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Best Books of the Year2014 Books on at least 5 of the Best of the Year book lists for Fiction and 3 for Nonfiction. You can comment on the titles you've read on our Pinterest Board. The only major newsletter we're missing so far is the Providence Journal. I update this list and the Pinterest page when that's published.
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The Miniaturist by Jessie BurtonEngaging the services of a miniaturist to furnish a cabinet-sized replica of her new home, 18-year-old Nella Oortman, the wife of an illustrious merchant trader, soon discovers that the artist's tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways. Goodreads, Guardian, Kirkus, Readings.com, Telegraph
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Wolf in White Van : a novel by John DarnielleCreating fantastical mail-order role-playing games from his apartment where he endures a life of solitude after a disfiguring injury, Sean is blamed for a disaster involving two high school student clients, an event that compels him to reevaluate his own past. Boston Globe, Buzzfeed, Hudson Booksellers, Kirkus, NPR
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All the Light We Cannot See : a novel by Anthony DoerrA blind French girl on the run from the German occupation and a German orphan-turned-Resistance tracker struggle with their respective beliefs after meeting on the Brittany coast. Amazon, Barnes& Noble, BookBrowse.com, Booklist, Christian Science Monitor, Entertainment Weekly, Goodreads, Hudson Booksellers, Kirkus, NPR, NYT, People
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Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
by Elena Ferrante
Continues the story of Lina and Elena as they push against boundaries in 1970s Italy, where Lina has left her husband and is working in a factory while taking care of her son and Elena has graduated college and published a novel. Booklist, Boston Globe, Globe&Mail, Guardian, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Telegraph
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The Blazing World
by Siri Hustvedt
A provocative tale told through a series of scholarly texts draws on notebooks and conflicting accounts about the life and work of an acclaimed artist who after years of being marginalized conceals her female identity behind three male fronts. Boston Globe, Kirkus, NYT, Publishers Weekly, Readings.com; St. Louis Post Dispatch
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A Brief History of Seven Killings
by Marlon James
A tale inspired by the 1976 attempted assassination of Bob Marley spans decades and continents to explore the experiences of journalists, drug dealers, killers and ghosts against a backdrop of period social and political turmoil. Booklist, Boston Globe, Buzzfeed, Chicago Tribune, Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Time, Washington Post
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Euphoria : a novel
by Lily King
English anthropologist Andrew Bankson has been alone in the field for several years, studying the Kiona river tribe in the territory of New Guinea. Haunted by the memory of his brothers' deaths and increasingly frustrated and isolated by his research, Bankson is on the verge of suicide when a chance encounter with colleagues, the controversial Nell Stone and her wry and mercurial Australian husband Fen, pulls him back from the brink. Nell and Fen have just fled the bloodthirsty Mumbanyo and, in spite of Nell's poor health, are hungry for a new discovery. When Bankson finds them a new tribe nearby--the artistic, female-dominated Tam--he ignites an intellectual and romantic firestorm between the three of them that burns out of anyone's control. Amazon, Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Kirkus, NPR, NYT, Time
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Redeployment
by Phil Klay
A collection of short stories by a former Marine captain and Iraq veteran focuses on the complexities of life for soldiers on the front lines and after, exploring themes ranging from brutality and faith to guilt and survival in such stories as "After Action Report" and "Money as Weapons System." Amazon, Buzzfeed, Entertainment Weekly, Guardian, Kirkus, NYT, Oprah, People, Time
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On Such a Full Sea
by Chang-rae Lee
A tale set in a class-divided future America where urban neighborhoods function as labor colonies for elite charter villages, Fan, a female fish-tank diver, embarks on what becomes a legendary quest to find the man she loves in a region overcome by anarchic forces. Booklist, Buzzfeed, Christian Science Monitor, NPR, Publishers Weekly
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Station Eleven : a novel
by Emily St. John Mandel
The sudden death of a Hollywood actor during a production of King Lear marks the beginning of the world's dissolution, in a story told at various past and future times from the perspectives of the actor and four of his associates. Amazon, Barnes&Noble, BookBrowse.com, Booklist, Buzzfeed, Entertainment Weekly, Globe& Mail, Goodreads, Kirkus, NPR, Oprah, Time, Washington Post
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All Our Names
by Dinaw Mengestu
Coming of age during an African revolution, a brilliant university student-turned-fighter eventually flees the escalating violence of his country to resettle in America, where he is haunted by his past and the memory of a charismatic leader's devastating sacrifice. Buzzfeed, Christian Science Monitor, NPR, Publishers Weekly
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The Bone Clocks : a novel
by David Mitchell
Interweaves six narratives spanning the period between 1984 and the 2030s to chronicle a secret war between a cult of soul-decanters and a small group of vigilantes who would take them down. Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Booklist, Buzzfeed, Entertainment Weekly, Globe&Mail, Goodreads, Guardian, Hudson Booksellers, Kirkus, Library Journal, NPR, The Telegraph, Time
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Bark : stories
by Lorrie Moore
Eight short stories by the award-winning author of A Gate at the Stairs includes "Debarking," in which a recently divorced man struggles to hold himself together as the United States prepares to invade Iraq; and "Foes," in which a political argument at a Georgetown fundraiser goes awry against a backdrop of the September 11 attacks. Booklist, Globe&Mail, NPR, Publishers Weekly, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Telegraph
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Big little lies by Liane MoriartyFollows three mothers, each at a crossroads, and their potential involvement in a riot at a school trivia night that leaves one parent dead in what appears to be a tragic accident, but which evidence shows might have been premeditated. Amazon, Goodreads, Kirkus, People, USA Today
