What were your favorite books of 2014?

[entropicisland]

top ten not published but read this year (no order except the top 2) were:
ulysses (joyce)
pale fire (nabokov)
beloved (morrison)
to the lighthouse (woolf)
breaking and entering / the quick and the dead (williams)
infinite jest (wallace)
the pumpkin eater (mortimer)
ice (kavan)
the day of the locust (west)

[meeera]

Randomish books I particularly enjoyed: The Memory Garden by M Rickert, Peacemaker by Marianne de Pierres, Nest by Inga Simpson, Dancing on Knives by Kate Forsyth, Through the Cracks by Honey Brown, Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes, Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey.

[drofgnal]

All the Light We cannot See by Doerr, the hands down winner

Honorable Mention:

Edge of Eternity by Follet
What She left Behind by Weisman (May not be a 2014 release)

[Dngrsone]

The Martian was probably my favorite of this past year, and a few off the Hugo nominees were really good...

I liked most off the books I read this year. For non-fiction, I'd say a toss between Galileo's Daughter and Brunelleschi's Dome.

[Apache]

My two favorites are The Martian by Andy Weir and the last book I read this year. I just finished it and am currently trying to decide what I want to read next. My number one book was In The Heat of the Night by John Ball. I loved the movie and the book it was adapted from is just as good and well worth reading. It was published in 1965 and won the Edgar for Best First Mystery Novel of the Year. Like The Martian this was also the first book the author wrote and I find that it is a powerful first book that showcases race relations in the south in 1965 and is an good mystery. A few years ago it was chosen by The Independent Mystery Booksellers Association as one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century.

Ball's novel was controversial for it established a black man as a protagonist and Ball refused to change it, despite pressure from the publishing community.

http://www.amazon.com/Heat-Night-Ros...=UTF8&sr=&qid=
Apache

[xg4bx]

Steven Erikson's Malazan series. I hated it at first but I gave it another shot and was just completely drawn in by the atmosphere and world.

[DiapDealer]

My favorite books of 2014:

The Matthew Swift series (4 books) - Kate Griffin
The Painter - Peter Heller
The Milkweed Triptych (3 books) - Ian Tregillis
The Fey and the Fallen (2 books) - Stina Leicht
Far North - Marcel Theroux
The Martian - Andy Weir
Red Rising - Pierce Brown
Codex Alera (6 books) - Jim Butcher
Quintessence (2 books so far) - David Walton
Eternal Sky Trilogy - Elizabeth Bear

[mvo]

I read 91 books this year the highest rated ones were:

Six Against the Yard by The Detection Club - loved this, 4.5/5

4 out of 5:
Half-Mast Murder - Milward Kennedy
Jane and the Canterbury Tale - Stephanie Barron
The slayer and the slain - Helen McCloy
Mysteries Unlocked: Essays in Honor of Douglas G. Greene - Curtis Evans (ed)
The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett
Pick Your Victim - Pat McGerr
Reconstructing Amelia - Kimberly McCreight

and several books in the Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James series by Deborah Crombie.

[sun surfer]

I like to think I'm pretty stingy with 5-star ratings but 2014 was an especially strong year for me with nine(!) 5-star books. To compare, I had seven in 2013, four in 2012 and two in 2011 (when I first started keeping track by year). I hope it's because I'm getting better at picking great reads by the year rather than just getting more lenient as I get older! Although, I did only give two 5-stars in the first half of 2014 (along with a whopping seven in the second half that includes an even more whopping three in December alone) so that gives me faith that I can still refrain from doling them out willy-nilly.

Anyway, here's the nine 5-stars from 2014:

A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Surfing and Health by Dorian Paskowitz
The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk
Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

[John K]

114 for 2014. Best including rereads in the order read:

Fiction
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith
These is My Words Nancy Turner
The Snow Child Eowyn Ivey
Wilderness: A Novel Lance Weller
Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore Robin Sloan
The Martian Andy Weir
Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
In Zanesville Jo Ann Beard
The Silence of the Lambs Thomas Harris
Cold Mountain Charles Frazier
Life After Life Jill McCorkle

Although Cold Mountain is outstanding for the writing quality, I just wanted to mention that it might appeal to those who enjoy an occasional post apocalyptic story.
Possible

Spoiler:

The American civil war created an apocalypse for parts of the south. This story features a lone man walking through the wilderness encountering unusual characters and also a story of learning to survive as sustenance farmers.

Non fiction
The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: Edward Shepherd Creasy
The Boys in the Boat Daniel James Brown
The Big Roads: The Untold Story Swift, Earl
Why the West Rules--for Now Ian Morris
Lost in Shangri-La: Zuckoff, Mitchell

Lost in Shangri-La: might appeal to those who normally do not read non fiction. It is an amazing true story.

[mvo]

Originally Posted by John K

Lost in Shangri-La: might appeal to those who normally do not read non fiction. It is an amazing true story.

I agree. I read very little non-fiction, but really enjoyed this one a couple of years ago...

Boys in the Boat is on my TBR pile.

[elemenoP]

I think my favorite book from last year was The Rosie Project, because I read it during last winter's "polar vortex" and it really cheered me up. My other favorite was a re-read (so I don't know if that counts): Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. I plan on reading more of her books this year.

I only read three books that were published in 2014 and the best was The Bone Clocks. I had some problems with it but overall it was well worth the read.

Honorable Mention: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Gaiman, The Golem and the Jinni by Wecker.

[Dngrsone]

A friend of mine lent me Silence of the Lambs and insisted I read it (this was shortly after the movie came out), and I was glad she did. I never took the time to red any of the followup books, though.

Golem and Jinni was a very good book, in my opinion as well. Though the author may be tempted to write a followup I think it works very well as a standalone novel.

[theducks]

It was post #9 before I saw anything I had ever read (3 hits in that post )

I saw a number of posts where an entire series was read.
Not sure I would go all those that close together (I have read some of those as they were initially released)

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by theducks

I saw a number of posts where an entire series was read.
Not sure I would go all those that close together (I have read some of those as they were initially released)

I rarely start a series any more unless all its books are already published. I'm done with read, wait, re-read, read, wait, re-read, re-read, read, wait... etc. If I like them well enough, I usually want to read them straight through. If I don't, I abandon them.

Most of my favorites for 2014 were single stories spread over multiple books. Since I see no point in choosing which third- or fourth- or fifth/sixth-of-a-story I liked best, I list the series instead.