Thus Concludes 2014

Another enjoyable reading year "in the books."  This post recaps the year and presents what I consider the best of the bunch.

It's harder than you'd think to calculate how many books I read this year, mostly because I don't feel obligated to finish books that don't interest me.  So, according to my spreadsheet, I completed 73 books this year, but read 10%-75% of  11 more works. Those 'partials' totaled 1208 pages read, so I feel obligated to include them- that's a lot of time.  So let's make it 84 books read, and those totaled  20,741 pages- about 57 pages a day.  That takes less than an hour- it's not nearly as imposing as some think, especially when 3,474 of those pages were listened to on my commute into work over the final half of the year.

Of the 84 books, 10 were audiobooks (a new thing for me- see here for thoughts), 5 were eBooks, and 26 came from the library or friends.  I rated 19 a solid 'A' or higher, and 18 a 'C' or lower.  By category, I read 22 graphic novels, 17 history, 8 literature, 7 religion, 7 Arthurian/Robin Hood, 4 historical fiction, 4 leadership, and a smattering of other genres.  I created an American Reading List (similar to what I did in Britain (here, here, and here)), and read 12 works on it.

Here are my top ten reads from this year:

Alexandre Dumas: The Count of Monte Cristo (review)
Wilson Rawls: Where the Red Fern Grows (review)
Barbara Tuchman: The Guns of August (review)
Erich  Maria Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front (review)
Tom Reiss: Black Count (review)
Alfred Lansing: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage (review)
Marc Morris: The Norman Conquest (review)
Rosemary Sutcliff: The King Arthur Trilogy (review)
Tedd Tripp: Shepherding a Child's Heart (review)
Candice Millard: Destiny of the Republic (review)

Of these ten, five were pure history.  I'm noticing that my trips to the library and bookstore are increasingly focused on the history section.  A good history book can be as thrilling/interesting as fiction, and informative to boot.

Happy reading in 2015!