海角大神

As someone who makes part of his living as a book reviewer, I鈥檓 among those lucky few bibliophiles who get paid to read. It鈥檚 a mostly nice gig that isn鈥檛, nevertheless, always what it鈥檚 cracked up to be.

There鈥檚 that sinking feeling, for example, that can come over me about 30 pages into an assignment, when I realize that the title across my lap is a real dud. While the leisure reader can cut his losses and pick another book from the shelf, professional obligation requires me to soldier on, slogging through prose I鈥檇 rather avoid altogether.

Such disappointments make the good books that land on a reviewer鈥檚 desk seem all the more welcome.

Here are 10 books from 2014 that, given the chance, I鈥檇 read again because I want to, not because I have to. The numbering here is merely for convenience, and suggests no ranking from good to great. You鈥檒l notice that my list features nonfiction and stresses science and nature writing, which simply reflects the kinds of books I tend to review. Your list of good books from 2014 would no doubt be different, and making such a list can be a pleasure in itself 鈥� a chance to revisit reading that gave us joy in the past 12 months, and set the stage for more good books in the coming year.

1) 鈥�The Sea Inside,鈥� by Philip Hoare (Melville Press, 374 pp., $27.99)
I wasn鈥檛 familiar with Philip Hoare鈥檚 work until I read this lapidary work on how the ocean has shaped human experience, but I was hooked from the first page, and couldn鈥檛 wait to read his earlier book, 鈥淭he Whale.鈥� Every one of his sentences shimmers with acute perception, in the tradition of Annie Dillard鈥檚 鈥淧ilgrim at Tinker Creek.鈥� This is reading as revelation.

2) 鈥淭he Human Age: The World Shaped by Us,鈥� by Diane Ackerman (Norton, 352 pp., $27.95) Ackerman鈥檚 background as a poet deeply informs this contemplation of humanity鈥檚 power to alter ecology. She strikes a largely hopeful note, in spite of the globe鈥檚 environmental challenges, and her lyrical sensibility evokes the spirit of her earlier masterpiece, 鈥淎 Natural History of the Senses.鈥� Writing this consistently good is easy to take for granted.

3) 鈥淓ssays After Eighty,鈥� by Donald Hall (Houghton Mifflin, 144 pp., $22) Hall, a former US poet laureate, no longer writes poetry, but these prose reflections about what it鈥檚 like to be old are really poetry of a sort 鈥� the sentences compact as verse, with clever surprises at every turn. At 86, Hall shows that age is no obstacle to writing well.

4) 鈥淔lirting with French,鈥� by William Alexander (Algonquin, 226 pp., $23.95) If you like Bill Bryson鈥檚 wryly self-deprecating books, you鈥檒l love Alexander鈥檚 comic account of trying to learn French in middle age. A great introduction to Alexander鈥檚 style for newcomers, and a welcome reconnection for his veteran fans.

5) 鈥淭he Thing With Feathers,鈥� by Noah Strycker (Riverhead, 288 pp., $27.95) Strycker, a young naturalist, surveys the mysteries of bird life but reveals, perhaps inadvertently, that the oddest bird is himself. He鈥檚 a charming eccentric 鈥� David Attenborough for the next generation.

6) 鈥淭he Wheeling Year,鈥� by Ted Kooser (University of Nebraska Press, 83 pp., $14.95) Kooser, a former US poet laureate, assembles selections from his notebook and arranges them by month, creating an almanac of observations from January through December. Although the leavings of a notebook might seem like an afterthought as a literary project, this is a bright little masterpiece, alive with music, color and movement. These are sentences that dance on the page.

7) 鈥淭he End of Absence,鈥� by Michael Harris (Current, 243 pp., $26.95) Harris writes thoughtfully about the possibility that in an intensely interconnected world, we no longer have the empty space required for sustained reflection. If Thoreau had lived in the Internet age, he might have written this book.

8) 鈥淏lue Horses,鈥� by Mary Oliver (Penguin, 96 pp., $24.95)聽聽 Oliver, a longtime New Englander now relocated to Florida, finds new territory to explore in these luminous poems about the natural world. A Transcendentalist in the Emersonian tradition, she reads her landscapes like Braille. Her poems so textured that they engage the fingertips as much as the eyes.

9) 鈥淭he Art of Stillness,鈥� by Pico Iyer (TED Books, 96 pp., $14.99) This tiny book, based on Iyer鈥檚 TED talk about the need for solitary reflection, can be read in one sitting, but its theme lingers long afterward 鈥� a faint but persistent summons to slow down, get one鈥檚 bearings, and reenter the daily world refreshed.

10) 鈥淵ou鈥檙e Not Lost if You Can Still See the Truck,鈥� by Bill Heavey (Grove Atlantic, 304 pp., $25.) I鈥檓 not the most likely fan of Heavey鈥檚 humorous columns for Field and Stream, but a reader doesn鈥檛 have to hunt or fish to appreciate Heavey鈥檚 gift for storytelling. What鈥檚 more, some of the essays in this new collection are only聽 tangentially about fish and game, but concern themselves primarily with the complicated challenges of marriage and fatherhood. The best essays, here, in fact, are heartbreakingly tender, without a single joke. This is a hard book to classify, and that鈥檚 its biggest strength.聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