Without speaking for Michael Moats, Matt Tanner, or any of our contributors, I want to tell you about my favorite books of 2014. Because hot buttered Christ! It has been a great year for reading.

All of these books came out in 2014. All of them knocked me out of my chair. And we had the great fortune to cover many of them here at Fiction Advocate. Four of the ten authors agreed to write for our new column, Hitting Shelves, so they actually contributed to this site. Fuck yeah.

10. Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

9. The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories by Hassan Blasim (review)

8. Your Face in Mine by Jess Row (Hitting Shelves)

7. All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld (Hitting Shelves) (review)

6. The People’s Platform by Astra Taylor (summary)

5. Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill (Hitting Shelves) (review)

4. Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals by Patricia Lockwood (The Free Stuff)

3. On Immunity by Eula Biss (review)

2. Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli (review)

1. The Wallcreeper by Nell Zink (Hitting Shelves) (review)

– Brian Hurley is Books Editor at The Rumpus and Founding Editor at Fiction Advocate.