So many bloggers and writers and editors will tell you how much they positively despise putting together "Best of' lists at the end of the year. Those people are lying. Making lists is incredibly fun and frankly not all that difficult. Yes, there are tons of movies and books and albums that are made each and every year, but only a small fraction of them are worth consideration for a "Best of" list and it is quite literally their job to figure out which ones. So they can get over it.

A few caveats regarding my own list: I am not a professional literary editor or reviewer; I have a full-time job so anything I read that was published in 2014 had to be squeezed into an already busy schedule, and additionally, had to be available to me at the library or interesting enough to warrant a purchase, which is rare for new titles. I'm still not enough of a mover and shaker to warrant advance review copies, so I do my best to keep up and I have the library fines to prove it. Thus, my favorite titles published in 2014:

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore -- Smart, well-researched, incredibly interesting and so much more than a history of a comic book character.

On Immunity by Eula Biss -- Really hard to describe but brief and wonderful all the same. Her meditations on the nature of disease and vaccination are poetic and troubling.

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples -- This comic started a few years ago but the latest issues and an omnibus edition were published this year, so it's fair game. I am not a comic book expert, so when I say it's my favorite comic book, that probably means very little, but it's really terrific; funny, challenging, and beautiful.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson -- Just ignore the YA-genre buzz around this short prose-poem memoir. Adults should read it, kids should read it.

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant by Roz Chast -- A really warm and honest and insightful graphic memoir on the aging and death of Chast's parents. I cried less than I expected.

Women in Clothes by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, and Leanne Shapton -- I was surprised by how many "Best of" lists forgot about this one, because it made a huge impression on me. I still haven't removed it from the pile next to my bed because I keep going back to it. It is endlessly entertaining and makes the smallest minutiae of women's lives fascinating.

The shortlist for the 2014 Booker Prize has been announced; it's particularly significant because this is the first year the prize is open to non-Commonwealth writers (i.e., it used to be exclusive to Britain, Ireland, Canada, and a few other former British colonies, like India). The books still must be written in English and published in the UK, but it's possible for Americans (Karen Joy Fowler and Joshua Ferris made the cut) to win now, which actually seems kinda lame.

Flavorwire has a nice interview with the ladies behind Women in Clothes, which I'm still obsessed with.

After the initial flurry of interest in the YA genre bashing back in early summer, I was very over it, and I don't even really read YA books anyway. But Emily Nussbaum and A.O. Scott, two of my absolute favorite cultural critics (neither of whom writes about books) got into the mix this week, and I enjoyed the results. Plus, Nussbaum gives some attention to Outlander, which only further secures her place in my heart.

Finally, some frustratingly awesome news out of Canada. Margaret Atwood is the first author to participate in the Future Library project; a forest in Norway has been planted with the intention of one day supplying paper to publish a Margaret Atwood book that has been written but will not be read and distributed for 100 years. That's pretty cool, but also kind of non-news.