Back in Time
favorite reads from 2014
This week on Books Are My People, my podcast for books lovers, we travelled back in time to 2014 and revisited some of my favorite reads. In 2014, I had just begun teaching creative writing at UCLA Writers’ Extension Program. My kids were 8 and 5. As promised on the show, here are my additional faves from 2014 as well as some books from 2014 that I want to read, but have not yet read.
More Faves From 2014:
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse--the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity. People loved the TV adaptation, I was not one of those people. But I did love the book!
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
"Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet." So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia's body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos. I did enjoy this adaptation. In case you were wondering!
Us by David Nicholls
Douglas Petersen may be mild-mannered, but behind his reserve lies a sense of humor that, against all odds, seduces beautiful Connie into a second date . . . and eventually into marriage. Now, almost three decades after their relationship first blossomed in London, they live more or less happily in the suburbs with their moody seventeen year-old son, Albie. Then Connie tells him she thinks she wants a divorce. I just found out this moment that this was a PBS series starring Tom Holland. Did anyone watch it?
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
In these funny and insightful essays, Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture.
10:04 by Ben Lerner
In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unlikely literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal medical condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child. In a New York of increasingly frequent superstorms and social unrest, he must reckon with his own mortality and the prospect of fatherhood in a city that might soon be underwater.
2 a.m. At The Cat’s Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino
Madeleine Altimari is a smart-mouthed, rebellious nine-year-old who also happens to be an aspiring jazz singer. Still mourning the recent death of her mother and caring for her grief-stricken father, she doesn't realize that on the eve of Christmas Eve she is about to have the most extraordinary day -- and night -- of her life. After bravely facing down mean-spirited classmates and rejection at school, Madeleine doggedly searches for Philadelphia's legendary jazz club The Cat's Pajamas, where she's determined to make her on-stage debut. On the same day, her fifth-grade teacher Sarina Greene, who's just moved back to Philly after a divorce, is nervously looking forward to a dinner party that will reunite her with an old high school crush, afraid to hope that sparks might fly again. And across town at The Cat's Pajamas, club owner Lorca discovers that his beloved haunt may have to close forever, unless someone can find a way to quickly raise the $30,000 that would save it. This is such a funny and sweet novel!!
Books From 2014 That I Still Want To Read:
The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel (I happened to stumble upon this one at a local little free library last week!)
Hilary Mantel's trademark gifts of penetrating characterization, unsparing eye, and rascally intelligence are once again fully on display with stories of dislocation and family fracture, of whimsical infidelities and sudden deaths with sinister causes. Cutting to the core of human experience, Mantel brutally and acutely writes about marriage, class, family, and sex. Unpredictable, diverse, and sometimes shocking, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher will brilliantly unsettle the reader in that unmistakably Mantel way.
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
On December 3, 1976, just before the Jamaican general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert to ease political tensions in Kingston, seven unnamed gunmen stormed the singer's house, machine guns blazing. The attack wounded Marley, his wife, and his manager, and injured several others. Little was officially released about the gunmen, but rumors abounded regarding the assassins' fates. A Brief History of Seven Killings is James's fictional exploration of that dangerous and unstable time in Jamaica's history and beyond.
This House of Grief by Helen Garner
On the evening of Father's Day, 2005, separated husband Robert Farquharson was driving his three young sons back to their mom's house when the car veered off the road and plunged into a dam. Farquharson survived the crash, but his boys drowned. Was this a tragic accident, or an act of revenge? The court case that followed became a national obsession--a macabre parade of witnesses, family members, and the defendant himself, each forced to relive the unthinkable for an audience of millions.
In This House of Grief, celebrated writer Helen Garner tells the definitive and deeply absorbing story of it all, from crash to final verdict.
I recently read and loved Garner’s novel The Children’s Bach, which feels very different than This House of Grief, but because I enjoyed her writing so much, I am motivated to check it out, as well as the rest of her backlist.
Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri
A surreal, devastating story of a homeless ghost who haunts one of Tokyo's busiest train stations.
Kazu is dead. Born in Fukushima in 1933, the same year as the Japanese Emperor, his life is tied by a series of coincidences to the Imperial family and has been shaped at every turn by modern Japanese history. But his life story is also marked by bad luck, and now, in death, he is unable to rest, doomed to haunt the park near Ueno Station in Tokyo.
Kazu's life in the city began and ended in that park; he arrived there to work as a laborer in the preparations for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and ended his days living in the vast homeless village in the park, traumatized by the destruction of the 2011 tsunami and shattered by the announcement of the 2020 Olympics.
Tomorrow, I will announce our February Read Along to paying Subscribers!
Do you have any favorites from 2014 that I didn’t include? Share them below! You can also let me know what was happening in your life in 2014!
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Bad Feminist Essays has sat on my bookshelf for years. I’m picking it up tonight to give it the attention it deserves! Thank you for the recommendation and reminder! 💓