2014 Releases I Meant to Read but Didn't Get To | Top Ten Tuesday [3]


Top Ten Tuesday is a book meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Topics are picked each week and people share their lists with one another. To find out more and join in click here. Now onto this weeks list! There is quite a variety of books on this list. Click on the book covers for their Goodreads pages.

2014 Releases I Meant To Read But Didn't Get To

(in no particular order)

Fiction


The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith
Private investigator Cormoran Strike returns in a new mystery from Robert Galbraith, author of the #1 international bestseller The Cuckoo's Calling. When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days—as he has done before—and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home. But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realizes. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were to be published, it would ruin lives—meaning that there are a lot of people who might want him silenced. When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before...

The Miniaturist - Jessie Burton
Set in seventeenth century Amsterdam-a city ruled by glittering wealth and oppressive religion-a masterful debut steeped in atmosphere and shimmering with mystery, in the tradition of Emma Donoghue, Sarah Waters, and Sarah Dunant. "There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed…" On a brisk autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt. But her new home, while splendorous, is not welcoming. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office-leaving Nella alone with his sister, the sharp-tongued and forbidding Marin. But Nella's world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist-an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways . . . Johannes' gift helps Nella to pierce the closed world of the Brandt household. But as she uncovers its unusual secrets, she begins to understand-and fear-the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society where gold is worshipped second only to God, to be different is a threat to the moral fabric of society, and not even a man as rich as Johannes is safe. Only one person seems to see the fate that awaits them. Is the miniaturist the key to their salvation . . . or the architect of their destruction? Enchanting, beautiful, and exquisitely suspenseful, The Miniaturist is a magnificent story of love and obsession, betrayal and retribution, appearance and truth.

The Book With No Pictures - BJ Novak
A book with no pictures? What could be fun about that? After all, if a book has no pictures, there's nothing to look at but the words on the page. Words that might make you say silly sounds... In ridiculous voices... Hey, what kind of book is this, anyway? At once disarmingly simple and ingeniously imaginative, The Book With No Pictures inspires laughter every time it is opened, creating a warm and joyous experience to share--and introducing young children to the powerful idea that the written word can be an unending source of mischief and delight.

The Grasshopper Jungle - Andrew Smith
Sixteen-year-old Austin Szerba interweaves the story of his Polish legacy with the story of how he and his best friend , Robby, brought about the end of humanity and the rise of an army of unstoppable, six-foot tall praying mantises in small-town Iowa. To make matters worse, Austin's hormones are totally oblivious; they don't care that the world is in utter chaos: Austin is in love with his girlfriend, Shann, but remains confused about his sexual orientation. He's stewing in a self-professed constant state of maximum horniness, directed at both Robby and Shann. Ultimately, it's up to Austin to save the world and propagate the species in this sci-fright journey of survival, sex, and the complex realities of the human condition.

The Undertaking of Lily Chen - Danica Novgoroduff
Deshi Li's brother is dead--and unmarried. Which means that Deshi must find him an eligible body before the week is up. Lily Chen, sweet as a snakebite, needs money and a fast ride out of town. Haunted by the gods of their ancestors and the expectations of the new world, Deshi and Lily embark on a journey with two very different destinations in mind. They travel through a land where the ground is hard and the graves, where marriage can be murder and where Lily Chen is wanted--dead and live.

All the Lights We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall. In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure. Doerr's gorgeous combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work.

China Dolls - Lisa See
In 1938, Ruby, Helen and Grace, three girls from very different backgrounds, find themselves competing at the same audition for showgirl roles at San Francisco's exclusive "Oriental" nightclub, the Forbidden City. Grace, an American-born Chinese girl has fled the Midwest and an abusive father. Helen is from a Chinese family who have deep roots in San Francisco's Chinatown. And, as both her friends know, Ruby is Japanese passing as Chinese. At times their differences are pronounced, but the girls grow to depend on one another in order to fulfill their individual dreams. Then, everything changes in a heartbeat with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Suddenly the government is sending innocent Japanese to internment camps under suspicion, and Ruby is one of them. But which of her friends betrayed her?

Non-fiction 


Rookie Yearbook Three - Tavi Gevinson
Rookiemag.com is a website created by and for young women to make the best of the beauty, pain and awkwardness of being a teenager. When it becomes tough to appreciate such things, we have good plain fun and visual pleasure. When you're sick of having to be happy all the time, we have lots of rants, too. Every school year, we compile the best from the site into a print yearbook. Behold: our Junior year! In Rookie Yearbook Three, we explore cures for love, girl-on-girl crime, open relationships, standing for something, embracing our inner posers, and so much more. Featuring interviews with Rookie role models like Sofia Coppola, Amandla Stenberg, Greta Gerwig, and Kim Gordon, and a bonus section chock-full of exclusive content including a pizza pennant, sticker sheet, valentines, plus advice and contributions from Lorde, Shailene Woodley, Dakota and Elle Fanning, Grimes, Kelis, Sia, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer of Broad City, Haim, and more!

