Earlier today, I spotted the NY Times list of “100 Notable Books of 2014,” which a friend referred to as her shopping list this holiday season. And I thought that was a great idea, so I went to check out the list. And there are a lot of fascinating-looking books on the list, many of which I’m interested in reading. But it turns out that out of those 100 books, none of them are by people I personally know. And you know what? People I know have put out loads of great books this year, too, including a bunch of books I’ve bought.
So here’s an addendum list. These are all writers I know, and these are also all books I’ve picked up in the past year (or plan to for Christmas), because I bought them or received them as a gift or (in the case of Revenge of the Scammed and Hagridden) I’m an author. So consider this a recommendation list — these books have found space on my shelves, and they deserve to be on yours or your friends’ this holiday season!
Fiction
- A Simplified Map of the Real World, by Stevan Allred
- Bones Buried in the Dirt, by David S. Atkinson
- Reckoning, by Rusty Barnes
- The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men: the Last Letter of HP Lovecraft, by Gabriel Blackwell
- Chimpanzee, by Darin Bradley
- Backswing, by Aaron Burch
- Rope, by Matty Byloos
- Blood a Cold Blue, by James Claffey
- Every Kiss a War, by Leesa Cross-Smith
- What Came Before, by Gay Degani
- The Laws of Average, by Trevor Dodge
- The Tilted World, by Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly
- A Different Bed Every Time, Jac Jemc
- This is Sarah, by Ally Malinenko
- Sejal: the Walk for Water, by Brad Pauquette
- The Remedy for Love, by Bill Roorbach
- Hagridden, by Samuel Snoek-Brown (that’s me!)
- Blood Gravity, by Gayle Towell
- Revenge of the Scammed (anthology), edited by Nathaniel Tower
- Bound by Blue, by Meg Tuite
- Her Skin is a Costume, by Meg Tuite
- Boneland, by Nance Van Winkle
- Repairable Men, John Carr Walker
- If There’s Any Truth In a Northbound Train, by Ryan Werner
- What Happened Here, by Bonnie ZoBell
Poetry
- Cold War Evening News, by Russell Brickey
- Wilmot Here, Collect for Stella, by Christian Anton Gerard
- Scars/Stars, by Walidah Imarisha
- The Homeboy Songs, by Robert Lashley
- Dead Letters, by JP Reese
- All in Black Blood My Love Went Riding, by Ross Robbins
- How the Potato Chip Was Invented, by Daniel M. Shapiro
- Black Hands of a Morning Calm, by Ayshia Stephenson
- Addicts & Basements, by Robert Vaughan
Nonfiction
- Spent: Exposing Our Complicated Relationship with Shopping (anthology), edited by Kerry Cohen
- Bad Feminist, by Roxane Gay
- A Little Mormon Girl, by Eva Hunter
- Out of Dublin, by Ethel Rohan
- The Mountain and the Fathers: Growing Up on The Big Dry, by Joe Wilkins
Samuel Snoek-Brown 
Thank you so much for including my book, Sam!
It was genuinely my pleasure, Ross — to read the book and to spread the word! 🙂