AMK's Journal

My reading slow patch, due to working at home and no longer having 2 hours of commuting time per day, continued for a fourth year. I read only 59 books in 2014, the same number as in 2013 and a tie for my lowest-ever figure.

20 of those books (33%) were fiction, which is in the upper-end of the range for me; generally from 25% to 35% of my titles are fiction.

Favorites for the year:

• Doctor Mütter's Marvels, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz: a biography of the surgeon and medical teacher whose collection was the nucleus for the Mütter Museum.
• Ripperology, Robin Odell: a survey of Jack the Ripper theories and how they rose and fell.
• Popular Crime, Bill James: a more general true-crime book, a personal exploration of famous American cases and of why we find true crime so compelling.
• Adventures with the Wife in Space, Neil Perryman: the Doctor Who-fan author and his non-fan wife watch all of Doctor Who in sequence and comment on the experience.
• Dial H For Hero, Vol. 1, China Miéville: an entertainingly revisionist take on the super-hero genre.
• The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean: I really enjoyed this collection of anecdotes and history relating to the periodic table.
• Daredevil, Mark Waid: another super-hero graphic novel, this time a solid rebooting of the character.
• Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe Nurses, Chris Nashawaty: An entertaining book about Roger Corman's film-making career.
• Abominable Science! Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids, Daniel Loxton, Donald R. Prothero: a historical survey of the major cryptozoological creatures written from a skeptical point of view.