I feel like the title says it all.
Still! To clarify:
It’s time to talk about books you’re digging. So, your goal is to drop into the comments and give us one book — and I hate that I have to say this but not your own book — that you read this year and loved. And do tell us why you dug it, yeah? This can be new books from this year, but isn’t restricted to this particular slice of temporal pie.
I’ll offer up two books I just read —
The Incorruptibles by John Hornor Jacobs, and Authority, by Jeff Vandermeer. The former is a Gunslingery fantasy with demon-bound steamships and guns and bloodthirsty elves in an alternate version of America. It’s short, but richly-layered, and John’s writing is like quicksand: one step in and you’re already drawn down and trapped within the prose. The latter book is about a thousand miles from the former, but equally amazing. Authority is the follow-up to Annihilation, and does a great job at answering questions from the first book while introducing a multiplying rabbit litter of enigmas all its own. It is a masterpiece of creepy, queasy discomfort. Vandermeer wields unease like a weapon. His prose is dense, a thicket you sometimes need to chop through, but worth the effort.
And yes, I know I told you to recommend one book and I’m recommending two but IT’S MY BLOG I CAN VIOLATE THE RULES IF I WANT TO and also cry if I want to and also eat cake frosting with my fingers if I want to SHUT UP AND DON’T JUDGE ME.
See you in the comments, word-nerds.
Nick Nafpliotis (@NickNafster79) says:
Book: Almost gave up on The Passage by Justin Cronin. Glad I picked it back up; excellent read.
Graphic Novel: American Vampire by Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque
March 24, 2014 — 10:19 AM
Keith says:
Annihilation was great, and The Troop by Nick Cutter was excellent.
March 24, 2014 — 10:20 AM
Alyn says:
The first 3 books of the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher.
March 24, 2014 — 10:20 AM
murgatroid98 says:
I agree with this one. I’ve been listening to them on audiobook.
March 24, 2014 — 5:55 PM
Alicia says:
Great choice!
March 31, 2014 — 2:03 PM
jakebible says:
Loving Mur Lafferty’s The Shambling Guide To New York City.
March 24, 2014 — 10:22 AM
Elizabeth Poole says:
I totally second that! I just finished that two weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed it!
March 24, 2014 — 2:20 PM
ardenrr says:
I just finished off the Infected trilogy by Scott Sigler. Highly recommend this series. After reading Pandemic, I’m tempted to go re-read the entire trilogy.
Disclaimer: You need a pretty strong stomach to read these, especially the first one. It is one of the few books that made me nauseous so obviously it was an amazing read 🙂
March 24, 2014 — 10:22 AM
Martel Sardina says:
For those who like noir/crime fiction:
Galveston by Nic Pizzolato
The Sweet Forever by George Pelecanos
March 24, 2014 — 10:25 AM
Paris Marx says:
The Devil’s Fire by Matt Tomerlin. Basically Game of Thrones on a pirate ship. Highly recommend.
March 24, 2014 — 10:31 AM
Terri says:
Wolverine Bros. Freight & Storage is the 4th in the Conway Sax series by Steve Ulfelder. Old school in your face mystery. Guns, car chases, fights, and mayhem. Sax is a NASCAR driver who drank himself out of his ride. All the mayhem in his life comes from his devotion to the Barnburners, a radical AA group. The first three in the series had upbeat endings, but WBFS, is dark dark dark. If you need some Robert Parker style in your life, check out ulfelder.com
March 24, 2014 — 10:32 AM
mikes75 says:
The Shibboleth by John Hornor Jacobs. It’s the second book in his trilogy that began with The Twelve-Fingered Boy, which was itself an amazing book. This one expands nicely on the worldbuilding he did in the first, and deepens the characters as well. Shreve Cannon is a hell of a character, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the third installment. This has become one of my all-time favorite YA series.
March 24, 2014 — 10:36 AM
Al Rainey says:
Tampa by Alissa Nutting has been my favorite by far. Disturbing subject matter, but the character Celeste was *so* focused and relentless in her obsession that I actually picked up a dark comedy vibe as the story reached its – err – climax. It was a great read. Runner up was Shortcut Man by P.G. Sturges. LA PI story freshly told.
March 24, 2014 — 10:38 AM
caszbrewster says:
Well, you stole my one that I loved so much: Annihilation. I am so looking forward to Authority.
I won’t tell you the book I threw across the room at page 179 (how frustrating to get that far into a book and then just hate everything about it).
But my review went up in 2014 for The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan. I love this book immensely. It’s a read for a writer, in my opinion. Also, if you’re dealing with unreliable female characters — hell, any unreliable character — it’s a great study. But mostly it’s about the words, the ideas, and how Kiernan puts it together. Masterful.
