I read 76 books in 2012, including 9 rereads (all 7 of the Harry Potter books as well as the first two books in the Hunger Games trilogy, which I read for the first time this year, as well).
I’m only listing the books I read for the first time. All ratings are out of five stars and within each rating, books are listed alphabetically by author.
5 stars
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
4.5 stars
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck
4 stars
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum
Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them Edited by Roxanne J. Coady
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
City of God by E.L. Doctorow
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Something Happened by Joseph Heller
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
A Son of the Circus by John Irving
A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
Ambiguous Adventure by Hamidou Kane
A Very Long Engagement by Sebastien Japrisot
Everyone’s Children: A Pediatrician’s Story of an Inner City Practice by Claire McCarthy
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman
Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
Anywhere But Here by Mona Simpson
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
The Showrunners: A Season Inside the Billion-Dollar, Death-Defying, Madcap World of Television’s Real Stars by David Wild
3.5 stars
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffendbaugh
The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest Gaines, Jr.
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
The Jukebox Queen of Malta: A Novel by Nicholas Rinaldi
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Theater Will Rock: A History of the Rock Musical, From Hair to Hedwig by Elizabeth Lara Wollman
3 stars
You’re Not Doing It Right: Tales of Marriage, Sex, Death, and Other Humiliations by Michael Ian Black
Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Unvanquished by William Faulkner
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Barren Ground by Ellen Glasgow
Jews Without Money: A Novel by Michael Gold
Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson
The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman
The Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
How the Other Half Lives by Jacob A. Riis
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
The Circle of Hahn: A Memoir by Bruce Weigl
2.5 stars
Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War by Sebastian Faulks
The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold
2 stars
The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew
The Orchid House by Lucinda Riley
Henry V by William Shakespeare
Armageddon by Leon Uris
What Have You Done?: The Inside Stories of Auditioning, From the Ridiculous to the Sublime by Louis Zorich
1.5 stars
Altered States by Anita Brookner
The Book of Lights by Chaim Potok
Charles Jaulerry. Summer, 2007. Ink, acrylic and enamel on paper mounted on canvas., 76.5 x 57.5 cm.
In “One Whole Voice,” 14 poets—Jericho Brown, Fanny Howe, Jane Hirshfield, and Kazim Ali among them—consider the difference between poetry and prayer. At The Rumpus, Gina Vaynshteyn praises Jericho Brown’s collection, Please. (via poetrysince1912)
Whatever you have to say, leave
The roots on, let them
Dangle
And the dirt
Just to make clear
Where they come from.―Charles Olson
The Good That Won’t Come Out - Rilo Kiley
I do this thing where i think i’m real sick
But i won’t go to the doctor to find out about it
‘Cause they make you stand real still in a real small place
As they chartup your insides and put them on display
They’d see all of it, all of me, all of itI’m thankful that this exists.
(Source: harleyqueef)
