LitBeetle’s Top 10 Books of 2014

Another year passes and another ten trillion books made their weaselly way onto my reading list, but I managed to read 39 of them, so Sisyphus ain’t got nothin’ on me. It was a science fiction-heavy year, and this is a science fiction-heavy list, but I’m unapologetic! Bring on the Future! Of the books I read and reviewed in 2014, here are my top ten.

 

10. The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe

Kobo Abe goes full Twilight Zone in this Kafkaesque novel about futility. In a nightmarish series of events, a professional man on holiday stumbles into a dune-side village and finds himself a prisoner at the bottom of a sand pit where he must continuously shovel sand to keep from being buried alive.   Read the Review   Buy the Book   Go to Goodreads

9. Seraphina by Rebecca Hartman

Strong female heroine? Check. Compelling subplots of socioeconomic and racial differences? Check. Positive message about body image? Check. Dragons? Check, CHECK, CHECK. Rachel Hartman is building a beautiful universe with Seraphina, the first of this young adult series, filled with complex politics and shape-shifting dragons. Seraphina is a young court musician who must hide her mixed lineage from a bigoted society, but for all her efforts, the young resourceful girl still wraps herself up in a murder mystery and the deadly politics of two nations on the verge of all out war.   Read the Review   Buy the Book   Go to Goodreads

8. Dracula by Bram Stoker

Twilight fiends beware: Dracula is not the inspiration for the glittering, abusive boyfriend of Stephanie Meyer’s blockbuster hit. This is the story of one man’s PTSD after encountering one of the most horrific predators in literature. If you don’t think you can handle the fear, the darkness, the soul-sucking solitude of Bram Stoker’s classic, don’t panic–Dr. Abraham Van Helsing will make sure you survive the night.    Read the Review   Buy the Book   Go to Goodreads

7. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

 There are few things I love to read more than stories wealthy, entitled young people leading lives of wanton excess and torturing themselves with unrequited lust in the heat of the Spanish countryside while intoxicated on authentic leather skins of cheap wine, and in this highly specific genre of literature, Ernest Hemingway is king.    Read the Review   Buy the Book   Go to Goodreads

6. Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

Three children witness the stars disappear on one fateful October night on Earth. Jason and Diane Lawton and best friend Tyler Dupree all face the post-Spin world differently, but their fates–as well as the fate of the rest of humanity–tie them together as they journey to discover how their entire planet was encased in a physics-defying dome.    Read the Review   Buy the Book   Go to Goodreads

5. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

If there’s one person who can renew age-old stories of revenge, magic, and prophesy, it’s Brandon Sanderson. In Mistborn, the first of a series, Vin, a street urchin and bottom rung of a gang of con artists, wakes up to find her world changed when she meets Kelsier, a legendary Mistborn who can ingest metals and use their magical properties to alter himself and the world around him. Kelsier teaches the gifted Vin everything he knows, and together the two take on the seemingly immortal Lord Ruler and his oppressive Final Empire.    Read the Review   Buy the Book   Go to Goodreads

4. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Don’t be fooled by the fact that it took me four years to read and I only happened to finish it in 2014. JS&MN is probably going to find its place among my favorite books of all time, because somehow, probably through some authorly incantations of her own, Susanna Clarke makes 1,006 pages fly by faster than a smoke break on a Monday afternoon. Mr Norrell takes up a personal mission to bring magic back to 19th Century England. His apprentice, the dashing young Jonathan Strange, takes up the same mission but with jarringly different methods. The two engage in the rivalry of all rivalries.   Read the Review   Buy the Book   Go to Goodreads

3. The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

Criminal Minds meets Star Trek-level space-time continuum plot twists. Lauren Beukes’s dangerously enthralling crime thriller made its way to the top of my list for its originality, unique tone, and sheer entertainment value.   Read the Review   Buy the Book   Go to Goodreads

2. Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle

My penchant for creepiness extends to all areas of my life, but finding creepiness in a book is my favorite. John Darnielle takes a brief hiatus from brilliant songwriting to grace the literary world with his tragic and grotesque storytelling in Wolf in White Van. Sean Phillips creates a refuge from his horrific past in the form of a play-by-mail role playing game called Trace Italian. When two misguided teens become obsessed with the game, Sean must do what he fears most: face himself.   Read the Review   Buy the Book   Go to Goodreads

 

Of all the book review blogs in all the Internet, this book had to walk into mine. It’s the ultimate, bestest, most favorite book I read in all of 2014:

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

 No book comes close to generating the enthusiasm I felt for Ann Leckie’s Hugo, Nebula, Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning debut novel Ancillary Justice. In a fresh take on AI, Leckie tells the story of Breq, a human body inhabited by the last remaining ancillary of the massive artificial intelligence that operated a battleship and its soldiers. As she unfolds her past, Breq’s current mission of stone-cold space revenge becomes clearer and clearer. Leckie’s brilliant depiction of personhood and perspective come alive in this heartbreaking sci-fi saga about one individual’s terrible loss and terrible thirst for vengeance.  Read the Review   Buy the Book   Go to Goodreads

I’m looking forward to a new year and tackling the mountain of unread books that haunt my dreams every night. A huge thank you to my followers and visitors! LitBeetle would be nothing if not for you! Now let me know in the comments which books were your favorites to read in the great year of 2014!