March 24, 2014 — 10:42 AM
Marc Cabot says:
I rediscovered the totally over-the-top world of The Destroyer, the books upon which the movie Remo Williams was based. They were insanely popular, for pulp adventure books, at the time and have been republished as *gasp* reasonably-priced ebooks.
They’re also, AFAICT, a pretty great story about the authors getting their rights back, going to a small press that does things right, and making money on books the larger publishing houses would have written off as “been there, done that” long ago. They’ve used that freedom to give away the first book, Created, The Destroyer as well as a brand new prequel/alternate beginning book, which is also free. (The Day Remo Died.)
The first two Destroyer books are free on Amazon (just search for “The Destroyer”.) Over the top magical martial arts spy-thriller fun and one of the great characters in pulp literature, Chiun the Teacher, Reigning Master of Sinanju. Whee!
March 24, 2014 — 10:49 AM
Gareth Skarka says:
Wow — Thanks for the heads-up on that! I loved that series as a teenager.
March 24, 2014 — 4:49 PM
prettysemmy says:
DreamKeekers by David and Liz Lillie. It’s beautiful and compelling and I can’t wait for the next volume.
March 24, 2014 — 10:52 AM
Christa says:
So many great ones but my favourite so far is The Martian by Andy Weir – Space MacGyver!
March 24, 2014 — 10:52 AM
Ouranosaurus says:
So far, vN by Madeleine Ashby, and Rapture by Kameron Hurley. vN is about von Neuman-style self replicating androids who are first law compliant… mostly. Has some first-novel issues, but the ideas and characters are strong enough that I want to read the sequel. Hurley’s Rapture is the third book of her Bel Dame trilogy, and has possibly the most alarmingly hardass protagonist in SF right now. The series just kept getting better as it went. Amazing worldbuilding, too.
March 24, 2014 — 10:54 AM
Josh Neff says:
The Assassin’s Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke. It’s the first in a YA fantasy series with a great narrative voice and pulp magazine pacing. The protagonists are a pirate princess who’s tough, unrefined, clever, and foul-mouthed, and a male assassin who’s strong and determined but also sensitive and occasionally naive. It’s fun and engaging, reading much like Pirates of the Caribbean meets Sinbad meets Firefly.
March 24, 2014 — 10:56 AM
Jacey Bedford says:
I enjoiyed this one, too – and the sequel, ‘The Pirate’s Wish’ which picks up the story exactly where Assassin’s Curse leaves off.
March 24, 2014 — 11:42 AM
Kaleb Russell says:
The best books I’ve read so far this year are the two books in the Craft Sequence. The world Max Gladstone is amazing and I love the way he creates these fascinating characters that make you think and feel differently about the way life works. Highly recommended and I can’t wait for his next book.
March 24, 2014 — 10:59 AM
Jamie Maltman says:
Wonderbook, on your recommendation. And I read it so slowly because ever page is to be savored, not devoured. Such a cool take on the writing book for all of us living in the “imaginative” fiction realm.
March 24, 2014 — 11:00 AM
Patrick Regan says:
Seconding Wonderbook, but I’ll be different and also add that while I’ve only just started Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, I’m loving it already. It’s a really good middle ground between gritty, political GRR Martin and high fantasy JRR Tolkien. Between two RRs, if you will.
March 24, 2014 — 11:03 AM
sgwier says:
FATAL by T.A. Brock – YA zombie romance. Fantastic!
March 24, 2014 — 11:04 AM
robinlmartinez says:
I am reading Dina’s Book. Tersely poetic language tells the story of a haunted young woman in Norway. And unlike most “literary” books, which I despise, the language serves the story – not the other way round.
March 24, 2014 — 11:29 AM
Anastasia McPherson says:
If you haven’t already, search the Atlantic Monthly site for an article called The Reader’s Manifesto. It details the problems of a lot of so called “literary fiction” that in point of fact involves the writer vomiting their thesaurus onto the page in such a way that would get anybody else a checkmark in the box for word salad.
As for the rest of you, I thank you and Amazon thanks you too as I just bought several of your recommendations. Ta….Anastasia
April 9, 2014 — 1:36 PM
Todd Moody says:
Recently finished Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. It’s space opera of the finest quality. She has an interesting take on gender, and the world building and characterization are top notch. The protagonist is the fragment of a former starship AI. It’s fascinating! Leckie is going on my “must read” list. Ancillary Justice made the short list for the Nebula. The next book is due out this fall.
March 24, 2014 — 11:30 AM
Lauren Spieller says:
The Rook by Daniel O’Malley. Fun, funny, great worldbuilding!