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Everything I Never Told You : a novel
by Celeste Ng
A first novel by a Pushcart Prize-winning writer explores the fallout of a favorite daughter's shattering death on a Chinese-American family in 1970s Ohio. Amazon, BookBrowse.com, Booklist, Buzzfeed, Entertainment Weekly, St. Louis Post Dispatch
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Lila
by Marilynne Robinson
Triggering a romance and debate by seeking shelter in a church and becoming a minister's wife, homeless Lila reflects on her hardscrabble life on the run with a canny young drifter and her efforts to reconcile her painful past with her husband's gentle Christian worldview. Barnes & Noble, Booklist, Christian Science Monitor, Economist, Globe & Mail, Guardian, St. Louis Post Dispatch, USA Today
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The Paying Guests by Sarah WatersForced to take in lodgers in economically challenged 1922 South London, widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter find their lives profoundly and disturbingly changed by the arrival of a modern young couple. Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, Goodreads, Guardian, Hudson Booksellers, Kirkus, NPR, People, Reading.com, St. Louis Post Dispatch, The Telegraph, Washington Post, USA Today
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Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy : four women undercover in the Civil War
by Karen Abbott
Drawing from primary source material and interviews, the author weaves together the adventures of four courageous women who risked everything to become spies during the most tumultuous years of the war. BookBrowse.com, Christian Science Monitor, Hudson Booksellers, Library Journal
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On immunity : an inoculation
by Eula Biss
A provocative examination of the pervasive fears and myths surrounding vaccines researches, from a mother's perspective, the historical and cultural factors that cause people to doubt government regulations and the medical establishment. Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Weekly, NYT, Publishers Weekly
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Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? : A Memoir
by Roz Chast
A graphic memoir by a long-time New Yorker cartoonist celebrates the final years of her aging parents' lives through four-color cartoons, family photos and documents that reflect the artist's struggles with caregiver challenges. Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Kirkus, NPR, NYT, People, St Louis Post Dispatch
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Being Mortal : medicine and what matters in the end
by Atul Gawande
A prominent surgeon argues against modern medical practices that extend life at the expense of quality of life while isolating the dying, outlining suggestions for freer, more fulfilling approaches to death that enable more dignified and comfortable choices. Amazon, Booklist, Chicago Tribune, Economist, Globe & Mail
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The Empathy Exams : essays
by Leslie Jamison
A collection of essays explores empathy, using topics ranging from street violence and incarceration to reality television and literary sentimentality to ask questions about people's understanding of and relationships with others. Amazon, Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Hudson, Publishers Weekly
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The Sixth Extinction : an unnatural history
by Elizabeth Kolbert
Drawing on the work of geologists, botanists, marine biologists and other researchers, an award-winning writer for The New Yorker discusses the five devastating mass extinctions on earth and predicts the coming of a sixth. Chicago Tribune, Economist, Globe&Mail, Goodreads, Library Journal, NPR, NYT, Publishers Weekly, Time, Washington Post
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What If? : serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions
by Randall Munroe
The creator of the incredibly popular webcomic xkcd presents his heavily researched answers to his fans' oddest questions, including “What if I took a swim in a spent-nuclear-fuel pool?” and “Could you build a jetpack using downward-firing machine guns?” Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, People, Time
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Age of Ambition : chasing fortune, truth, and faith in the new China
by Evan Osnos
A Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker documents the political, economic and cultural changes occurring in today's China, examining a transition from Communist to personal power while addressing key questions about national freedom, generational identity and the influence of the West. Christian Science Monitor, Economist, Publishers Weekly
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Yes Please by Amy PoehlerA first-person account by the Golden Globe-winning actress best known for her work on Parks and Recreation and Saturday Night Live includes coverage of such topics as her relationships with caregivers and her friendship with Tina Fey. Globe&Mail, Goodreads, Hudson Booksellers, Washington Post Comedy list.
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Little Failure : a memoir
by Gary Shteyngart
The award-winning author of Super Sad True Story traces his uproarious experiences as a young bullied Jewish-Russian immigrant in Queens, his haphazard college pursuits and his initial forays into a literary career. Economist, Hudson Booksellers, Publishers Weekly, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Telegraph, Time
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In the Kingdom of Ice : the grand and terrible polar voyage of the USS Jeannette
by Hampton Sides
A dramatic account of the ill-fated 19th-century naval expedition to the North Pole cites the contributions of German cartographer August Peterman, New York Herald owner James Gordon Bennett and famed naval officer George Washington De Long in the team's efforts to survive brutal environmental conditions. Amazon, BookBrowse.com, Booklist, Christian Science Monitor, Time, USA Today
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Thirteen Days in September : Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David
by Lawrence Wright
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 presents a day-by-day account of the 1978 Camp David conference, when President Jimmy Carter convinced Israel and Egypt to sign a peace treaty—the first treaty in the modern Middle East, and one which endures to this day. Booklist, Christian Science Monitor, Economist, Entertainment Weekly, NYT, Publishers Weekly, St. Louis Post Dispatch
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