Twenty Twelve was the year of READALONGS! and Tweet-alongs. And Stephen King. What a wonderful fun year of blogging about books with other online book bloggers. Even the bloggers who don’t refer to themselves as book bloggers.
I read 65 books (66 if I get The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson done before midnight but it not lookin’ good for that, truthfully.) My goal was 55 so I beat that – sure, I admit the goal was purposely not a stretch so probably shouldn’t be celebrated too much. I have yet to set a goal for 2013.
I only had 6 books I gave the coveted FIVE SLICEs of PIE rating; 2 of them were by King! Never would have predicted that. I had 30 four slice ratings, 23 three slice ratings and 6 two slicers. I didn’t give any the dreaded one slice.
I really am not able to endorse many of these as super dooper awesome; maybe I am being a harsher critic? But here goes; the top SIX:
Fire Season by Philip Connors – Nonfiction/memoir
11/22/63 by Stephen King – TIME TRAVEL!!
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green – heartfelt and Green-full.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn – deliciously wild ride; such fun.
IT by Stephen King – King is a master. Thoroughly enjoyable. This was an audio and the narrator was superb.
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes – I love these introspective thoughtful books by old men. Don’t know why.
Odd list, don’t you think? I do. I probably could rank the many 4 slicers and come up with a few more that were memorable and worthy of more endorsements… Let me go look.
Lottery by Patricia Wood – so good! A book I was able to share with a bunch of friends and we all agreed.
Emotional Geology by Linda Gillard – evocative & powerful, harsh but beautiful setting, love story and self-discovery.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern – an impressive and magically delightful debut.
Bleak House by Charles Dickens – I am three hours into the BBC Mini-series! It’s great.
My gender ratio was very balanced: 34 female authors to 31 male. I only read 17 nonfiction titles this year. (oh! I just looked and I only read 11 last year so this was BETTER, 26%. Most of ALL fiction reads were set in the US or the UK. I didn’t get out into the world very much but I did read more fantasy, I think. I read only 3 books from translation: Anna Karenina (Russian), 1Q84 (Japanese) and French Leave (French). I got to Africa in two books: Barundi in Strength in What Remains and Senegal in Redemption in Indigo. One political book, one zombie book, one poetry book and lots of ‘scary’ books! I read FIVE books that involved TIME TRAVEL! Yay me – and I have a list of more so this trend may continue.
I participated in Dueling Monsters, The King Challenge – success!, the Cloud Atlas Readalong, the Summer in the City and the City Readalong, #Diversiverse, #Standalong & #ITalong, and Bleak House for Nov/Dec (#Bleakalong). The Shirley Jackson Book Menage was fascinating. I successfully completed the What’s in a Name 5 Challenge and failed miserably at my personal challenge to read all the books others have loaned to me. In fact, I’ve managed to increase the quantity of books and only read two. I didn’t read ANY books for my own John Cusack Reading Challenge – although I did start the eBook Tropic of Cancer on my iPad. I didn’t get far.
I had two other personal challenges and did pretty good with reading new-to-me authors and authors I have been meaning to get to: China Mieville, Jon Krakauer, PG Wodehouse and Arthur Conan Doyle. I did OK with getting more read by favorite authors: Tracy Kidder, AS Byatt and Ian McEwan. As for my third personal challenge, I stalled after the 4th book of Harry Potter because I refuse to buy book #5 and just haven’t thought about getting it from the library (doh!) – I’ve done well with BookMooch.com and borrowing from friends. I’m enjoying them and was most surprised to have to read Rowling’s latest and first adult book The Casual Vacancy and enjoyed it more than I expected.
I guess 2013 will see me reading Mary Roach, Tom Perotta, Susan Jane Gilman and Diana Wynn Jones. AND the remainder of the HP series.
New to me authors: 46. Repeat authors: 19.
I have discovered a passion for audiobooks thanks to my iPhone (thanks to me washing my old clunky cell and getting the iPhone) and Audible.com. Thank you Steven Weber and Simon Vance. Thank you!
I met one new blogger-bud: Laurie from Bay State Reader’s Advisory! We had a lovely meet up at the Boston Book Festival. She has been a super resource and audiobook friend. Best to you in the new job and I hope we cross paths again soon. (Holly and I are talking about finding your library sometime this winter…)
The big amazing development about 2012 I never expected, besides King, was the CHUNKSTER component of my reading. I do enjoy the project of listening to the big classics while reading an accompanying text. The Stand, It, Anna Karenina, Bleak House! YAY ME!
What other stats am I forgetting? Themes? Time travel. Sex, too – I read Fifty Shades (only the first one), Sugar in my Bowl (recommended!) and American Psycho?! Hmmmm. Well and the start of Tropic of Cancer. I read two books with CLOUD in the title.
Books to movie? Yes, except for the fact that I have mostly failed to see any of the movies.
Most surprising in a good way book? Beauty Queens by Libba Bray – hilarious.
Most depraved book? American Psycho by Bret what’shisname.
Wierdest book? Tie between Cloud Atlas and The City and the City?
Most disappointing book? Wild or The Human Bobby or Outlander.
Books on the 1001 Books to Read Before I Die: 5? (I need to double check this…)
Bleak House (1853) was the oldest book; I read 9 books published in 2012.
I’ll be posting next on just stats, no words, maybe even a pie chart!
Happy End of Year Book Stats Sharing!
HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine
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