In 2014, I read 103 books, consisting of a total of 22,721 pages (I stopped reading 6 of these books before finishing them; the page total does not account for this).
The average (mean) books read per month was 8.6, and the average (mean) per week was 1.98.
Of these, 19 were fiction (not counting children’s books), 6 were memoirs, 52 were children’s books, and the remaining 26 were other nonfiction.
I read 10 books from my Cavalcade of Classics list during 2014. To date, I’ve read ~17% of the 89 classics on my list. If I’m going to read all of them by 2017, I’ll need to average 3-ish classics per month from here on out. This does not bode well.
My favorite books this year were Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain, George Eliot’s Middlemarch, and Roger Fouts’ Next of Kin.
I am currently reading A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, which my spouse got me from the library for my birthday, and then I’ve got three more library books that he got me for Christmas: The Tenth of December by George Saunders, The Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward, and A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra.
Below is the book list for 2014, by the month I finished (or gave up on) each book. Click on the month name for the “Bookends” for that month, which includes links to reviews and other information about my reading progress throughout the year. I also cross-post most of my reviews on Goodreads. If you’d like to just go straight to Goodreads to see my reviews there, here’s the link to my Goodreads profile. You can also go there to see all 903 books I’ve read and logged on Goodreads.
(A note on the children’s books: I read many more picture books than this, but I only list/review the ones that really speak to me.)
December (you can count this as my “Bookends” roundup for December):
Plato at the Googleplex by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (link live on January 2)
The Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen
Waiting is Not Easy by Mo Willems
The Interrupted Tale by Maryrose Wood
November:
No One is Here Except All of Us by Ramona Ausubel
Next of Kin: What Chimpanzees Have Taught Me about Who We Are by Roger Fouts
Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë
The Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan
Vegan Finger Foods by Celine Steen
The Hidden Gallery by Maryrose Wood
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams (illustrated by Gennady Spirin)
Look Up! Henrietta Leavitt, Pioneering Woman Astronomer by Robert Burleigh
The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Unseen Guest by Maryrose Wood
October:
Living Room Revolution by Cecile Andrews
Alone with All That Could Happen by David Jauss
The Abascal Way by Kathy Abascal
The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai
The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman
How to Talk So Kids Can Learn by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
Eragon by Christopher Paolini
The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood
Eldest by Christopher Paolini
Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman
September:
Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer
Slowing Down to the Speed of Life by Richard Carlson and Joseph Bailey
The Snowden Files by Luke Harding
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
August:
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall
Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming Their Power by Terry Apter
Using Bibliotherapy: A Guide to Theory and Practice by Rhea Joyce Rubin
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Raold Dahl
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Raold Dahl
July:
Authority by Jeff VanderMeer
My Accidental Jihad by Krista Bremer
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
Writing to Wake the Soul by Karen Hering
Writing the Sacred Journey by Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat
The Capture by Kathryn Lasky
Giants in the Land by Diana Appelbaum
The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be by Farley Mowat
June:
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Sibling Effect by Jeffrey Kluger
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis
May:
‘Til the Well Runs Dry by Lauren Francis-Sharma
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
April:
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan
Two Treatises of Government by John Locke
Breathing Room: Open Your Heart by Decluttering Your Home by Melva Green and Laura Rosenfeld
Out of Silence: Selected Poems by Muriel Rukeyser
I’m a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson
The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald
Peter and the Shadow Thieves by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
Holes by Louis Sachar
Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
March:
Gift of Faith: Tending the Spiritual Lives of Children by Jeanne Harrison Nieuwejaar
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Present Moment, Wonderful Moment by Thich Nhat Hanh
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C.S. Lewis
The Moon Sisters by Therese Walsh
The High King by Lloyd Alexander
The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo
Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend by Mélanie Watt
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Peter and the Starcatchers by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry
February:
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander
The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis
How to Think Like a Scientist by Stephen P. Kramer
Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander
Whittington by Alan Armstrong
January:
City of God by Augustine of Hippo
The Book of Jonah: A Novel by Joshua Max Feldman
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby by Kathleen Parkinson (critical analysis of Fitzgerald’s classic)
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Mattimeo by Brian Jacques
The Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand by Jennifer Swann Downey
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
Mariel of Redwall by Brian Jacques
The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander
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Imperfect Happiness 
I like how thorough your account of the books you read is.(Also very impressive and inspiring how many books you manage to read!) I am also planning to start keeping track of the books I go through this year, that’s why I think I’m going to use Goodreads much more than before. It’s a very convenient tool, isn’t it?
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I always feel like I’m cheating putting kids’ books in there, but I’m up-front about it. And since I read so many more picture books than I log, I don’t feel like I’m padding the numbers any more than I do by including cookbooks (which, for the most part, I don’t read cover-to-cover).
I do find Goodreads useful in tracking my books (and keeping a handle on my to-read list). I also have my books at LibraryThing (which is probably better for tracking a library, while I think that Goodreads is still better as a reading-oriented social network).
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I’m not using my LibraryThing account at all. I think I will try to see how happy I can be with only Goodreads for a while. Seems to be a system that will work well for me. We’ll see. My plan is to read about one book per week this year. I know it’s not a lot. My ideal is about two per week, like you manage to read, but that would be unrealistic for me at this time in my life.
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