Top Ten Books I Read In 2014

Not counting rereads (which I happily did a lot more of than in previous years), and in no particular order, these are the books I really loved in 2014...

1. Beauty by Robin McKinley. A gorgeous rendering of Beauty and the Beast, made all the more captivating in audiobook form.

2. Enchanted by Alethea Kontis. A retelling of the Frog Prince (mashed up with other fairy tales), this was a really fun and lovely audiobook.

3. Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness. I'm cheating by including the whole series here, but it is really AMAZING and everyone should GO READ IT NOW.

4. False Colours by Georgette Heyer. I love, love, loved this story of twins switching places in Regency England - Heyer is a happy place kind of read, and it was extra fun in audiobook.

5. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sarra Manning. Another fantastic audiobook (I'm sensing a pattern here), I related to Neve and her story so much it was scary.

6. Zombies Vs Unicorns, edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier. The literary equivalent of a dance off, the short stories featuring - you guessed it - zombies and unicorns in this book are by turns delightful, hilarious and touching.

7. About a Boy by Nick Hornby. I had low expectations due to hating the only other Hornby book I've tried (High Fidelity), but I ended up loving this darkly humorous story - and I listened to it in a fabulous audiobook of course.

8. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. This. Book. It was utterly heartbreaking but completely worth it.

9. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling. I read this at the very beginning of the year and it instantly became one of my all-time faves.

10. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. I actually listened to a bunch of Wilde's plays performed via audiobook and they were all great, but I loved this one the most.

Friday Link Dump: Best Books, Dog Gifs and Inspirational People

If you are reading this that means the world didn't end. Unless it's going to happen at midnight. That could be awkward. Anyhoo...

Here are the books that appear most frequently on the 'Best of 2012' lists. I don't think I've read any of them.

Can negative reviews be good for authors? I'm not an author so I can't confirm, but I do know that negative reviews can be helpful for a reader. If every review were positive, how the hell would we know what to read (or not)?!

This article is about the new Twitter feature that allows you to access your old tweets, but I really liked the observation at the end regarding the historical significance of the social network. At no other time has there been such an extensive public record of people's real-time reactions and experiences during world events. It's pretty brilliant when you think about it.

This post of dog gifs is full of happy.

You know what's awesome? People who don't take themselves too seriously - like these writers who don't mind taking the piss.

Also like Barack Obama. Here is reason #463 he is amazeballs.

Humans can really, really suck sometimes. But they can also be amazing and inspiring and heartwarming. Especially people like these.

And these. The 26 Acts campaign is inspiring people to perform 26 random acts of kindness to honour the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting. I really want to do this, it's such a good idea and what people have already done is amazing.