It's that time of year, when publications start dropping their "Best of" lists. A lot of people seem to hate these for some reason, but I love them. The Millions has a unique spin on it, with each contributor (including a lot of great writers) doing a short essay "A Year in Reading 2014." This gives them the opportunity to write about the books they loved without the strict structure of a list and ranking.
The greatest year end book list is undoubtedly NPR's Book Concierge, which is one of my favorite things, ever. I go back and look at the previous year's Concierges on a regular basis. It is beautifully designed and has a really terrific interface. Try selecting one of the tags along the top of each review in order to filter by their very clever categories. A favorite feature is the fact that all the reviews are written by recognizable NPR contributors, including many who don't normally write/report for the Books or Arts sections.
Finally, the Obama family celebrated Small Business Saturday by visiting Politics and Prose in DC. They bought a ton of great books, including many notable 2014 titles, but my favorite part is the batch of Redwall books the girls took home. It makes me really happy to know kids are still reading those.