2012: A Year in Books

Because I am not only an avid reader, but a compulsive list-maker, I have of course kept track of the books I read in 2012.  Some of them were re-reads. Some were for my postal book group (which I have now given up, as so many of the books coming in just didn't interest me, and many of the ones which did interest me, I'd already read). Some I gave up halfway through (or slightly less).

There are 98 books on my list (some are trilogies, listed as one, but counted as 3!). Not counting the ones I gave up part way through, I managed to read 94 books in 2012.  Of these, aproximately 18 were teen fiction or fantasy, about a dozen were crime fiction, and about 17 were re-reads.   It's an average of about 8 books a month, which I think is pretty good, considering how busy my life is. If I can read a similar number in 2013, I will be very pleased. It's started well (reading in 2013) - I am on my 8th book, or 6th, allowing for the two that I've given up part way through. However, my shelf (and a half) of books waiting to be read is really getting down to things I'm fairly sure I'm going to like - there were lots of maybes in there before, and many of these I've tried in 2012 (and some, I've even liked!).

My favourites (not counting re-reads, even Persuasion, which is one of my favourite ever books) are highlighted in pale blue, with the second tier underlined, although honestly I enjoyed most of them (if I don't enjoy something that much, I stop reading it).  I don't think I could pick an absolute favourite from the bunch, though I would say that the two which suprised me the most were Star of the Sea and The Underground Man, both of which I had doubts about before starting and both of which I found pleasantly surprising (which isn't to say the books were pleasant - especially Star of the Sea).

The list is in reverse order (most recent first) - that is, the top book I finished in late December, and the bottom book was the first I finished in 2012. This is because I pull the list off the sidebar of my quilting blog, so that's the order it appears in as I update it through the year.

• The Promise of Rain, Donna Milner
• The Story of Beautiful Girl, Rachel Simon
• Lies, Enrique De Heriz
• Lick Creek, Brad Kessler
• Clara and Mr Tiffany, Susan Vreeland
• What I Loved, Siri Hustvedt
• The Lighthouse, Alison Moore
• Split Infinity/The Blue Adept/Juxtaposition, Piers Anthony (re-read) (fantasy)
• The Attenbury Emeralds, Jill Paton Walsh (crime)
• Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann
• The Red Queen, Margaret Drabble
• Noah's Ark, Barbara Trapido
• The Convenient Marriage, Georgette Heyer (re-read)
• Great House, Nicole Krauss
• The Return of Captain John Emmett, Elizabeth Speller
• Bleeding Heart Square, Andrew Taylor (crime)
• The Memory Stones, Kate O'Riordan
• Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Tom Franklin
• The Case of the Imaginary Detective, Karen Joy Fowler
• The Woman Who Died a Lot, Jasper Fforde
• One of our Tuesdays is Missing, Jasper Fforde
• Keeping the World Away, Margaret Forster (pbg Aug 12)
• The St Zita Society, Ruth Rendell (half) (crime)
• Fixing Shadows, Susan Barrett
• Taft, Ann Patchett
• Your Blue-Eyed Boy, Helen Dunmore
• The Tenderness of Wolves, Stef Penney
• Monday Mourning, Kathy Reichs (crime)
• La Cucina, Lily Prior
• Death Comes to Pemberley, PD James (crime)
• Persuasion, Jane Austen (re-read)
• Excellent Women, Barbara Pym (pbg July 12)
• State of Wonder, Ann Patchett
• Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel
• The Underground Man, Mick Jackson
• The White Woman on a Green Bicycle, Monique Roffey (part)
• Stones for my Father, Trilby Kent (jfic)
• The Red House, Mark Haddon
• Star of the Sea, Joseph O'Connor
• Aria, Susan Segal
• The Fourth Hand, John Irving (part)
• Bare Bones, Kathy Reichs (crime)
• Labyrinth, Kate Mosse
• The Post-Birthday World, Lionel Shriver (half)
• Notes from an Exhibition, Patrick Gale
• The Magician's Assistant, Ann Patchett
• Jamrach's Menagerie, Carol Birch
• Me Before You, Jojo Moyes
• False Colours, Georgette Heyer (re-read)
• Blue Water, Manette Ansay
• Sabriel/Lirael/Abhorsen, Garth Nix (jfic/fantasy, reread)
• Ashes, Ilsa J Bick (jfic)
• Island of Bones, Imogen Robertson (crime)
• The Weird Sisters, Eleanor Brown
• The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes
• Grave Secrets, Kathy Reichs (crime)
• An Invisible Sign of My Own, Aimee Bender
• The Sugar Queen, Sarah Addison Allen
• The Amnesia Clinic, James Scudamore
• Fatal Voyage, Kathy Reichs (crime)
• Good Things I Wish You, Manette Ansay
• The Song House, Trezza Azzopardi
• These Old Shades, Georgette Heyer (re-read)
• The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender
• His Dark Materials Trilogy, Philip Pullman (re-read) (jfic/fantasy)
• Five People you Meet in Heaven, Mitch Ablom
• The Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler
• The End of Everything, Megan Abbott
• Garden Spells, Sarah Addison Allen
• Started Early, Took my Dog, Kate Atkinson
• Dragonharper Trilogy, Anne McCaffrey (re-read) (jfic/fantasy)
• The Girl of his Dreams, Donna Leon
• The Somnambulist, Essie Fox
• Becoming Jane Eyre, Sheila Kohler
• The Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins (jfic/fantasy)
• Day of the Bees, Thomas Sanchez
• The Sea Change, Elizabeth Jane Howard
• Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs
• Sleep Toward Heaven, Amanda Eyre Ward
• The Prince of Mist, Carlos Ruiz Zafon (jfic)
• The Hand that First Held Mine, Maggie O'Farrell (pbg, Feb 12)
• Girl Reading, Katie Ward
• The Death Instinct, Jed Rubenfeld (crime)
• The Travelling Horn Player, Barbara Trapido (re-read, pbg Jan 12)
• Saving Fish from Drowning, Amy Tan
• The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
• The Finkler Question, Howard Jacobson
• Dark Assassin, Anne Perry (crime)