The books of 2014 I want most

It is a sad thing having a January birthday, because it means that there are eleven and a half months in which to work on your Christmas book wish list (Mother's Day I get plants instead of books, because you can't get those in January, which is the other main reason Jan. birthdays are ick).   But, though presents might be thin on the ground, it is also fun to actually go to the store oneself with a goal in mind, holding one's money tight in one's hand (or credit card or whatever) and then taking the beloved book home and reading it right then and there (perhaps with cookies). 

However, I find books I buy for myself come with no pressure to read them at all, and all too often they languish sadly amongst the dust bunnies at the bottom of the bookshelf.  And so of the 318 I read last year, only 2 were books I bought new for myself--Handbook for Dragon Slayers, by Merrie Haskell, and The Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnson--and both of which, miraculously, I read within days of buying them. 

But in 2014, there are books that I have to read just as soon as ever I can, and there is no chance at all of the any dust getting a chance to settle on them....

These two are obvious:

Jinx's Magic, by Sage Blackwood.  Loved Jinx, Brandy loved this one, can't wait.  Can justify purchase as "back to school gift" for child, thus adding self-congratulation to the pleasure of the book itself.

The Islands of Chaldea, by Diana Wynne Jones, completed by Ursula Jones.  Nothing more need be said.

This one isn't a sure thing:

Pat Walsh is an English author who is writing lovely historical fantasy set in a medieval abbey.   The first two books are The Crowfield Curse and The Crowfield Demon, and they are excellent, and I am truly looking forward to the third book in the series, Crowfield Rising, which is supposedly coming out in 2014.   I am pleased.

But that is not what I am waiting for with Wantingness!  Here is what made me do little glee bounces when I read it at Pat Walsh's website:

"And now Brother Walter has his own books! The first book in a new series about the hob from the Crowfield stories will be available soon. It is set 200 years after Will’s story, and shortly after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Something dark and evil lurks in the abandoned ruins of the abbey, and something is making the carved stones and wall paintings disappear…"

OH MY GOSH I love Brother Walter the Hob and anyone who loves the same books I do will love him too if they don't already.  

This one might not actually be available:

The sequel to Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman.   I was promised this in 2012 and I am starting to get restive.

This I'm not actually expecting, but you never know--the year is young and stranger things have happened:

The next Megan Whalen Turner book

There are lots and lots of other books I'm looking forward to, too many to list, but these are the ones I cannot put off reading any longer than I have too.