Everything I've Read in 2014

It was a pretty slow year for leisure reading because I was finishing grad school and writing my thesis for most of 2014, but here’s what I managed to finish:

1. The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
A fictional chronicle of one man’s breakdown with the background noise of 4 wives and 28 kids.

2. An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin
A novel about one young woman’s grooming at Sotheby’s and subsequent art world ladder climbing in New York City.

3. Just Kids by Patti Smith
A pretty emotional read. Patti Smith’s firsthand account of her relationship and friendship with Robert Maplethorpe through his battle with AIDS and their struggle in New York City and life at the Chelsea Hotel in the late 1960s and 1970s.

4. Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton
A similar read to the $12 Million Stuffed Shark by Don Thompson, though a bit outdated (published in 2008), this book outlines the basics of the contemporary art world–from fairs to collectors to the secondary market.

5. The Goldfinch Though a bit of a long read, an excellent and emotional contemporary coming of age tale taking place mostly in New York City.

6. Love Undetectable
The book’s author, Andrew Sullivan, an HIV positive homosexual writing with Christian perspectives and ideals in mind, employs the use of three separate essays to discuss love, relationships and friendship. For me, despite the religious discussion throughout, the overall message still resonated. Best take home message: Romantic love is possible because of friendship, which tends to be more stable with the former having a larger tendency to be in flux.

7. Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet by Sidney D. Kirkpatrick This one is a bit out there, but a man I talked to on a flight back in June from JFK to Milan recommended this (and a whole list of books on theosophy) to me. It’s a fantastic biography about the life and work of Edgar Cayce, who was a psychic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the ability to answer questions about reincarnation, healing and other topics while in trance. An interesting read, but it drags a bit at times.

8. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Someone at a Bushwich open studios party recommended this one to me. Great coming of age novel about a young non-American black woman and her struggle with the issue of race. It’s also a love story, but that’s definitely secondary to other more over-arching themes in the book.