Every year, I make it a goal to read 100 books. Some years, I get pretty close (77 is my best); some years (like this year), I don’t even make it to 20. I’ve yet to actually hit 100, but I always feel that it’s a good goal to strive towards, and every year, I always think, “This is the one!” I know last year was a little crazy with a lot of big life changes, so hopefully, this year presents itself with a little more stability, which means a bit more reading time, and maybe, just maybe, this is the year.
But that won’t be known until 2016. Instead, let’s have a look at what I did manage to read this year. Italics indicate a book I’ve read before this year, while bold text indicated that books I particularly enjoyed and highly recommend others to pick up, too. There is no particular order to the books listed below:
01. “Breed” by Chase Novak
02. “Star Wars: The Han Solo Trilogy Volume One: The Paradise Snare” by A.C. Crispin
03. “The Sharing Knife: Volume Three: Passage” by Lois McMaster Bujold
04. “Seeds of Time” by Kay Kenyon
05. “The Alchemist’s Daughter” by Katharine McMahon
06. “Sorcery & Cecelia, or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot” by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
07. “The Midwife’s Apprentice” by Karen Cushman*
08. “The Jewel of the Thames: A Portia Adams Adventure” by Angela Misri
09. “Vignettes from the Late Ming: A Hsiao-p’in Anthology” translated and annotated by Yang Ye
10. “The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila” by herself
11. “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson
12. “Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World” by Jack Weatherford
13. “The Books of Lies” by James Moloney
14. “What the Buddha Taught” by Walpola Rahula
15. “Music from the Dead” by Bebe Faas Rice*
16. “The Further Chronicles of Conan” by Robert Jordan*
17. “The Way: Volumes of the Vemreaux Book One” by Mary Twomey
18. “Mommy, May I?” by A.K. Alexander
* Technically, I didn’t finish these books in 2014, but there were fewer than 30 pages in each by January 1st, so I say they still count!
The real stand-out book was The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson; I’m looking forward to reading more of her this year. The book I was the most disappointed with was Breed by Chase Novak, which I had been excited about at the beginning of the year, but it was such a steaming pile of awful. Such a let down! I find it interesting that I’ve been working on a lot of horror this year, and it turns out that the best and worst books are in the same genre.
Have you read any of the books on my list, too? What did you think of them? Have any recommendations to help me fill this shelf back up again? The first ones on the list for January are Fiend by Peter Stenson, The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Tell-Tale Corpse by Harold Schechter, The Fear Street Saga by R.L. Stine, Skylights by Luther M. Siler, and Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Hon Halliday.
Happy reading!
L.S. Engler 
I haven’t read a single book that’s on your list! LOL. Not a big surprise. Hey, where’s my favorite author on there? 😉
There is one book you listed that I want to read. The Haunting of Hill House is on my wish list.
The Haunting of Hill House is soooo good. Definitely pick it up! When I made the list, I was thinking that might be the one you have read, but I guess not, lol.
Apparently, your favorite author really liked my least favorite book, though, so you might have better experience with it than I. And It is on my list this year, too, because I finally watched the movie last year. And I’ve been meaning to get to Full Dark, No Stars for a while, too, especially since I actually like most of his short work.
IT is actually my favorite of all his books.
I checked out Breed just now and saw Stephen King had endorsed it heartily. But so did a lot of others. At the same time, some of the one-star reviews were pretty brutal. I almost wanted to read it just to see why you hated it and if I agreed. However, I don’t pay that kind of price for ebooks. I just can’t afford it.
Yeah, I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone. It’s a fantastic premise, and that’s why I was so excited about it, but the execution was just so terrible. Definitely a “pick up only if you’re borrowing it from the library” book…
I also though Hill house was great, as for suggestions have you read anything by James Herbert, he is very much an English Stephen King, I particularly recommend Magic Cottage and the Fog.
I haven’t heard of James Herbert, no! So, yes, I’ll have to check him out in 2015. Thanks for the suggestion. I’m always eager to discover new names and other authors that people love.
He is a very prolific horror writer over here in the UK, other greats of his worthy of reading are the Survivor, the Spear and his infamous rats trilogy.
I enjoyed “Unbroken,” and I’m wading through “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” series now.
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” series has been on my list for a looooong time. I might get to it this year, but I have a feeling it’ll be put off more.
They are easy reading and move along well. The way the stories move forward rapidly is worth a look.
Good luck this year. Do you know the 100 books in advance or do you just pick them as you go?
I usually just pick them up as I go along. There are a few books that I’ve been meaning to get to, and I’m also looking into a lot of people’s “favorites” lists and picking through those. So a little bit of planned, a little bit of random, and a lot of whatever is on top of my huge piles of books.
I loved “The Haunting of Hill House.” It’s so different from what I normally read. It was delightfully creepy!
I think The Haunting of Hill House has been made into a movie a couple of times, but I’m not sure if any adaptation is good. I get that one confused with the “Hell House” story from Richard Matheson. So many haunted house stories 😛 I’ll add Shirley Jackson to my ‘to read’ list though. And good for you, reading 20 books, because that’s still more than I’ve managed to read in a long time. I think my to-read-this-year list is about 15 books right now, and I’m not sure I’ll even make that! (A couple of those are 1000+ pages though, so maybe they count as more lol).
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