I kept a tally of my 2014 books yet never published the list, so it is an shortened take.
A Feathered River Across the Sky, Joel Greenberg
Greenberg plumbs the depths of the passenger pigeon’s decline from swarms millions strong to extinction with the death of Martha, last of her species, in 1914. Treated as an inexhaustible commodity for a century or more, passenger pigeons reached the point of no return a few decades too early for conservation to save them. Greenberg crafts a moving but informative elegy.
The Northern Lights, Howard Norman
A boy's journey from northern Manitoba to Toronto covers ground from drowned friends and an unreliable father to an unforgettable Indian projectionist who illegally fishing in parks at night to sustain his family.
This House of Sky, Ivan Doig
An essential memoir – yes, I am a Doig fan, but he brings alive the Rocky Mountain Front of his youth and the unusual living arrangement in which he thrived.
The Bully Pulpit, Doris Kearns Goodwin
The master historian schools us on TR, Taft and their journalistic contemporaries. Roosevelt’s star remains bright, but Taft comes off as a better man than history often allows.
All the Land to Hold Us, Rick Bass
The Ninemile Wolves, Rick Bass
In the Loyal Mountains, Rick Bass
Only Bass could make poetry from a salt quarry and a handful of West Texas characters in All The Land to Hold Us. He hits an emotional and lyrical peaks writing about animals in the inhospitable terrain, including a lost circus elephant and a trophy catfish kept alive for a feast.
L.A. Stories, Ry Cooder
The famed slide guitarist cracks open a Los Angeles that no longer exists through its musicians and assorted seedy characters.
Animal Madness, Laurel Braitman
Due to personal experience with an anxious Bernese, Braitman gives the subject respect it deserves and explores how other animals fight the same mental issues we do.
A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor
I cannot add to everything already said about this classic.
Carsick, John Waters
Definitely not for everyone – I enjoy John Waters the personality more than John Waters the director. Waters actually hitchhiked across the country to create this interesting tome, which includes his pitch-perfect cross-country trip, his nightmare cross-country trip and ends with his actual trip.
American Nations: A History of the 11 Rival Regional Cultures of North America, Colin Woodward
This book expertly looks at the different cultures across North America, how they rose and their balance of power has shifted across American history. This should be required reading for any American.
Dear Committee Members, Julie Schumacher
This short epistolary novel revives the form, as a professor at a struggling university tried to get someone else named department chair and tried to help a former student publish his novel.
Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout
These interconnected short stories about growing old, failed relationships and how life rarely gives us satisfaction or clean endings. Still haven’t caught the HBO mini-series, but I haven't forgotten any of these stories of tough-to-love Olive.
A Load of Hooey, Bob Odenkirk
Short stories, fake plays and monlogues, fans of the comic-writer-actor will devour this slim volume. Several feel like Saturday Night Lives skit that would have been at home with the show's late 80s/early 90s cast. His Bob Newhart-style meeting of Jesus and a post-resurrection Lazarus had me laughing out loud.
Others:
Inhabitant of Carcosa, Ambrose Bierce (short story)
Sweet Thunder, Ivan Doig
Mr. Mercedes, Stephen King
Tooth and Nail, T.C. Boyle
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