Since I did this sort of thing last year, I figured I might as well make this a tradition of sorts.
Favourites of the year
Picking out favourites turned out to be a bit difficult this year (it seems that I read a bunch of good books in 2014), but here’s a few that stuck out.
Going Clear
I haven’t quite finished this book yet but having read a bit more than half of it I can already tell that this is going to be one of my favourites for the year.
Written by Lawrence Wright, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, the book details the history of the Scientology movement and the life of it’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard.
HBO is currently adapting the book into a documentary (slated to air in 2015).
What If?
As a long time time fan of xkcd and occasional reader of [What If?] (the online version), this book was most welcome…
The book is both hilarious and informative. I’m pertty sure there wasn’t a single chapter where I didn’t giggle at least a little bit…
Command and Control
Warning: this book is extremely scary and will make you wonder who we (we being humanity) have managed to avoid accidentally blowing ourselves up with nukes.
Surface Detail
Since all my other picks where non-fiction, I thought I should include at least one book that isn’t depressing and based on true facts…
Surface Details turned out to be one of my favourite books from the Culture series by Iain M. Banks. In fact, I ended up reading it twice.
The full(ish) list
The (almost) full list of books I read this year. Some books that I had previously read don’t show up on my Goodreads list. Plus there might be a few others missing because of my sloppy Goodreads habits…
- Going Clear by Lawrence Wright
- Flat Earth News by Nick Davies
- The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks
- A Wild Life: Adventures of an Accidental Conservationist in Africa by Dick Pitman
- The Causal Angel by Hannu Rajaniemi
- Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross
- The Little World of Liz Climo by Liz Climo
- But He Was Good to His Mother by Robert A. Rockaway
- When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
- Dog Butts and Love. And Stuff Like That. And Cats. by Jim Benton
- One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
- The Long Mars by Stephen Baxter & Terry Pratchett
- Command and Control by Eric Schlosser
- The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks
- The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks
- Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks
- The Home Brewer’s Guide to Vintage Beer by Ronald Pattinson
- Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
- Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose
- Going Solo by Roald Dahl
- Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl
- Matter by Iain M. Banks
- Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks
- America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t by Stephen Colbert
- Unnatural Creatures by Neil Gaiman
- Inversions by Iain M. Banks
- Will We Ever Speak Dolphin? by New Scientist
- American Sour Beer by Michael Tonsmeire
- iWoz by Steve Wozniak
- Axis by Robert Charles Wilson
Full disclosure: All book links in this article lead to Piranhas, my book price comparison service.