2014 Year in Review, Well, A List of Books I've Read Anyways

2015 will be my Year of Writing.  To properly prepare, I’ve read a crap ton of books in 2014.  In case you’d like to compare notes, here they are, not necessarily in chronological order:

The Bookseller, By Mark Pryor (fun mystery with an enjoyable tour of Paris)

A Moveable Feast, By Ernest Hemingway (Inspirational, and sort of obligatory)

The Paris Wife, By Paula McLain (Unfinished, maybe too slow for me)

Instructions for a Heatwave, By Maggie O’Farrell (book signing at Shakespeare and Co., good stuff)

The Husband’s Secret, By Liane Moriarty (actually a pretty decent piece of literature despite the cheesy title)

The Fault in Our Stars, By John Green (jumped on the bandwagon at The Best Friend’s suggestion, got into it)

Slaughterhouse-Five, By Kurt Vonnegut (hands down one of the greatest books I’ve ever read)

All Fall Down, By Jennifer Weiner (meh)

The Goldfinch, By Donna Tartt (nearly 800 pages of literary bliss, Pulitzer worthy)

Gone Girl, By Gillian Flynn (page turner)

Ash Wednesday, By Ethan Hawke (he was young when he wrote it and I was pretty impressed; he should give novel writing another go)

I’ve also made dents in a few books of short stories, including the 2014 edition of the O’Henry Prize Stories and B.J. Novak’s One More Thing, not to mention the excerpts from fellow writers in Paris whose works I’ve either been curious about or asked to comment on.

Currently, I’m reading Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo.  Because, you know, I have nothing better to do.  And I already killed myself with one 800 page book this year, I might as well go for 1000 pages in 2015, right?  And oh, I spend a lot of time on airplanes.

Today, I tore apart a section of my novel, originally written at the beginning of the summer.  I built it out and further developed a main character who required a richer past.  So that’s a good start.  And now, I’ll drive down a snowy road in upstate New York to a lovely family affair, where I’ll drink champagne and celebrate another wonderful year with lots of well wishes and positive thoughts and awesome goals and good friends.  And with my husband and my sons too, of course.  And in a few days, I’ll return to Paris to start this adventure all over again.

It’s going to be a fine year, my friends.  I hope yours will be, too.