Monday, December 31, 2012

Done: The Books I Read in 2012

With the new year close enough that I'm already hearing fireworks across Lake Hickory, it's safe to assume my reading for the year is complete.  Although I know I omitted some of the books of poetry I read this year and some of my school reading, this is as complete a list as I can.  Some I have written about here; some I still will (especially the last few).  I'd love to hear feedback to know what others read this year and recommend.


1.      Murakami, Haruki. 1Q84
2.      Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary (trans. Lydia Davis)
3.      House, Silas. Clay’s Quilt
4.      Dugard, Jaycee. A Stolen Life
5.      Stead, Rebecca. When You Reach Me
6.      King, Stephen. November 22, 1963
7.      Pearson, Alison. I Think I Love You
8.      Anderson, M. T. Feed
9.      Foer, Joshua. Moonwalking with Einstein
10.  Woodring, Susan. Goliath
11.  Hillenbrand, Laura. Unbroken
12.  Handler, Daniel. Why We Broke Up
13.  Wiggins, Marianne. Shadowcatcher
14.  Stein, Garth. The Art of Racing in the Rain
15.  Kinsella, Sophie. I’ve Got Your Number
16.  Blake, Sarah, The Postmistress
17.   Mayhew, Anna Jean. The Dry Grass of August
18.  Phillips, Gin. Come in and Cover Me.
19.  Green, Amy. Bloodroot
20.  Auslander, Shalom. Hope: A Tragedy
21.  Morganstern, Erin. The Night Circus
22.  Towles, Amor. Rules of Civility
23.  Hiassen, Carl. Nature Girl.
24.  2Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead
25.  Maynard, Joyce. The Good Daughters
26.  Bradley, Alan. A Red Herring Without Mustard
27.  Rash, Ron. The Cove
28.  Wilson, Tamra. Dining with Robert Redford.
29.  Max Lucado, Traveling Light
30.  Larsen, Erik. In the Garden of the Beasts.
31.  Owens, Scott. For One Who Knows How to Own Land
32.  Carty, Jessie. Amateur Marriage.
33.  Bradley, Alan. The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag.
34.  Pittman-Schultz, Kimberley. Mosslight
35.  Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns
36.  Mantel, Hillary. Bring up the Bodies
37.  Carl Hiassen, A Really Bad Lie
38.  Dilloway, Margaret. How to Be an American Housewife
39.  Ray, Jeannie. Calling Invisible Women
40.  Barnhill, Anne Clinard. What You Long For
41.  Pearson, Allison. I Don’t Know How She Does It
42.  Diffenbaugh, Vanessa. The Language of Flowers
43.  Tyler, Anne. Beginner’s Goodbye
44.  Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl.
45.  Tinti, Hannah. The Good Thief
46.  Albrecht, Malaika King. What the Trapeze Artist Trusts
47.  Grewal, Sandeep, M.D., Dementia Express
48.  Grisham, John. Calico Joe
49.  Bradley, Alan. I Am Half Sick of Shadows
50.  Chevalier, Tracy. Remarkable Creatures.
51.  Irving, John. A Prayer for Owen Meany
52.  Jordan, Hillary. Mudbound
53.  Cash, Wiley. A Land More Kind than Home
54.  Zafon, Carlos Ruiz. The Prisoner of Heaven
55.  Simpson, Bland. Two Captains from Carolina
56.  Nabakov, Vladimir. Lolita
57.  Platt, David. Radical Together
58.  Semple, Maria. Where’d You Go, Bernadette?
59.  Rowling, J. K. A Casual Vacancy
60.  Goolrick, Robert. Heading Out to Wonderful
61.  Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go
62.  Russell, Karen. Swamplandia.
63.  Mitchell, David. Cloud Atlas
64.  Dweck, Carol. Mindset
65.  Myers, Walter Dean. Monster
66.  Johnson, Adam. The Orphan Master’s Son

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4 comments:

Amber O said...

Is this where you want it? Pasting my list here:

When She Woke (Hillary Jordan)

The Marriage Plot (Jeffrey Eugenides)

11/22/63 (Stephen King)- Top 5. probably my favorite all year. love me some time travel.

A Grown Up Kind of Pretty (Joshilyn Jackson). Top 5?

Defending Jacob (William Landay)

White Girl Problems (Babe Walker)-- serious waste of paper, even for a vacation read. (I fell for the title, which is one of my favorite phrases.)

Out of Oz (Gregory Maguire)

Girlchild (Tupelo Hassman)

The Paris Wife (Paula McLain)

The Dry Grass of August (Anna Jean Mayhew). Top 5?

The Cove (Ron Rash)- he's always worth reading

The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls)

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (J.Austen and Seth Graham-Smith)- exactly as weird and amusing as it sounds. :)

Goliath (Susan Woodring)

Beautiful Outlaw (John Eldredge)- great read about the personality of Jesus

1Q84 (Haruki Murakami)- loooong.

The People of Forever are Not Afraid (Shani Boianjiu)

The Language of Flowers (Vanessa Diffenbaugh)-

The Beginner's Goodbye (Anne Tyler)

Home (Toni Morrison) - didn't love as much as her older stuff

The Dovekeepers (Alice Hoffman)- Top 5?

A Dog's Purpose (W Bruce Cameron)- predictable but fun

Life of Pi (Yann Martel)- avoided for years, but glad I got around to it before the movie. love. Top 5?

Flight Behavior (Barbara Kingsolver)

A Dog's Journey (Bruce Cameron)

FoFum said...

Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead - social satire.

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (high on my list) set in 1938 in Manhattan and a visual joy.

Flight Behavior by B Kingsolver- especially apt for those of us living in the Appalachians.

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom - Gone with the Wind from the slave perspective

The Virgin Cure and The Birth House struck the feminist in me. Both by Ami McKay. I look forward to her next book.

Just Kids by Patti Smith. Early years in the Chelsea Hotel with Robert Mapplethorpe - yes!

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Stoner by John Williams - a professor's story.

A Good Hard Look by Ann Napolitano, a great book about Flannery O'Connor

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes-

The Glass Room by Simon Mawer

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh - Beautiful!

I am midway A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry - so far I would recommend it. Set in India

Natalie said...

My favorite books of the year are Aaron Teel's Shampoo Horns, Matt Bell's Cataclysm Baby, Julianna Baggott's Pure, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain, and The Cove by Ron Rash.

Nancy Mann Jackson said...

I don't have a complete list but some of my favorites this year are A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson (her brother was my Sunday school teacher for a little while in Bham!), The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander, and We the Animals by Justin Torres.