Top Ten Tuesday (new authors in 2014)

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This week's Topic: Top Ten New-to-me Authors I Read in 2014

 

This has been a great year of literary discoveries for me. I've found some of the best books I've ever read, and choosing ten for an end-of-year best of it going to be very difficult.

 

Ten authors I'm glad to have discovered in 2014:

 

 

 

Laura Hillenbrand. I read Seabiscuit and Unbroken in the same month because once I read one, I couldn't wait to read the other.

Hampton Sides. In the Kingdom of Ice is a stunner. I've added a number of Sides' other books to my TBR list.

 

Erik Larson. I read Devil in the White City and eagerly await the March release of Dead Wake.

Candice Millard. Destiny of the Republic was a surprise favorite for me this year.

Bill Bryson. I thought I'd read Bill Bryson before, but I may have gotten him confused with Calvin Trillin, because none of his books sound familiar. His One Summer blew me away. 

 

Bill O’Reilly. This might be cheating, because I did read his memoir several years ago, but his Killing series (there will be seven in all) seems like a thing all its own. I read both Killing Kennedy and Killing Patton. Killing Lincoln is waiting in the wings.

 

 

Robert Klara. One of my favorite history reads this year was The Hidden White House about the massive renovation of the executive mansion during the Truman administration. I also read his FDR's Funeral Train.

Sheri Fink. Five Days at Memorial was truly masterful.

 

 

 

Molly Wizenberg. Her website never appealed to me, but I decided to give Delancey a try when it came out, and I'm so glad I did. Now her A Homemade Life is on my list.

Elizabeth Gilbert (fiction). I've read all of Gilbert's nonfiction, but when I read her The Signature of All Things this spring I decided she might be just as gifted in the fiction genre.

Anna Quindlen (fiction). Again, I've read all her nonfiction books, but her novel Still Life with Bread Crumbs was good.