At last, I’ve compiled my list for 2014 and fourteen books made the cut, earning a place on my 22nd annual recommended reading list. So here, in no particular order, are my favorites from the books I read last year, with links to reviews on this website. Happy reading!
- Where’d You Go, Bernadette (2012) by Maria Semple
- Cleopatra: A Life (2010) by Stacy Schiff
- This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (2008) by Drew Gilpin Faust
- The Good Lord Bird (2013) by James McBride
- Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960) by Scott O’Dell
- The Commitments (1997) by Roddy Doyle
- American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (2008) by Jon Meacham
- The Woman in Black (1983) by Susan Hill
- The Secrets of Mary Bowser (2012) by Lois Leveen
- Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory (2014) by Caitlin Doughty
- Swamplandia! (2011) by Karen Russell
- A Blaze of Glory (2012) by Jeff Shaara
- Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (2000) by Joseph J. Ellis
- The Round House (2012) by Louise Erdrich
2 Things @ Once 