Yes Please - Amy Poehler
In Amy Poehler’s highly anticipated first book, Yes Please, she offers up a big juicy stew of personal stories, funny bits on sex and love and friendship and parenthood and real life advice (some useful, some not so much), like when to be funny and when to be serious. Powered by Amy’s charming and hilarious, biting yet wise voice, Yes Please is a book is full of words to live by.

Not That Kind of Girl - Lena Dunham

From the acclaimed creator, producer, and star of HBO's Girls comes a hilarious, wise, and fiercely candid collection of personal essays that establishes Lena Dunham as one of the most original young talents writing today. In Not that Kind of Girl, Dunham illuminates the experiences that are part of making one's way in the world: falling in love, feeling alone, being ten pounds overweight despite eating only health food, having to prove yourself in a room full of men twice your age, finding true love, and, most of all, having the guts to believe that your story is one that deserves to be told. Exuberant, moving, and keenly observed, Not that Kind of Girl is a series of dispatches from the frontlines of the struggle that is growing up. "I'm already predicting my future shame at thinking I had anything to offer you," Dunham writes. "But if I can take what I've learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine will have been worthwhile."

Did you have anything similar on your list? Let me know in the comments!

20 comments:

  1. Cristina @ Girl in the Pages13 January 2015 at 13:49

    China Dolls looks really interesting! I also haven't gotten around to reading any of JKR's post Harry Potter work but I really want to!
    My TTT

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  2. Kim @ One Year of Books13 January 2015 at 17:47

    Excellent list! I have "Yes Please" on my list too, and I just finished reading Not That Kind of Girl last week (you can read my review here - http://oneyearofbooks.com/notthatkindofgirl/)

    I've never heard of Rookie, but being I'm still a teenager at heart that sounds like something I *must* check out ;)
    Hope you enjoy reading your way through them all!

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  3. I am dying to read All The Light We Cannot See!

    My TTT https://jazminjade.wordpress.com/2015/01/13/top-ten-tuesday-2014-releases-i-didnt-get-to/

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  4. Great list, Shanny, I have some of these on my wish-list, and one of these days, I'll be able to actually add them to my kindle :)
    Happy reading!

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  5. Woohoo, can't wait to finally start reading some of these as well!

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  6. It sounds so good (: Thanks for stopping by!

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  7. Checked out your blog! Love the quality of your posts. Rookie is such a fun read for teenagers, and even if you're older imo!

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  8. I think she's released some excellent books since Harry Potter, I loved the Casual Vacancy as well. Happy reading!

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  9. Susan (Bloggin' 'bout Books)14 January 2015 at 04:09

    I've only read one of the books on this list and I didn't even read the whole thing. ALL THE LIGHT ... is beautifully written, but it got boring for me. THE MINIATURIST is one I would like to get to soon as well.


    Happy TTT!


    Susan
    www.blogginboutbooks.com

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  10. Such a unique list compared to the ones I've visited so far! Are you into historical fiction? If so, I'm committed to following you! I find it incredibly hard to find a historical narrative worth reading!

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  11. Thanks so much Claudia! And I do love historical fiction (: I would definitely recommend Philippa Gregory, her Tudor Court era series is great, and I believe she has done some YA as well, though I have yet to read those. The Book Thief and The Help are two of my all time favourites and they both happen to be historical fiction as well. Happy reading!

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  12. I actually own both! But have not had a chance to get to them :P I tend to get easily drawn into all things dystopia and fantasy. Thanks for the recommendation on the Tudor Court series too, I love series more than stand alone novels; weird I know.

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  13. Same here, fantasy has to be one of my favourite genres. Yeah I totally understand, sometimes I love a good series! The good thing about Tudor Court is that you can read the books as stand alones too, but if you read them in chronological order of their setting (not necessarily the order she wrote them) they link together very nicely. Hope that made sense hahaha

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  14. Aww that's unfortunate. I'll see how it goes! The Miniaturist looks so mysterious (: Thanks for stopping by x

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  15. Nicole @ Nicole's Novel Reads20 January 2015 at 07:35

    China Dolls is on my TTT list too. I am hoping to read it sometime this year.

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  16. Wow, lots of new books for me on the list. I have All the Light We Cannot See and Grasshopper Jungle on my TBR list too.

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  17. The Miniaturist and All the Lights We Cannot see are both books I really wanted to read but didn't get around to yet! I also really wanted to read We Were Liars but managed to miss it. However, I did read that this month to catch up!

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  18. I've heard so much about We Were Liars, will have to add it to my TBR (:

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