Books I Read in 2014

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Diana Kimball Berlin

4 min readDec 17, 2015

December 17, 2015: Since book list season—the most wonderful time of the year—is upon us again, I’m reposting last year’s list to get things started. Follow along as I build my 2015 book list on Twitter.

It’s a well-known fact that I love book lists like nobody’s business, so I didn’t want to let the year end without posting my own. Thanks to my friend Rick Webb for posting his list and encouraging me to dig into my own Kindle order history. (“Think it would be less than 20,” I told him. “Scared to look.” I was basically right.)

After reflecting on everything I read this year, here are my top six picks:

Fiction: The Wallcreeper and Dept. of Speculation
Memoir: Not That Kind of Girl
Nonfiction: Show Your Work!
Self-Improvement: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
Audiobook: The Art of Asking

(I originally posted just four, but then I took a transatlantic flight in the dying days of 2014 and finished two books that blew me away.)

The full list:

Peak, by Chip Conley. An application of Maslow’s hierarchy to business.
So Good They Can’t Ignore You, by Cal Newport. As noted on Amazon, this book argues that “Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before.” This idea looped back into my mind many times this year; I’ve now recommended it to countless people since, and sent it to a few.
Show Your Work!, by Austin Kleon. Shipped this to my hotel room in San Francisco in February and read it in one big gulp. Since then, I’ve ordered several copies as gifts for friends.
Just Kids, by Patti Smith. Recommended by Anthony in response to a question I posted to Twitter in February: “Any books you’ve loved lately? Seeking glimmering, sturdy writing & fascination.”
The Reason I Jump, by Naoki Higashida. Recommended by Michele in response to the same question. (I did a lot of flying in February, and all year.)
The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt. Finished under a canvas canopy in Amsterdam.
Dept. of Speculation, by Jenny Offill. My favorite work of fiction this year.
The Cloud of Unknowing, by Mimi Lipson. Musical narrative.
Nicely Said, by Nicole Fenton and Kate Kiefer-Lee. A treatise on writing for the web by two of the nicest writers I know.
The Hotel Eden, by Ron Carlson. Our June 24-Hour Bookclub pick.
And the Heart Says Whatever, by Emily Gould. I ended up liking Gould’s voice so much that I followed her on Twitter, where her voice graces my feed a few times a day.
Divergent, by Veronica Roth. One weekend, I found myself wishing for a book reminiscent of The Hunger Games series and found Divergent on a BuzzFeed list of “15 Book Series to Read if You Enjoyed The Hunger Games.” It did the trick.
Stuff Matters, by Mark Miodownik. Recommended by Deb Chachra in response to a question I posted on Twitter back in September: “any friendly, sharp introductions to materials science worth reading?”
Not That Kind of Girl, by Lena Dunham. All my love for Lena Dunham.
Bad Feminist, by Roxane Gay. As a collection, I found it disjointed, but some of the component parts were arresting.
The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters. Picked this one up after listening to a Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast episode where the members of the roundtable raved about it. I was happy to see, earlier today, that Emily Gould loved it, too.
Seven Steps to Leading a Gender-Balanced Business, by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox. Discovered Wittenberg-Cox’s work in an interview on The Broad Experience, one of my favorite podcasts. Short and eminently pragmatic.
Yes Please, by Amy Poehler (audiobook). Parks & Recreation is one of my favorite shows on TV, and my renewed devotion to podcasts got me thinking that I might finally be ready to try audiobooks in earnest. Audible’s pace of one audiobook a month feels about right to me so far.
How to Be a Woman, by Caitlin Moran. Part of my “women in comedy” kick, which constituted about a quarter of my reading this year.
Girl Walks Into a Bar, by Rachel Dratch (audiobook). I wasn’t even watching SNL when Rachel Dratch was on, but after Yes Please, I was so taken with the “women in comedy” + “books in my ears” combo that I gave this a shot anyway. I actually liked it a lot.
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo. The inspiration for my final contribution to The Pastry Box this year.
The Wallcreeper, by Nell Zink. Another Emily Gould-related entry! She tweeted this Paris Review interview fragment with Zink, which I found delightful, so I tucked the book away in my mind and downloaded it just before a long flight. As I posted upon landing: “[The] Wallcreeper, by Nell Zink, is exquisite. Two hundred pages of taut, wry prose. Everyone must read.” I’m bumping it up to share top billing with Dept. of Speculation.
The Art of Asking, by Amanda Palmer (audiobook). Another transatlantic winner. Over eleven hours of intense self-awareness, punctuated by music. “Intimate storytelling structured like a song.” One summer, I read everything Amanda Palmer had ever written online, in feverish anticipation of maybe writing a case study on her work. I never wrote the case study, but it turns out I didn’t need to. This is that and more.
Five Wishes, by Gay Hendricks. Recommended by Amber Rae. The ideas of completion and upper-limiting resonated.

Number of books bought and started this year, but not finished: 16.

Other book lists worth checking out:

Originally published at blog.dianakimball.com on December 26, 2014.

Books I Read in 2014

Written by Diana Kimball Berlin