2012 Book Wrap Up

It’s been a long year for me with lots of mammoth reads including a few from Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series and Cronin’s second book in the Passage Trilogy.  So without further ado, here’s the 2012 book wrap up (with December’s books included in the mix).

Books Read:  52

1. Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch
2. Moon Over Soho – Ben Aaronovitch
3. The Hungry Ghosts – Anne Berry
4. Island of Lost Girls – Jennifer McMahon
5. Before I go to Sleep – SJ Watson
6. The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes
7. Last Man in Tower – Aravind Adiga
8. The Leftovers – Tom Perrotta
9. Londoners:  The Days and Nights of London Now—As Told by Those Who Love it, Live it, Left it and Long for it – Craig Taylor
10. The Woman in Black – Susan Hill
11. The Dogs of Babel – Carolyn Parkhurst
12. A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3) – George R.R. Martin
13. I to I: Life Writing by KY Feminists – Elizabeth Oakes and Jane Olmsted
14. A Blade of Grass – Lewis DeSoto
15. Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir – Jenny Lawson
16. The Gargoyle – Andrew Davidson
17.  Stuart: A Life Backwards – Alexander Masters
18. The Poison Tree – Erin Kelly
19. State of Wonder – Ann Patchett
20. The Knife of Never Letting Go – Patrick Ness
21. A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, #4) – George R. R. Martin
22. House Rules – Jodi Picoult
23. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer (Sister Read)
24. We Are All Made of Glue – Marina Lewycka
25. War of the Wives – Tamar Cohen
26. Ours Are the Streets – Sunjeev Sahota
27. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe – Fannie Flagg
28. Vaclav and Lena – Haley Tanner
29. The Small Hand – Susan Hill
30. The Hour I First Believed – Wally Lamb
31. The Story Sisters – Alice Hoffman
32. Wintergirls – Laurie Halse Andersen (Sister Read!)
33. Jezebel – Irene Nemirovsky
34. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
35. The Hypnotist – Lars Kepler
36. Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
37. Lace – Shirley Conran
38. The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry – Jon Ronson
39. The Woman in the Fifth – Douglas Kennedy
40. When She Woke – Hillary Jordan
41. The Snow Child – Eowyn Ivey
42. The Casual Vacancy – JK Rowling
43. Daughter of Smoke & Bone – Laini Taylor  (Sister Read!!!)
44. Savages – Don Winslow
45. Florence and Giles – John Harding
46.  The Twelve (The Passage, #2) – Justin Cronin
47. Behind the Beautiful Forevers:  Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity – Katherine Boo (Sister Read)
48. The Greatest Love Story of All Time – Lucy Robinson
49. A Passionate Love Affair With a Total Stranger – Lucy Robinson
50. The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight – Jennifer E Smith (Sister Read)
51. The Final Confession of Mabel Stark – Robert Hough
52. Thirteen Reasons Why – Jay Asher

Books Abandoned:  6

1. The Elegance of the Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery
   
2.  A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – Dave Eggars
3. The Strain – Guillermo del Toro
4. The Dead Room – Robert Ellis
5. 77 Shadow Street – Dean Koontz
6. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo  (Got to be too depressing.  I do plan on finishing this one in 2013 but it’ll be a work in progress)

Books in Progress – 1

1. On the Island – Tracey Garvis-Graves

It’s always really fun going back and seeing what I read throughout the year, remembering which books I loved and others that weren’t so hot.

So which ones were my favourites this year?  That’s a tough one to call.  I nearly peed myself laughing while reading quite a few of these… Lawson’s “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened” was definitely a highlight for me this year as were both of Robinson’s books.  It seems like the funny/sweet books I read this year were the most relished and well received.  Sometimes you need a bit of humour in your life, I guess.

So that’s the list for 2012.  My goal was 75 books so I was a bit short from that, but I’m totally okay with that as a lot of the books I read were pretty hefty (thank goodness for my Kindle).  2012 also saw the beginning of Two Sisters Reading, a book blog co-authored by my younger sister and I.  If you haven’t read through it already, make sure you do!

So what are my reading plans for 2013?

Well, for starters, I’m not aiming for a specific “body count”.  I’m perfectly happy with quality over quantity this time around.  I plan on picking up “Les Miserables” off and on and working my way though that as well as giving other books I’ve left off on another chance.  In exciting news, Vikram Seth’s “A Suitable Boy” is finally being released for Kindle in March (I’ve already pre-ordered it) which means I’ll be tackling that in the Spring.  So excited for that… what a mammoth book!  I’d also like the opportunity to do more pre-release reviews as I did for Robinson’s “A Passionate Love Affair With a Total Stranger” so if anyone reading this would like to throw some books my way, I’d be happy to review them!

That’s all from The London Diaries for 2012.  I’m still on holiday back home for a few more days so I’ll catch you all in 2013.

If you’re interested in getting in touch, tweet me at @stephanie_khani or @londondiaries1.  Alternatively you can email me at emailthelondondiaries [at] gmail.com.