MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2014
BEST FUNNY/SAD
The Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
“Funny/sad” is a very unoriginal yet concise adjective to describe my very favorite kind of writing, and Jenny Offill’s lovely novel delivers. She invokes the wisdom of philosophers and poets and scientists in her wry portrait of a marriage, but her own words are just as profound—guaranteed to make you laugh/cry/drink a bunch of wine and dance around your bedroom/etc.
BEST PACING
All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld
A novel about a lonely, mysterious woman and a flock of sheep on a stormy British isle should not be so fucking electrifying! But Evie Wyld’s novel bursts with tension even when she’s describing scenes in nature, as chapter by chapter past and present begin to converge.
BEST FAIRY TALE FOR GROWN-UPS
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
I don’t wanna spoil anything by telling you too many details about this gorgeous fable that is so much richer and more subtle than any of the moral-heavy stories we’re told as children. Oyeyemi fills her novel with unexpected twists and turns that are shocking even though they make perfect sense.
MOST HAUNTING, IRL
Demon Camp: A Soldier’s Exorcism by Jen Percy
A nonfiction ghost story about PTSD in which war veterans choose to literally (if such things could be literal) confront their demons. Jen Percy is the most curious and non-judgy of outsiders as she embeds herself in small yet intense religious communities that cater to helping American soldiers to somehow manage the haunting legacy of war.
NOVEL I MOST WANT TO ASSIGN TO ALL THE BROS I KNOW
Adam by Ariel Schrag
This hilarious debut novel about a teenager visiting his way cooler older sister in East Williamsburg is the most awkward and honest coming-of-age that involves fetishware hijinks at a women-only sex party. Topics covered include gender construction, hipsterism, and The L Word.
ESSAYS THAT FEEL LIKE THEY WERE WRITTEN JUST FOR ME
The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison
“Maybe drunken heartbreak was the lamest thing I could possibly write about, but this was precisely why I wanted to write about it.” If you can identify with this quote, chances are you’ll love these essays and feel like they were written just for you, too. The author goes deep in a rich journalistic exploration on the pain of others, but she also validates and celebrates more mundane and universal emotions.
MOST RAPTUROUS
High as the Horses’ Bridles by Scott Cheshire
A 12 year-old predicts the date of the apocalypse in an Evangelical church in Queens in 1980 in one of the most masterful opening scenes in fiction that I’ve ever read. The rest of Scott Cheshire’s incredible novel grapples with the life-long consequences of the boy’s bold prophecy.
BEST SENTENCES
Nobody Is Ever Missing by Catherine Lacey
When a woman runs off to New Zealand to escape the drudgeries of her daily life and her dying marriage her thoughts are not neat and logical. Catherine Lacey’s debut novel is all about the sentences—windy, evocative, raw, and so very angry. Hers is the most unique voice I’ve come across in ages.
BEST MEGA-METAPHOR
On Immunity: An Inoculation by Eula Biss
As a non-parent, I’ve paid not all that much attention to the debate about vaccination (except to note that wearing glasses alone does not make a person smart, Jenny McCarthy).  But I read Eula Biss’s treatise with awe, for the beauty of her prose as well as the link she makes between vaccination and bigger, more general fears about contagion and outsiders and impurity.
BEST BLEND OF HIGH AND LOW
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
A wonderful reminder that you can be smart as hell and politically inspiring and insightful and still earnestly enjoy reality TV.
MORE HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READS:
Thunderstruck by Elizabeth McCracken
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
California by Edan Lepucki
Friendship by Emily Gould
Euphoria by Lily King
Save the Date by Jen Doll
A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman
The Vacationers by Emma Straub
Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 by Francine Prose
Songs Only You Know by Sean Madigan Hoen
The Fever by Megan Abbott
Sister Golden Hair by Darcey Steinke
Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball
Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers and Their Unshakeable Love for New York edited by Sari Botton