March 24, 2014 — 11:32 AM
Sarah Allen says:
I just finished A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan. Its a futuristic sci-fi retelling of Sleeping Beauty, and I was actually hesitant at first but my roommate recommended it and I ended up loving it.
March 24, 2014 — 11:52 AM
sharkluvr1 says:
Black Water Creek by Robert Brumm. It was an amazing thriller, kept me captivated and wouldn’t let me put it down even to sleep (to me, the tell-tale sign of a great book).
March 24, 2014 — 11:55 AM
underastarlitsky says:
The Last Hour of Gann, by R. Lee Smith. All of the people in my online book club were jumping on the bandwagon and reading this book and raving about it. So like a lemming, I followed suit. It’s sci-fi romance. Like TOTALLY sci-fi romance. Human/lizard-man alien getting together stuff. NOT my usual read. Actually, i’ve never read anything like it. It is epic (literally, it’s a super long book!) but WOW! like everyone else in my book group that have been sucked into it (R Lee Smith apparently has other romance/erotica books that are nothing to do with the world of Gann but apparently just as strange (and moreso!). Loved it. Felt sad when it ended. Was in lizard-man withdrawl.
March 24, 2014 — 11:59 AM
Gregor Xane says:
The Drive-In by Joe R. Lansdale
March 24, 2014 — 12:00 PM
Patty Templeton says:
Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler. It’s like an indie music, Wisconsin-based Our Town. Effin great.
March 24, 2014 — 12:05 PM
mermaidmaddie says:
The Statistical Probability Of Love At First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith. It’s YA, but I love this book so much. I swear i fangirled for the longest time. <3
*flails arms*
*avatar villager foaming at the mouth*
March 24, 2014 — 12:11 PM
William Grit says:
http://williamgrit.com/category/cool-books/
March 24, 2014 — 12:13 PM
Jessica Nelson says:
My favorite read of 2014 so far, is a tie between two books. Why do you have to make me choose? Argh!
Okay. THE TWELVE-FINGERED BOY, by John Hornor Jacobs. It was rich with layers and textures, sweet in the way of nostalgia, not syrup. I’m not really sure what I expected going into it, but it certainly wasn’t the powerful coming of age tale I soon discovered it was (though I’m not sure why I was so surprised, because I’ve read his work before). I’m planning on reading book 2 (THE SHIBBOLETH) soon, and I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of THE INCORRUPTIBLES. Listen to me, I sound like a squirrel planning on where to store my nuts for winter.
March 24, 2014 — 12:22 PM
churnage says:
Red Azalea by Anchee Min. A memoir about growing in China during the Cultural Revolution. Beautifully heartbreaking.
March 24, 2014 — 12:25 PM
Anthony Elmore says:
“Moment of Vengeance” by Elmore Leonard, which was a great find at the Dollar Store. Leonard started out writing westerns and I love the quick language and ever present danger both human and natural.
March 24, 2014 — 12:38 PM
David Wilson says:
Game of Thrones, the only book that i have finished so far in 2014
March 24, 2014 — 12:38 PM
CJ Jessop says:
I discovered Scott Lynch’s ‘The Lies of Locke Lamora’ and was hooked.
March 24, 2014 — 12:43 PM
Kerry Benton says:
That’s mine too. Well, to cheat a little, that book and the next two, all of which were read in the space of about 10 days of late nights and long lunch breaks.
To cheat even further, I’ve recently been tearing through Daniel Abraham’s “Long Price Quartet” series also. The pacing is damn near cruel… I’ve just been burning through chapters from each POV to get to the next reveal and by the time I hit the end of the third book I felt like I got chest punched by a grizzly bear. Guh.
March 24, 2014 — 1:21 PM
A. Wint says:
Old to some of you but new to me, Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. Had no interest in Japanese Lit. Happy I picked it up now I’m all consumed in Japanese culture
March 24, 2014 — 12:45 PM
Jen Donohue says:
I read and LOVED Fortune’s Pawn, by Rachel Bach. Space scifi, and an immersive new universe/society/world/whatever without infodumps. I gobbled it up in one day and will soon be reading the sequel, Honor’s Knight.
I also read The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman.
March 24, 2014 — 12:50 PM
izombiheartzoey says:
Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon and Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano. Great pairing of books. Both texts tell the stories of their respective continents being pulled apart and economically molested by colonialism and American foreign policy.
March 24, 2014 — 12:50 PM
David says:
When I first read your comment, my brain parsed “economically molested” as ‘raped in the most efficient and thrifty manner possible’ instead of ‘fucked up their finances.’ I think the first version might have been more intriguing.
