I asked everyone on the LT staff to put together a list of their five favorite reads from 2012. Here’s what they came up with:
Tim:
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann.
Why Big Fierce Animals are Rare: An Ecologist’s Perspective by Paul A. Colinvaux.
Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl (with my son).
Abby:
The Art Forger by B. A. Shapiro.
Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeannette Winterson.
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.
Abby adds “Because picking just 5 is hard, honorable mention to: The Rook by Daniel O’Malley, Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness, and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.”
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham.
The Fourth Part of the World by Toby Lester.
The Icon Handbook by Jon Hicks.
The Art of Urban Sketching by Gabriel Campanario.
The Road to Ubar by Nicholas Clapp.
Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer by Wesley Stace.
The Passage of Power by Robert Caro.
The Rector and the Rogue by W.A. Swanberg (the new edition edited by Paul Collins).
The Social Conquest of Earth by E.O. Wilson.
The Stockholm Octavo by Karen Engelmann.
Honorable mentions here for The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King and PYG: The Memoirs of a Learned Pig by Russell A. Potter. NB: I always post a top ten fiction and a top ten non-fiction list on my blog on December 31, so check in there at the end of the year for the complete list.
Kate:
How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran.
The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed.
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides.
Kate gives an honorable mention to Pulphead: Essays by John Jeremiah Sullivan.
Mike:
The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks.
In the Woods by Tana French.
The Riyria Revelations (series) by Michael J. Sullivan.
Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook.
Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin.
Seth:
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson.
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Hunter.
PHP Master: Write Cutting-Edge Code by Davey Shafik.
What were your favorite 2012 reads? Come tell us here.
2012 TOP FIVE
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
Dickens: Public Life and Private Passion by Peter Ackroyd
The Hunger Angel by Herta Muller
Girls in White Dresses by J Close
The Cranes Dance by M Howrey
The Night Circus by E Morgenstern
The Age of Miracles by KT Walker
The Cat’s Table by M Ondaatje
Count of Monte Cristo – A. Dumas
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane – Kate DiCamillo
Memoirs of a Goldfish – Devin Scillian
Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
Science of Jurassic Park – Bob DeSalle
Top 5:
“Caleb’s Crossing” by Geraldine Brooks
“The Untouchable” by John Banville
“The Secrets of Jin-Shei” by Alma Alexander
“The Gift of Rain” by Tan Twan Eng
“The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood” by James Gleick
Honorable Mention:
“Heading Out to Wonderful” by Robert Goolrick
“Man Walks into a Room” by Nicole Krauss
“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” by Michael Chabon
“The Storyteller of Marakesh” by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya
“The Sportswriter” by Richard Ford
Second List:
“Baudolino” by Umberto Eco
“A Palace in the Old Village” by Tahar Ben Jelloun
“Boy’s Life” by Robert R. McCammon
“Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World” by Timothy Brook
“Gardens of Water” by Alan Drew
Second Honorable Mention:
“Empire Falls” by Richard Russo
“Violette Nozière: A Story of Murder in 1930s Paris” by Sarah Maza
“The Moviegoer” by Walker Percy
“Arthur & George” by Julian Barnes
“The Red Garden” by Alice Hoffman
And mentioned by others that would have been on my Top 5 List:
“The Cat’s Table”
“The Sisters Brothers”
my top 5…
Death Note Black Edition v1-6 – Tsugumi Ohba
1q84 v1-3 – Haruki Murakami
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
Lord of the Flies – W Golding
Memoirs of a Master Forger – William (Graham Joyce) Heaney
and my runner ups 🙂
The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern
More Than Human – Theodore Sturgeon
House of Silk – Anthony Horowitz
Annabel: A Novel – Kathleen Winter
Batman: Blind Justice – Sam Hamm
HHhH – Laurent Binet
Train Dreams – Denis Johnson
Colonel Roosevelt – Edmund Morris
Theodore Rex – Edmund Morris
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt – Edmund Morris
I agree with Tim about “1491” – a really amazing book, a game-changer in terms of how one thinks about the New World. I of course bought his follow-up “1493” – huge disappointment; stodgy, fragmented, too didactic. I got about half way through before abandoning it (probably temporarily) for something more worthwhile.
The fault in our stars – John Green
Elefantengedächtnis – Antonio Lobo Antunes
Ready Player One – Ernest Cline
Skippy dies – Paul Murray
Les ballades de Haldur et autres racontars – Jorn Riel
“Black cat bone” – John Burnside
“The fair society” – Peter A. Corning
“Shannon : a poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition” – Campbell McGrath
“The Prince of Evolution: Peter Kropotkin’s Adventures in Science and Politics” – Lee Alan Dugatkin
“Wicked times : selected poems” – Aaron Kramer
1. Heft by Liz Moore
2. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
3. The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison
4. Bluefish by Pat Schmatz
5. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
And because its impossible to just stop at six:
6. The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
1. Death and the Maiden by Q. Patrick
2. The Dying Alderman by Henry Wade
3. The Murderer of Sleep by Milward Kennedy
4. In The Queen’s Parlour (or In The Queen’s Parlor) by Ellery Queen
5. Masters of the “Humdrum” Mystery: Cecil John Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, Alfred Walter Stewart and the British Detective Novel, 1920-1961 by Curtis Evans
Hunger – Knut Hamsun
A Monk Swimming – Malchy McCourt
Old School – Tobias Wolff
Naomi – Junichiro Tanizaki
Wolf: A False Memoir by Jim Harrison
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon- Crystal Zevon
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea
Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
Juliet in August by Diane Warren
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Also really enjoyed When We Get There, The Winter Palace, The Soldier’s Wife, Heft, The Snow Child, The Light between Oceans, and Swamplandia!
1. The Night Circus- Erin Morgenstern
2. The Name of the Wind- Patrick Rothfuss
3.The Wise Man’s Fear- Patrick Rothfuss
4. The Unfolding Mystery- Edmund Clowney
5. Rifleman Dodd- C. S. Forester
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity – Katherine Boo
Cellist of Sarajevo – Steven Galloway
The One and Only Ivan – Katherine Applegate
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Will Not Shut Up – Susan Cain
Pride of Chanur – C. J. Cherryh
John the Balladeer – Manly Wade Wellman
Bury My Heart at W. H. Smith – Brian Aldiss
Old Nathan – David Drake
Sargasso of Space – Andre Norton
In no particular Order.
The First Circle – Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Blindness – Jose Saramago
My Struggle (Part 4) – Karl Ove Knausgard
Women – Charles Bukowski
One Man’s Bible – Gao Xingjian
1. Juliet in August by Dianne Warren
2. The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
3. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by
Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
4. Wild by Cheryl Strayed
5. The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown