For the past six years or so, I’ve kept a log of all the books I’ve read — usually about 50 per year. This year, however, the grand total (as of October 27) is 15. Fifteen books! For this paltry, pathetic sum, I would like to blame my otherwise perfect and blameless son, born in August 2013. Although, wait! If children’s books count, then I’ve easily read several hundred books this year. Phew. That makes me feel much better about the whole thing.
Four of my favorites this year were story collections, which I suppose makes sense, given that stories take less time to read and are therefore a less intimidating enterprise for a new mother operating on very little sleep. They were Lorrie Moore’s Bark, Elizabeth McCracken’s Thunderstruck, an ARC of Megan Mayhew Bergman’s Almost Famous Women, and Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, which I suppose only half-counts as a story collection, and which I was re-reading, so maybe that only counts as a quarter of a book read, you tell me.
Other favorites were Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park, which was just as wonderful as everyone said, and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, which I got to read before everyone else knew how wonderful it was, which felt like buying someone a really, really great Christmas present in July.
As for the pictures books, there are some truly phenomenal ones, books that I am delighted to read 17times a day. Here is a very short list of some books that my son and I both love, in no particular order: The Watermelon Seed by Greg Pizzoli, Little Blue Truck by Alice Shertle, I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin by Tad Hills, and The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson, all of which I know by heart. It is very reassuring to know that I am still capable of memorizing new information.
More from A Year in Reading 2014
Don’t miss: A Year in Reading 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005
The good stuff: The Millions’ Notable articles
The motherlode: The Millions’ Books and Reviews
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