2014 Books of the Year

In 2014 I read 80 books, just shy of last year’s 85. Here’s a quick list of all but the top ten, sorted. Afterward we’ll cover my ten favorites.

Special Harry Stephen Keeler Category for So-Bad-It’s-Good-ness

The Mystery of the Fiddling Cracksman (Harry Stephen Keeler); I, Chameleon (Harry Stephen Keeler); Mad Men on the Couch (Stephanie Newman); Fancy Pants (Susan Elizabeth Phillips)

For the first time ever, Harry Stephen Keeler isn’t the only author in the so-bad-it’s-good category! He’s joined by Stephanie Newman, a Freudian psychoanalyst whose entertaining book marries unsurprising, fluffy analysis of the Mad Men characters’ mental issues to a constant and unrelenting insistence that everybody would benefit from Freudian psychoanalysis. It’s just fun enough you can forgive how shamelessly self-promoting it is. Also: most book adaptations are movies, but this book has been turned into a cake.

The book is not really that thick.

The other so-bad-it’s-good book is the most entertaining entry so far in the ongoing Hate Book Club series, where my friend Patricia and I read terrible books so you don’t have to. And speaking of Hate Book Club…