2014 In Books

In the first part of my 2014 in review series which may or may not continue after this post, I’m going to briefly analyse the books I’ve read this year.  Unfortunately I only managed to read 31 books, down from 41 in 2013 and failing to reach my target of 43 by quite a wide margin.  My main reason for this is that I more or less stopped reading outside of my university courses between January and May due to coursework and life related things going on, so hopefully this downward movement is only a blip!  Anyhow, here’s the list:

1. The Book Thief (2005) – Markus Zusak
2. Britain and Ireland: From Home Rule to Independence (1999) – Jeremy Smith
3. Utopia (1516) – Thomas More
4. Doctor Faustus (1604) – Christopher Marlowe
5. Oroonoko (1688) – Aphra Behn
6. Scotland’s Future (2013) – The Scottish Government
7. Blair Unbound (2007) – Anthony Seldon
8. The Fault in our Stars (2012) – John Green
9. Long Walk to Freedom (1995) – Nelson Mandela
10. The Trowie Mound Murders (2014) – Marsali Taylor
11. Of Mice and Men (1937) – John Steinbeck
12. Rachel in Love (1987) – Pat Murphy
13. Ulysses (1922) – James Joyce
14. Europe: In or Out? (2014) – David Charter
15. The Cuckoo’s Calling (2013) – J.K. Rowling
16. Nausea (1938) – Jean-Paul Sartre
17. The Silkworm (2014) – J.K. Rowling
18. The Great Gatsby [re-read] (1922)– F. Scott Fitzgerald
19. A Game of Thrones (1996) – George R.R. Martin
20. A Clash of Kings (1998) – George R. R. Martin
21. A Storm of Swords (2000) – George R. R. Martin
22. A Sentimental Journey (1768) – Laurence Sterne
23. Gulliver’s Travels (1726) – Jonathan Swift
24. Common Sense (1776) – Thomas Paine
25. Salmond: Against the Odds (2010) – David Torrance
26. The Constitution of the United States of America (1787) – James Madison
27. Frankenstein [re-read] (1818) – Mary Shelley
28. Northanger Abbey (1817) – Jane Austen
29. Rip Van Winkle / The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) – Washington Irving
30. Hard Times (1854) – Charles Dickens
31. A Feast for Crows (2005) – George R. R. Martin

And to put them in order of preference:

1. A Storm of Swords (2000) – George R. R. Martin
2. A Game of Thrones (1996) – George R.R. Martin
3. A Clash of Kings (1998) – George R. R. Martin
4. Long Walk to Freedom (1995) – Nelson Mandela
5. The Silkworm (2014) – J.K. Rowling
6. Frankenstein [re-read] (1818) – Mary Shelley
7. Common Sense (1776) – Thomas Paine
8. Doctor Faustus (1604) – Christopher Marlowe
9. The Great Gatsby [re-read] (1922) – F. Scott Fitzgerald
10. The Fault in our Stars (2012) – John Green
11. The Book Thief (2005) – Markus Zusak
12. A Feast for Crows (2005) – George R. R. Martin
13. The Trowie Mound Murders (2014) – Marsali Taylor
14. Northanger Abbey (1817) – Jane Austen
15. Gulliver’s Travels (1726) – Jonathan Swift
16. Of Mice and Men (1937) – John Steinbeck
17. Rachel in Love (1987) – Pat Murphy
18. Hard Times (1854) – Charles Dickens
19. Rip Van Winkle / The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) – Washington Irving
20. Europe: In or Out? (2014) – David Charter
21. Utopia (1516) – Thomas More
22. Salmond: Against the Odds (2010) – David Torrance
23. Nausea (1938) – Jean-Paul Sartre
24. Britain and Ireland: From Home Rule to Independence (1999) – Jeremy Smith
25. The Cuckoo’s Calling (2013) – J.K. Rowling
26. Blair Unbound (2007) – Anthony Seldon
27. Oroonoko (1688) – Aphra Behn
28. A Sentimental Journey (1768) – Laurence Sterne
29. Ulysses (1922) – James Joyce

Unrated:
Scotland’s Future (2013) – The Scottish Government
The Constitution of the United States of America (1787) – James Madison

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And here I’ve [broadly] charted on a map where each book is set or about.  Obviously fictions which aren’t set in our world, like A Song of Ice and Fire, aren’t included, and for non-fiction books I’ve had to take some liberties:

Almost every book here written before 1900 is due to my English Literature course, hence why they’re so clustered together.  It’s a good mix, I think, although as the map shows there is a very strong northern European, British-American bias in the books I’ve read.  Every author, with the exception of Nelson Mandela, is either European or American – I’ll definitely try to widen the writers I read next year.  I think I’ve managed a healthy balance between fiction and non-fiction; I’ve neither lived wholly in bleak reality nor untempered fantasy.  In terms of preference, I’m not surprised to see George R. R. Martin consistently quite high given I tend to rate quality of storytelling in fiction above quality of prose (I imagine I’ll have a lot to say about that in a future post!).  Otherwise there’s no clear pattern.  I need to make a caveat for Ulysses however; while it was the most excruciatingly painful novel I’ve forced myself to read, while I considered the whole thing a project to ridicule critics, upon finishing I just couldn’t get it out of my head and having looked back at it I do find a lot of worth in there.  So this does betray one potential problem with my ratings, in that I rate purely in enjoyment while reading rather than any other means, which brings me back to the discussion of value best saved for another day.

Looking forward to the great reads 2015 brings!

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UPDATE: I forgot to mention the books’ gender ratio.  Only 23% of the books I read were written by women, which is pretty shocking to consider.  Some of this might be down to the amount of ‘classics’ I’ve read this year, although considering these gave me Aphra Benn, Mary Shelley and Jane Austen, who I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise, it’s possibly this actually buffed the number up.  Unless I’ve subconsciously given greater preference to male authors (could be similar to this phenomenon) it’s clear women still face a harder task getting represented in the most high-profile and bestselling books.