2012: My Year in Books

Ah, it’s New Year’s Eve! Time once again to list the books I’ve read in the past year.

The stats:

In 2012, I read 72 books, with a total number of 18,192 pages.

The average (mean) books per month was 6, and the average (mean) per week was 1.38.

Of these, 26 were fiction (not counting children’s books), 8 were memoirs, 23 were children’s books, and the remaining 15 were nonfiction.

My favorite books this year were probably The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, but I had fun reading most everything I read this year.

I am currently reading What Are People For? by Wendell Berry, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose, and Magic by the Lake by Edward Eager.

January 1, 2013, is beginning of a new reading challenge for me. Visit tomorrow for the kick-off post about my Cavalcade of Classics challenge!

Below is the book list for 2012, by the month I finished (or gave up on) each book. I’ve included links to reviews if I’ve posted them on this blog and/or on Goodreads (I often cross-post, but if a review is very short, I generally leave it on Goodreads and don’t cross-post here). If you’d like to just go straight to Goodreads, here’s the link to my Goodreads profile. You can also go there to see the other 594 books I’ve read (and logged).

December (you can count this as my “Bookends” roundup for December):

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett

How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell

November:

Knight’s Castle (Tales of Magic, #2) by Edward Eager

Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction by David Macaulay

A Lemon and a Star by E.C. Spykman

Half Magic (Tales of Magic, #1) by Edward Eager

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

October:

Living More with Less by Doris Janzen Longacre

Southbound by Lucy and Susan Letcher

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence

September:

The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney

The Pen and the Bell: Mindlful Writing in a Busy World by Brenda Miller and Holly Hughes

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life by Tony Jones

August:

Ragnarök: The End of the Gods by A.S. Byatt

All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon

Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Spork by Kyo Maclear

Crochet Lace Innovations: 20 Dazzling Designs in Broomstick, Hairpin, Tunisian, and Exploded Lace by Doris Chan

Easy to Crochet Cute Clothes for Kids: A Gorgeous Collection of 25 Quick and Easy Designs by Sue Whiting

July:

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach

The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen

Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone

The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier

Wet Earth and Dreams: A Narrative of Grief and Recovery by Jane Lazarre

The Penderwicks at Point Mouette (The Penderwicks, #3) by Jeanne Birdsall

The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth am I Here for? by Rick Warren (stopped reading)

June:

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

Beowulf the Warrior by Ian Serraillier

The Penderwicks on Gardam Street (The Penderwicks, #2) by Jeanne Birdsall

The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1) by Rick Riordan

Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen

May:

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman (stopped reading)

The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z.Z. Packer

The Leftovers by Tom Perotta

April:

A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee

Let’s Join In by Shirley Hughes

MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search For A New Best Friend by Rachel Bertsche (stopped reading)

Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses by Claire Dederer

Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn

The Three Questions by Jon J. Muth

The Gunniwolf by Wilhelmina Harper

Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane

An Available Man: A Novel by Hilma Wolitzer

A Spring without Bees by Michael Schacker (stopped reading)

The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton

Tuesday by David Wiesner

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

March:

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Ben Behind His Voices: One Family’s Journey from the Chaos of Schizophrenia to Hope by Randye Kaye

Lord of the Cranes: A Chinese Tale by Kerstin Chen

Losing Mum and Pup by Christopher Buckley

The Magician King by Lev Grossman

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder

February:

Buddha by Demi

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Helen Keller: Her Life In Pictures by George Sullivan

The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo

Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman

How to See Yourself As You Really Are by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

January:

Somebody Is Going to Die if Lilly Beth Doesn’t Catch That Bouquet: The Official Southern Ladies’ Guide to Hosting the Perfect Wedding by Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (The Inheritance Trilogy, #1) by N.K. Jemisin

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Walden, or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau (stopped reading)

The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine Aron