2012 Year in Review: Favorite Books

Here’s my annual list of my ten favorite books read in the year.  As always, this is merely the best books I read this year not books published in 2012 (books published this year are bolded in the complete list below).  For previous years see 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007 and 2006. You may also want to check out My Favorite Books of All Time or see Every Book I’ve Ever Read cataloged in Library Thing.

In no particular order:

• Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut by Rob Sheffield
  
• A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
• Straphanger by Taras Grescoe
• Marco Polo didn’t go there by Rolf Potts
• Pedaling Revolution by Jeff Mapes
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
• Feynman by Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick
• Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton
• Sailor Twain, or The Mermaid in the Hudson by Mark Siegel
• The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde

And now the complete list.  Not a great year for reading as I didn’t maintain much focus on reading and less so on reviewing books.

Books Read in 2012

January

• A Soul To Steal by Rob Blackwell
• Pedaling Revolution by Jeff Mapes
• Saturday by Ian MacEwan (A)
• American Gods by Neil Gaiman

February

• Green Metropolis by David Owen (A)
• Best Mets by Matthew Silverman
• Moon Yellowstone & Grand Teton: Including Jackson Hole by Don Pitcher
• The Rough Guide to Yellowstone & Grand Teton by Stephen Timblin
• A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

March

• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill
• The Sandman : Preludes & Nocturnes : [volume 1] by Neil Gaiman
• The Fiery Trial : Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner
• Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton

April

• Doctor Who. Volume 1, Fugitive by Tony Lee
• Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life by James Martin
• God After Darwin by John F. Haught

May

• The House of Silk by Anthony Horwitz
• Sleepwalk With Me by Mike Birbiglia
• The Walking Dead Book 2 by Robert Kirkman
• Bookhunter by Jason Shiga
• Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand (A)
• A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit
• The Last Icon: Tom Seaver and His Times by Steven Travers

June

• Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut by Rob Sheffield
• The spirit level : why greater equality makes societies stronger by Richard G. Wilkinson
• The Clockwise Man by Justin Richards
• Plugged by Eoin Colfer (A)
• Marco Polo didn’t go there by Rolf Potts

July

• Big questions, or, Asomatognosia : whose hand is it anyway by Anders Nilsen
• Empire State by Jason Shiga
• All That We Share by Jay Waljasper
• Life by Keith Richards with James Fox
• Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
• Straphanger by Taras Grescoe

August

• Doctor Who. Volume 2, Tesseract by Tony Lee
• Doctor Who. Volume 3, Final sacrifice by Tony Lee
• Doctor Who. Series 2, Volume 1, The Ripper by Tony Lee
• City : a guidebook for the urban age by P.D. Smith
• Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel

September

• 1989: Bob Dylan Didn’t Have This To Sing About by Joshua Clover
• The Art of Fielding  by Chad Harbach (A)
• As if an enemy’s country : the British occupation of Boston and the origins of revolution by Richard Archer
• Feynman by Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick
• The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta (A)
• Wherever I Wind Up by R.A. Dickey with Wayne Coffey
• Bonobo Handshake by Vanessa Woods (A) 
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
• The Sandman. [Volume 2], Doll’s house by Neil Gaiman

October

• The Sandman. [Volume 3], Dream Country by Nei Gaiman
• The Sandman. [Volume 4], Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman
• The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde
• Spook  by Mary Roach (A)
• The Walking Dead 3 by Robert Kirkman
• The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde
• Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat by Hal Herzog (A)
• The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde
• The Walking Dead 4 by Robert Kirkman
• The Sandman. [Volume 5], A Game of You by Neil Gaiman

November

• The Polish Boxer by Eduardo Halfon
• Sailor Twain, or The Mermaid in the Hudson by Mark Siegel
• The Walking Dead 5 by Robert Kirkman
• The Walking Dead 6 by Robert Kirkman
• Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders by Larry Millet

December

• Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan (A)
• The Walking Dead. Volume 15, We find ourselves by Robert Kirkman
• The Walking Dead. Volume 16, A Larger World by Robert Kirkman
• The Magic Maker by Susan Cooper (A)
• The Walking Dead. Volume 17: Something to Fear by Robert Kirkman
• The Thoreau You Don’t Know by Robert Sullivan
• The Submission by Amy Waldman