A Year in Reading: 2014

This series was first conceived in 2004 as a way to get a fledgling website about books through a busy holiday season. Realizing I had spent much of that year with my nose in books that were two, 20 or 200 years old, I was wary of attempting to compile a list of the year’s best books that could have any hope of feeling legitimate. It also occurred to me that a “best of” list would not have been true to the reading I did that year.

Instead, I asked some friends to write about the best books they read that year and was struck when each one seemed to offer up not just an accounting of books read, but glimpses into transporting and revelatory experiences. For the reader, being caught in the sweep of a book may be one of a year’s best memories. It always feels like we’ve hit the jackpot when we can offer up dozens of these great memories and experiences, one after another, to close out the year.

And so now, as we kick off another Year in Reading, please enjoy these riches from some of our favorite writers and thinkers.

For our esteemed guests, the charge was to name, from all the books they read this year, the one(s) that meant the most to them, regardless of publication date. Grouped together, these ruminations, cheers, squibs, and essays will be a chronicle of reading and good books from every era.

We hope you find in them seeds that will help make your year in reading in 2015 a fruitful one.

As in prior years, the names of our 2014 “Year in Reading” contributors will be unveiled one at a time throughout the month as we publish their contributions. You can bookmark this post and follow the series from here, or load up the main page for more new Year in Reading posts appearing at the top every day, or you can subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Facebook or Twitter and read the series that way.

• Stephen Dodson, co-author of Uglier Than a Monkey’s Armpit, proprietor of Languagehat.
• Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See.
• Haley Mlotek,editor of The Hairpin.
• Jess Walter, author of We Live in Water.
• Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.
• Isaac Fitzgerald, editor of BuzzFeed Books and co-founder of Pen & Ink.
• Emily Gould, co-owner of Emily Books, author of Friendship.
• Blake Butler, author of 300,000,000.
• Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander.
• John Darnielle, vocalist for the band the Mountain Goats and author of Wolf in White Van.
• Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams.
• Matthew Thomas, author of We Are Not Ourselves.
• Eula Biss, author of On Immunity.
• Garth Risk Hallberg, contributing editor for The Millions and author of A Field Guide to the North American Family.
• Laura van den Berg, author of the story collections What the World Will Look Like When All The Water Leaves Us and The Isle of Youth.
• Hamilton Leithauser, frontman for The Walkmen.
• Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You.
• Mark O’Connell, staff writer for The Millions, author of Epic Fail.
• Janet Potter, staff writer for The Millions.
• Lydia Kiesling, staff writer for The Millions.
• Nick Ripatrazone, staff writer for The Millions, author of Good People.
• Michael Bourne, staff writer for The Millions.
• Ben Lerner, author of 10:04.
• Jane Smiley, author of A Thousand Acres.
• Phil Klay, author of Redeployment.
• Emily St. John Mandel, staff writer for The Millions, author of Station Eleven.
• Tana French, author of Broken Harbor.
• Yelena Akhtiorskaya, author of Panic in a Suitcase.
• Philipp Meyer, author of The Son.
• Edan Lepucki, staff writer for The Millions, author of California.
• Jayne Anne Phillips, author of Lark and Termite.
• Maureen Corrigan, author of So We Read On.
• Porochista Khakpour, author of Sons and Other Flammable Objects.
• Tiphanie Yanique, author of Land of Love and Drowning.
• David Bezmozgis, author of Natasha: And Other Stories.
• Lindsay Hunter, author of Ugly Girls.
• Dinaw Mengestu, author of All Our Names.
• Eimear McBride, author of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing.
• Caitlin Moran, author of How to Be a Woman.
• Rabih Alameddine, author of An Unnecessary Woman.
• Walter Kirn, author of Blood Will Out.
• Michael Schaub, staff writer for The Millions.
• Nick Moran, social media editor for The Millions.
• Hannah Gersen, staff writer for The Millions.
• Kaulie Lewis, intern for The Millions.
• Rachel Fershleiser, co-creator of Six-Word Memoirs and co-editor of Not Quite What I Was Planning.
• Rebecca Makkai, author of The Hundred-Year House.
• Gina Frangello, author of A Life in Men.
• Hannah Pittard, author of Reunion.
• Michelle Huneven, author of Blame
• Lydia Millet, author of Mermaids in Paradise.
• Michele Filgate, essayist, critic, and freelance writer.
• Carolyn Kellogg writes about books and publishing for the Los Angeles Times.
• Emma Straub, author of The Vacationers.
• Ron Rash, author of Serena.
• Darcey Steinke, author of Sister Golden Hair.
• Tom Nissley, author of A Reader’s Book of Days and owner of Phinney Books in Seattle.
• Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans.
• Scott Cheshire, author of High as the Horses’ Bridles.
• Caitlin Doughty, author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.
• Julia Fierro, author of Cutting Teeth.
• Bill Morris, author of Motor City Burning.
• William Giraldi, author of Busy Monsters.
• Rachel Cantor, author of A Highly Unlikely Scenario.
• Jean Hanff Korelitz, author of You Should Have Known.
• Tess Malone, associate editor for The Millions.
• Thomas Beckwith, writer and project assistant for The Millions.
• Matt Seidel, staff writer for The Millions.
• Elizabeth Minkel, staff writer for The Millions.
• Michael Robbins, author of The Second Sex.
• Charles Finch, author of The Last Enchantments.
• A Year in Reading: 2014 Wrap-Up

Don’t miss: A Year in Reading 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005

The good stuff: The Millions’ Notable articles

The motherlode: The Millions’ Books and Reviews

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