The Book Vipers discussion

Tell us about your favourite book of the year here.

I have been very reluctant to hand to 5 stars to books this year, but I did award a few, and those books were:

Gold
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
Stargazing: Memoirs of a Young Lighthouse Keeper
Last Days of the Bus Club

What have your favourites been?

I know i'm new to the group but my best reads this year have been
The Secret History
The Book ThiefThe Cowboy and the Cossack
The Things They CarriedThe Free
Unspoken
There are one or two more but these were my favs

This is a great thread to get book ideas. Thx

I loved Life After Life and Anna Karenina - neither of which I would have ever read had I not joined this group!

Anything I read by William Boyd, my author discovery of 2014 for definite.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption for sheer impact and the fact that it was a true story

The Goldfinch, just because.

The Last Runaway

and

my surprise hit, never saw it coming, The Cuckoo's Calling.

SO FAR!!!! The ultimate gem could yet come.

iam reading all the light we cannot see by Anthony doer. it is very good.

My fav book I read this year was Last Exit to Brooklyn it was pretty breath taking.

In second place for me The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared was surprised by how much I liked this one, especially as I only read it because of the cover.

Stand out books for me this year have been
The Man in the Wooden Hat

Last Friends

Cloud Atlas

The Goldfinch

Bitter Greens

The Signature of All Things

Burial Rites

All of them fantastic, in different ways. It's been a great year for reading!

Top books of 2014 for me so far...
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
I Am Pilgrim
The Razor's Edge

I've given out five stars to 11 of the books I've read this year, but of those my highlights were:

Haruki Murakami "Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage"

Stieg Larsson "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"

Iain Banks "The Quarry"

Carlie Martece "Toxic Nursery"

Diane Setterfield "The Thirteenth Tale"

Neil Gaiman "The Ocean at the End of the Lane"

I'm stealing a lot of these recommendations for my to read list!!

Brodecks report. I prob gave it 4 stars - because anything can be improved upon (lost my vocation writing teachers reports)

I would have to say I Capture the Castle. I gave it 4 stars at the time but I think I'll have to go back and change it to a 5. I've found that it's a book that for some reason, although I didn't think I'd registered it that deeply, I have caught myself thinking about a few times since. In fact I was watching an episode of 'homes by the sea' and saw a place that I actually felt I'd seen before and then realised it was because the house was just how I had pictured the home where the Mortmain's lived.

Nice one Catherine, that was one of the caboodle books I was trying to figure out.

Looking at my ratings, I didn't give many five stars but theres a bit of a theme with the ones I did....
The Hunger Games trilogy
Allegiant (2nd of the Divergent trilogy)
The Bling Assassin
Oryx and Crake
so slightly depressing dystopian adventures seems to win the year for me!

Difficult one, but I guess I would choose

The Cuckoo's Calling
The Song of Achilles
Silence of the Grave
Where'd You Go, Bernadette
book:The Bees|18652002]
Random Acts of Senseless ViolenceAmericanah
Americanah

Charlotte, I like the sound of the Bling Assassin, never been one for too much ostentation myself!!

hehe, whoopsadaisy. The Blind Assassin!

My favourites have been Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, Neverwhere, The Blind Assassin and The Bees

I think I've got to have the Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Prilgrimage jump up the to-read ladder. Maybe it could be one of my best-2015. Thanks

Charlotte - if you've enjoyed Divergent and Hunger Games, I recommend The Testing trilogy.

I am possibly reading my book of 2014 right now.... Let's see how it goes. The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy. I had cried by around page 50 and I am reading a few more pages at every chance I get. Not done that for a while.

While the year isn't over, I'm going with Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. (Sorry, I have no idea how to link to a book. Ha!) What a great read.

Also, thanks for all the recommendations. I've added some to my list.

I have heard good things about Station Eleven, a new spin on the dystopian novel

It is! If you like dystopian novels, this is for you. If you don't like dystopian novels, this might be the one that changes that.

Might give that one a go, sounds good.

Charlotte wrote: "Charlotte - if you've enjoyed Divergent and Hunger Games, I recommend The Testing trilogy."

Thanks :D will have to check them out, and Station Eleven too. Want to get onto Maddaddam too.

I read Station Eleven a couple of months ago: it's excellent.

After listing a few above, I have just finished Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and think it has topped the others for my book of 2014. Just blew me away. Fantastic read, grotesque and meloncholic, the style he does best!

I can say I was lucky this year, since I really enjoyed most of the books I read. But trying to chose only a few, I would say:

Cold Mountain
The Help
Orphan Train
The Light in the Ruins
Reconstructing Amelia and
The Hunger Games trilogy

My favourite books of 2014 have been -
Couldn't read it fast enough A Game of Thrones
Masterful storytelling - The Goldfinch
Biography Darwin's Sacred Cause: Race Slavery And The Quest For Human Origins
Political/Memoir Harry's Last Stand: How the World My Generation Built is Falling Down, and What We Can Do to Save It
Travel Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination
History The Long Shadow: The Great War and the Twentieth Century
Poetry The Bees
Science Hallucinations
Series Oryx and Crake The Year of the Flood MaddAddam ALSO 1Q84
New author - Samantha Shannon The Bone Season

And SO many more, it's been a good year.

I have only given three five stars this year and I think that they are all Vipers suggestions.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
The Shock of the Fall

I think "Shock of the fall" was my favourite.

I love this list, what a great way of catching up on what people have been reading and enjoying. Might pick up a few tips for this year's TBR list.

Blind Assassin was a 4 for me, so certainly another highlight.

Blind Assassin was a 4 for me, so certainly another highlight.

Catherine I have added I Capture the Castle to my to read list, Thankyou,

Have also added Station Eleven, thanks guys

Nikki wrote: "Have also added Station Eleven, thanks guys"

I have got that to read in the next week or two

Oooh, I really hope you won't be disappointed Nikki. :D

Fav books for me last year was:
The Son
Cinder and the rest of the series
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (and the rest of the series)
Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture
Ready Player One
among some... Love to discover new books - and reading alot of different stuff;o (And I give most books I would love to re-read 5 stars;o)