Episode 11 – Bests & Worsts of 2014 (Part 2, Adult and Graphic Novels)
The Worst Bestsellers
Worst Bestsellers
4.5 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 4 January 2015
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tune in to our Bests & Worsts of 2014 episodes to hear us discuss these titles and read excerpts from our favorites and least favorites! Please note:
- We counted things that we read in 2014, regardless of publication year.
- We didn’t count anything that we read specifically for this podcast, so our worst books are aside from those.
- For that reason, we picked top 5 favorites and only 1 least favorite–we have this whole podcast to talk about bad books, so for these episodes we’re choosing to focus on the positive!
- Some of our “worsts” are really just “least best.” Listen to the podcast to hear more detail!
Adult
Kait’s Top 5 Best
5.) Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar
4.) The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence
1.) Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
Kait’s Worst
Renata’s Top 5 Best
6.) Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg
5.) The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman
4.) This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein
3.) Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
2.) Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
1.) Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
Renata’s Worst
Comics/Graphic Novels
Kait’s Top 5 Best
5.) Hawkeye: LA Woman by Matt Fraction & Katie Wu
4.) This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki & Mariko Tamaki
3.) Through the Woods by Emily Carroll
2.) The Superior Foes of Spider-Man by Nick Spencer & Steve Lieber
1.) Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, & Brooke Allen
An excerpt from Lumberjanes (click to embiggen!):
Kait’s Worst
Uncanny Avengers by Rick Remender & John Cassaday
(See below for an excerpt after Renata’s list!)
Renata’s Top 5 Best
5.) She-Hulk by Dan Slott & Juan Bobillo
4.) Seconds by Bryan Lee O’Malley
2.) Saga by Brian K. Vaughn & Fiona Staples
1.) Captain Marvel by Kelly Sue DeConnick & David Lopez
An excerpt from Captain Marvel (click to embiggen!):
Renata’s Worst
Uncanny Avengers by Rick Remender & John Cassaday
A brief (you’re welcome) excerpt (click to embiggen):
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the worst bestsellers where sometimes we actually read good stuff. |
| 0:15.0 | I'm Renata. |
| 0:16.1 | And I'm Kate. |
| 0:17.3 | And this is part two of our end of the year book review for the year 2014. |
| 0:22.1 | In part one, we talked about our favorites for children's and middle grade books and young adult books. |
| 0:28.4 | And today we have for you our favorites from the world of adult literature and also comics and graphic novels. |
| 0:36.2 | Just like part one, we'll give you each our top five favorites and then a one least favorite. |
| 0:42.9 | It's not necessarily stuff that was published in 2014, just stuff that we happened to read in 2014. |
| 0:49.6 | And as always, it is very subjective to our whims and not necessarily to any one standard of quality, per se. |
| 0:59.9 | You know, also the stuff that we like, I realize looking over mine that 90% of the books that I talked about were horror books this year. |
| 1:08.2 | So if you don't like horror, sorry. |
| 1:12.4 | If you don't like horror, listen to my suggestions. |
| 1:15.7 | But you should still read Aristotle and Dante |
| 1:18.1 | discover the secrets of the universe, because literally, as we stopped |
| 1:22.0 | the last episode, I started crying about it again, thinking about it. |
| 1:28.6 | So, moving on. |
| 1:31.8 | It's okay, Kate. |
| 1:34.7 | All right, so I had a hard time picking a top five, and so I'm cheating slightly, and I've got a top five favorites favorites and then also a bonus number six book |
| 1:45.8 | that I'm just going to call my Fuck the Hater's Award book. |
| 1:49.2 | And that is the book Lean In by Cheryl Sandberg, which I read because so many people that |
| 1:55.9 | I like and respect were talking about and just shitting on it and saying like oh sherel sandberg like |
| 2:02.4 | it's just such nonsense like she doesn't even understand what it's like to be a working class |
... |
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