back into reality now and again!

So...here's this year's list....

FICTION

 

Charlaine Harris

Shakespeare’s Christmas

Grave Secret

Deadlocked

Real Murders

 

Becca Fitzpatrick

Silence

 

Janet Evanovich

Two for the Dough

Three to Get Deadly

Four to Score

High Five

Hot Six

Seven Up

Hard Eight

Visions of Sugar Plums

To the Nines

Ten Big Ones

Jane Green

Mr. Maybe

Swapping Lives

Jemima J

The Other Woman

Babyville

Dune Road

The Beach House

 

Ann Brashares

Sisterhood Everlasting

Heather Wardell

Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo

A Life that Fits

Blank Slate Kate

Live Out Loud

Elin Hilderbrand

The Beach House

Silver Girl

A Summer Affair

Barefoot

Rick Riordan

Son of Neptune

James Patterson

The Christmas Wedding

11^th Hour

Kathryn Stockett

The Help

Cassandra Clare

City of Bones

City of Ashes

City of Glass

E.L. James

Fifty Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades Darker

Fifty Shades Freed

Stephenie Meyer

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

 

Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl

Sharp Objects

Dark Places

Sarah Dessen

That Summer

Ally Condie

Matched

Crossed

Reached

 

Andrea Cremer

Nightshade

Wolfsbane

William Joyce & Laura Geringer

Nicholas St. North & the Nightmare King

NONFICTION

Renee Swope

A Confident Heart

Kim & Krickitt Carpenter

The Vow

Cynthia Heald

Becoming a Woman of Simplicity

 

Dr. Kevin Leeman

Sheet Music

How to Have a New Kid by Friday

 

Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend

Boundaries

 

Dennis Greenberger, PhD

Christine A Padesky, PhD

Mind Over Mood

Dave Carder

Torn Assunder

And that's it!  I always love suggestions for new books and authors, so feel free to leave a few!  If you're curious for some reason, you can click here and check out last year's list!

The Book List of 2011

I like to read a lot, and just for fun I keep a list of all of the books I've read in a year.   A little over a year ago we gave up our cable to save money, and it turns out it also saved me some time because I read somewhere around 60 books this past year!  And just for more fun I'm posting the list!  The books are chunked by authors.  Some I loved and some I hated but read to the end anyway.  I put * next to the authors I loved, but I won't tell you which books I didn't care for so as not to offend anyone's taste in reading.  Oh, and The Hunger Games has extra * because that series was by far my favorite read of the year! 

Book List – 2011

L.J. Smith

The Vampire Diaries:  The Return – Nightfall

Syrie James

Nocturne

Nicholas Sparks

Safe Haven

The Best of Me

Kim Edwards*

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

Stieg Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Sara Gruen*

Water for Elephants

Ape House

Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale

James Patterson

The 6^th Target

7^th Heaven

The 8^th Confession

The 9^th Judgment

10^th Anniversary

Ann Brashares

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

Girls in Pants

Forever in Blue

Margaret Peterson Haddix

Among the Hidden

Alice Seabold

The Almost Moon

Suzanne Collins*******

The Hunger Games

Catching Fire

Mockingjay

Rick Riordan*

The Lightning Thief

Sea of Monsters

The Titan’s Curse

The Battle of the Labyrinth

The Last Olympian

The Lost Hero

Tracie Peterson

A Promise to Believe In

A Love to Last Forever

A Dream to Call My Own

Gregory Maguire

Wicked

 Son of a Witch

A Lion Among Men

Charlaine Harris*

Dead Until Dark

Living Dead in Dallas

Club Dead

Dead to the World

Dead as a Doornail

Definitely Dead

All Together Dead

From Dead to Worse

Dead and Gone

Dead in the Family

A Touch of Dead

Dead Reckoning

Grave Sight

Grave Surprise

An Ice Cold Grave

Shakespeare’s Landlord

Shakespeare’s Champion

Shakespeare’s Trollop

Shakespeare’s Counselor

Janet Evanovich*

One for the Money

Jodi Picoult

Sing You Home

Sue Grafton

V is for Vengeance

Jenny Nimmo

Midnight for Charlie Bone

Charlie Bone & the Time Twister

Lisa See

Peony in Love

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Becca Fitzpatrick

Hush Hush

Crescendo

Pittacus Lore

I Am Number Four