Happy New Year from Seattle!

On Susanna Clarke’s “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell”

Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell [2003] won the Hugo, was nominated for the Nebula, and was named Time‘s best novel of the year. It’s no joke.

What do you get when you mix Regency Era social dramedy with magic? A whole lot of parlor tricks, one would think. Susanna Clarke, though, has written an incredible masterpiece of mash-up fiction, combining Jane Austen-esque commentary and witty dialogue with an alternate magical universe. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is one of the most enjoyable fantasy novels  I have ever read and, despite its 1,000+ pages (and the fact that I took a three-year hiatus somewhere around page 500, for reasons completely unrelated to its quality as a book), it flashes by like a raven in flight and leave you wanting more.

On the cusp of war with Napoleon, Regency Era England has become a divisive nation. A mad king has become the puppet of quarreling dukes, lords, and admirals. Armies of young men fight in the muddy fields of foreign countries. The English is industrializing, becoming tamer, losing its wilder, more pagan heritage. Following so far? Everything is pretty text book, all history and common knowledge … and then comes an understated mention of magic (it’s no big thing), and this familiar England is suddenly transformed into Clarke’s alternate history.

In this new universe, England has long been bereft of practical magic. At the start of the novel, magic is a pastime to study in dusty books by councils of bored, old noblemen. But a magician by the name of Mr Norrell appears on the scene, and he has made it his quest to bring practical magic back to England … as long as he’s the only one to practice it. When he takes on a single, brilliant pupil–a young nobleman by the name of Jonathan Strange–tensions rise and an dangerous rivalry is born. It seems England isn’t big enough for two magicians, but neither Jonathan Strange nor Mr Norrell is going to let their motherland go that easily. Through dark spells, enchantments, political intrigue, and war, the two magicians battle for dominance, and both are too absorbed with each other to notice the encroaching doom they face at the hands of something far more powerful than anything imaginable.

Portia Rosenberg‘s lovely illustrations add to the eerie settings and “uncanny valley” atmosphere.

Clarke’s attention to detail and world-building skills are as magical as Mr Norrell’s enchantments. She creates a fluid and absolutely believable alternate history that is firmly founded on actual English history and a host of modified mythology. Frequent footnotes refer to fictional books on magical history or citing ancient myths. Clarke’s meticulousness may extend the book to an epic scale (and literal size), but it pays off in grounding a fantastical tale in an understated style that makes JS&MN digestible for every reader.

The magic system Clarke creates is not as elaborate as Gaiman’s or Sanderson’s, and one could point that out as a flaw in her universe. In her defense, magic in the world of JS&MN is dusty, bookish, inscrutable, and an altogether mystery thanks to Mr Norrell’s monopoly of the subject, and with this in mind, I didn’t mind the lack in detail in just exactly how Jonathan Strange can walk through a mirror and into another dimension. The magic Clarke excels in is the magic in creating a compelling alternate universe, complex and conflicted protagonists who are far from perfect (and sometimes far from likable), and a story that makes me want to re-read it immediately. And you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be streaming the BBC miniseries when it comes out.

The Regency Era is one of our most beloved period settings, and you have to attribute that to the tight pants and snug bodices.

Read it if … you’re looking for a meatier summer read. While entirely entertaining, Clarke’s fantasy novel is more than a romp in the heather with faeries. The depth and breadth of Clarke’s universe, the detail to historical and mythical references, and the devotion to character makes JS&MN one of the most robust fantasy novels I have ever read.

Don’t read it if … you’re intimidated by large books, or you refuse to let go of your misconceptions that period fiction (especially, heaven forbid, anything compared to Jane Austen) is literature lite. JS&MN is a fun read but certainly not frivolous in the context of fantasy novels.

This book is like … Jane Austen, but that’s the totally easy comparison to make, and while Clarke’s novel takes place in the same era, the content is obviously different. Austen tackled social conventions with her subtle wit and dialogue. Clarke’s take on magic and mythology addresses the dangers of polarization, obsession, abuse of power, and a really, really weird bromance, which is all much more in line with a book like The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I haven’t yet read the novel The Prestige by Christopher Priest, but the film adaptation [2006] was a thrilling story of two stage magicians whose rivalry builds to an extreme, violent end.

Susanna Clarke looks a little magiciany herself. She’s only written one other book besides JS&MN. Maybe she’ll pull a Harper Lee and call it good.

Tell me in the comments below which literary mash-up you would prefer:

1. Mark Twain meets zombies!
2. Kazuo Ishiguro meets vampires!
3. Charles Dickens meets steampunk!