Best of 2014 Reading Challenge Check-in

Last week’s #MustReadin2015 check-in reminded me that I set other reading goals for 2015, and now might be a good time to check on my progress. I’m obsessed with all of the annual best of books lists, so I put together my own reading challenge of 2014 titles that sounded interesting compiled from many different lists. My favorite list was probably NPR’s Best Books of 2014–an eclectic collection that included books in all genres for all ages and introduced me to numerous books I didn’t find on other lists. But I also pulled potential titles from Kirkus Review’s Nonfiction list, Brain Pickings’s Best Books of 2014, the Washington Post’s 10 Best Books of 2014 list, several of Huffington Post’s “best of” lists, the New Yorker’s list of 9 Great Poetry Books (poetry titles are rarely included on most of the other lists), and even Vogue’s Best Books of 2014.

The fun thing about this challenge is that I had an enormous pool of books to choose from, and I wasn’t trying to be a completist with anyone else’s list. So my own list is a messy hodgepodge of about 60 titles that interested me. I am hoping to read at least 25 books.

As with #MustReadin2015, I find that I’m not making a lot of progress with my Best of 2014 reading challenge. Unless it’s a picture book. And then I’ve aced the challenge. It turns out that I have managed to read all of the picture books that made it onto the list.

I finished Meghan Daum’s essay collection, The Unspeakable, which I reviewed recently, and I have started several other books but haven’t completed anything.

Really must make more time for reading.