March 24, 2014 — 3:27 PM
deanmcsmith says:
Dr Sleep by Stephen King. It answered questions, provided me with surprises and was well worth the wait. One of the best birthday presents I ever received. 🙂
March 24, 2014 — 12:51 PM
Linda Coburn (@LCinLA) says:
I loved The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker.
March 24, 2014 — 1:04 PM
Karen McCoy says:
The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green. Excellent word weaving, plot, and character development. And, the following quotes:
“What a slut time is. She screws everybody.”
“We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths.”
“The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.”
March 24, 2014 — 1:09 PM
Six says:
I fell in love with Mike Cooper’s Clawback (and the follow up, Full Ratchet). It was like Strike Back for money nerds. The pacing blew me away — I rarely get through a book without having at least a small section I want to skim ahead on — and didn’t stop from the first page to last. It was fun getting through the second book, loving the character, and then realizing I still didn’t know anything about him. We still don’t know his real name, what he looks like, how he came to be, really. Most everything we know about Silas is through his interactions with other people, and considering it’s in first person, that’s freaking awesome.
Clawback. Find it. Blow things up. Your inner accountant hit man will thank you.
March 24, 2014 — 1:11 PM
Lynn Johnston says:
Warchild, by Karen Lowachee. I almost didn’t read it because the first chapter is in second person. But by the time I got to chapter two, I could not put that book down. The main character goes through hell, and I went with him.
And Blackbirds, by that funny guy who cusses a lot and got my husband hooked on Chemex coffee.
March 24, 2014 — 1:21 PM
miceala says:
Haven’t actually finished it yet, but I’m loving CINDER by Marissa Meyer. It’s a dystopian-steampunk-sci-fi hybrid that loosely builds off the original Cinderella fairy tale. The original tale really only acts as a minor plot backdrop that allows the other, major plot points involving elements unique to Meyer’s writing to happen, so it’s not just one more re-write telling the same story. This is the first book in a while that I’d say I’ve actually been *devouring.* Like, I have to *restrain* myself from reading it in order to do other things. Like laundry. Or sleep. It’s pretty fantastic.
March 24, 2014 — 1:22 PM
jason b says:
One book I’ve read so far is Cormac Mcarthy’s, The Road. I’m pretty sure that book will stay with me the rest of my life. Powerful stuff.
March 24, 2014 — 1:38 PM
jason b says:
*McCarthy, dammit.
March 24, 2014 — 1:39 PM
louisesor says:
I just finished Trailer Trash with a Girl’s Name by Stacey Roberts and loved it. Gave it 5 stars on Amazon. Humour. I sat reading and laughing for the whole three hours.
Gift of Laughter> priceless. : )))
March 24, 2014 — 1:49 PM
Kyra Dune says:
I just finished reading the Silver Series by Cheree Alsop and yes, I know you said only one book, but I always consider a series a single book broken down into separate parts. Anyway, it’s a YA paranormal about werewolves. Usually, I don’t care much for paranormal and I’m not a werewolf fan. But the first book in the series, Silver, was free so I decided to give it a try. I liked it. I liked the characters and the story and the sweet romantic subplot. I wanted to know what happened, so I went ahead and bought the other six books, because they were only 2.99 a piece on the Kindle. And each book was better than the one before it. By the end I was so attached to all the characters and I don’t want to spill any spoilers, but the last book had me actually crying and that doesn’t happen very often. Sometimes books made me sad, but they rarely make me cry. It’s a great series, I would recommend it to anybody who likes YA.
March 24, 2014 — 1:53 PM
Alex Livingston (@galaxyalex) says:
The Goblin Emperor was the most challenging and enjoyable book I’ve read in ages. Highly recommend.
March 24, 2014 — 2:11 PM
Matthew MacNish says:
GRASSHOPPER JUNGLE, by Andrew Smith.
March 24, 2014 — 2:16 PM
K. Zorn says:
“People have built cities to escape the wild beast, but they themselves have become like the wild beasts, like savages.”
“Elisaveta said quietly: ‘The light that falls upon us here from an unknown source is not a living light, and it is terrifying-but the stern face of a monster, burning yet not consuming itself, is even more terrifying.’ ‘The lovely sun,’ said Elena.”
“What I wish to say is that politics and all that separates us is only a light scum, a momentary froth on the broad surface of our life. In love there is revelation, there is eternal truth. He who does not love, he who does not strive towards union with a beloved, he is dead.”
The Created Legend – translated from Russian and written in the early 20th century by Fyodor Sologub. It sucked me in and kept me captivated despite my not being able to find a reason why. The author is primarily a poet and while his novel is well-paced, much of the language within is a giveaway to his poetical instincts.
March 24, 2014 — 2:20 PM