Bright Young Things discussion

So, with only three and a bit days left of 2014 let's reflect on our respective year of reading.



What was the best book you read in 2014?

Which author did you enjoy most?

Which writer or writers did you discover in 2014?

Which writer do you intend to read more of in 2015?

What change, if any, do you plan to make to your reading habits?

Do you intend to read more, less or about the same in 2015?

What else do you want to say?


I'll post my own replies once I've mulled over the questions.

Here are my answers...



What was the best book you read in 2014?

A Dance To The Music Of Time - all twelve of them
All Quiet on the Western Front

Which author did you enjoy most?

Anthony Powell

Which writer or writers did you discover in 2014?

Hans Fallada, Anthony Powell and Patrick Leigh Fermor

Which writer do you intend to read more of in 2015?

Patrick Leigh Fermor and Julian Maclaren-Ross

What change, if any, do you plan to make to your reading habits?

Read more music-related books and read more books by authors I already like

Do you intend to read more, less or about the same in 2015?

About the same

What else do you want to say?

Thanks to all the people on GoodReads who have added to the richness of my reading experiences

I'm a dork, but I love the year end review of books! :)

What was the best book you read in 2014?
The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss Mostly historically accurate from what I could tell, but also pleasantly complicated and thrilling.

Which author did you enjoy most? Liss would be a strong contender for this one as well, but I have to say the most "enjoyable" book and author this year was Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh. I would also give an honorable mention to Gene Luen Yang who wrote Boxers and Saints, which individually were just OK, but together they were greater than the sum of their parts.

Which writer or writers did you discover in 2014? I read my first F. Scott Fitzgerald, P.G. Wodehouse, Peter Matthiessen, Agatha Christie, Ralph EllisonJames Baldwin and John Green this year, quite a pack of new writers I discovered!

Which writer do you intend to read more of in 2015? I hope to read another book by Liss and by Christie.

What change, if any, do you plan to make to your reading habits? I read a lot of rereads this year, mainly because I lacked the mental energy to tackle new books, so I hope I can read more new books next year.

Do you intend to read more, less or about the same in 2015? Hopefully a bit more, it'll depend on if life stays out of the way in 2015!

What else do you want to say? Can't wait to see which authors I discover next year!

What was the best book you read in 2014?

Of the 78 books I read this year, I gave 7 a 5-star rating. Hard to choose which of those 7 was the best---maybe Testament of Youth. I found it very moving.

Which author did you enjoy most?

Again, it’s hard to name just one. Probably Stefan Zweig.

Which writer or writers did you discover in 2014?

There were several! Stefan Zweig, Graham Greene, Hans Fallada, Patrick Leigh Fermor, PG Wodehouse, Somerset Maugham, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell. All except Fallada and Fermor were familiar names to me, but I’d never explored any of them until this year. I now want to read more by all of them.

Which writer do you intend to read more of in 2015?

I definitely want to finish Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time in 2015. I also want to read more Zweig and Fallada this coming year.

What change, if any, do you plan to make to your reading habits?

I want to read a few more French books this coming year.

Do you intend to read more, less or about the same in 2015?

About the same, perhaps a little more. While I admire Susan for reading 300 books in a year, I can’t imagine coming up to that mark myself! I’ll be happy to make it to 80.

What else do you want to say?

At 64 and having just had a heart attack, I am beginning to realize that the number of books I’ll read is limited. I may make it through 2000 more books in my lifetime, 3000 if I live long AND read more per year than I’ve yet managed. When I look at how many books are on my current TBR list, I see that I will have to leave many unread. It’s an odd sensation, knowing that I will never read all the books I want to read. At the same time, it’s wonderful to know that I will never run out of new mental challenges, and I look forward to sharing my time with the great authors we explore in this group. Reading is such a gift, and as Emily Dickinson said, "there is no frigate like a book."

^ Thanks Barbara. I was really touched by your final paragraph - as you suggest at least you will never run out of books. I doubt anyone feels they've ever read all they want or would like to.

I'm glad you didn't think I was being morbid. When I told this to one of my daughters, she rolled her eyes and thought I was being a bit weird. But you DO think about this stuff as you age....

I don't think you are being morbid Barbara. The end of the year is a time for reflecting on what we want to do with the rest of life and sorting out priorities. The ever-expanding TBR list seems a good place to start.

What was the best book you read in 2014?
When asked a similar question in my main book group, I found it difficult to cut this down to a top ten and had to rule out books I had read previously.
Further limiting it to books read with this group it would be The Sword of Honour Trilogy

Which author did you enjoy most?
Most of my favourite authors this year were ones I had read before, but from them I will single out: Stefan Zweig, Laurie Lee, J.B. Priestley, James Baldwin, Robert Graves and Erich Maria Remarque.

Which writer or writers did you discover in 2014?
I had heard of Anthony Powell, but not read him before this year. Joyce Dennys was new to me and I thought her books delightful. I will also be looking out for other books by Sean O'Connor.

Which writer do you intend to read more of in 2015?
I do intend to finish Anthony Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time" and launch into Marcel Proust some time, but I have several books from outside the group and I want to read some of those as well.

What change, if any, do you plan to make to your reading habits?
If the book is either:
a) expensive (more than £10 including postage)
b) or more than 500 pages long
c) and about a subject which does not appeal
I will wait until a few other members have read it and commented on it favourably before considering buying it. This is better than me resenting or moaning about having to buy it and read it.

Do you intend to read more, less or about the same in 2015?
I will probably read about the same number of books, a few more of them might be from my own to-read list.

What else do you want to say?
I think I have said most of it all above, although I will just add this for clarification:
I enjoy belonging to this group and sharing books with everyone here. I know that the group is not pressing me to buy books I don't want, I'm doing that to myself. I am not going to do it any more.