After a little experimenting, I managed to export a complete list of my 2012 reads, including the titles on which I gave up. I track all of my books using Goodreads, my all-time favorite website. My 2012 total stands at 92 books completed — not close to my record of 112, but besting my 2011 total by 5 books. Frankly, I was surprised to find out I gave up on 6 books this year, but I’m getting better at letting go of books that just didn’t capture my interest.
All in all, it was a good book year for me, with a mix of old and new. I wish I would have had time to include some of 2012’s award-winners and critical faves, but there’s always 2013. I’m setting a 75-book goal for next year. How about you?
| Title | Author | My Rating | Average Rating | Publisher | Number of Pages | Year Published | Date Read | Exclusive Shelf |
| Telegraph Avenue | Michael Chabon | 0 | 3.49 | HarperCollins | 465 | 2012 | currently-reading | |
| The Chaperone | Laura Moriarty | 0 | 3.86 | Riverhead Hardcover | 371 | 2012 | currently-reading | |
| Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4) | J.K. Rowling | 0 | 4.43 | Scholastic Inc. | 734 | 2002 | currently-reading | |
| The Flame Alphabet | Ben Marcus | 1 | 2.85 | Knopf | 289 | 2012 | ######## | i-gave-up |
| All The Pretty Horses CD: All The Pretty Horses CD | Cormac McCarthy | 2 | 3.9 | HarperAudio | 10 | 2000 | i-gave-up | |
| The Next Best Thing | Jennifer Weiner | 0 | 3.29 | Atria Books | 400 | 2012 | i-gave-up | |
| Girl Land | Caitlin Flanagan | 0 | 2.74 | Reagan Arthur Books | 224 | 2012 | i-gave-up | |
| A Hologram for the King | Dave Eggers | 2 | 3.39 | McSweeney’s | 312 | 2012 | ######## | i-gave-up |
| Sense and Sensibility | Jane Austen | 0 | 4.03 | Penguin Books | 409 | 2003 | i-gave-up | |
| The World We Found: A Novel. | Thrity Umrigar | 4 | 3.73 | Harper Perennial | 2012 | 1/1/2012 | read | |
| Maine | J. Courtney Sullivan | 3 | 3.29 | Knopf | 388 | 2011 | 1/1/2012 | read |
| The Paris Wife | Paula McLain | 2 | 3.72 | Ballantine Books | 314 | 2011 | 1/6/2012 | read |
| Good Omens | Terry Pratchett | 3 | 4.27 | HarperTorch | 398 | 2006 | ######## | read |
| Anatomy of a Disappearance: A Novel | Hisham Matar | 5 | 3.48 | The Dial Press | 224 | 2011 | ######## | read |
| The Cat’s Table | Michael Ondaatje | 4 | 3.6 | McLelland | 269 | 2011 | ######## | read |
| The Dry Grass of August | Anna Jean Mayhew | 3 | 3.82 | Kensington Books | 289 | 2011 | ######## | read |
| Rules of Civility | Amor Towles | 5 | 4.02 | Viking Adult | 335 | 2011 | ######## | read |
| The Descendants: A Novel | Kaui Hart Hemmings | 4 | 3.81 | Random House | 247 | 2007 | ######## | read |
| The Kitchen House | Kathleen Grissom | 4 | 4.15 | Touchstone | 369 | 2010 | 2/2/2012 | read |
| Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close | Jonathan Safran Foer | 5 | 4.01 | Houghton Mifflin Company | 326 | 2005 | 2/8/2012 | read |
| Slouching Towards Bethlehem | Joan Didion | 5 | 4.26 | Farrar Straus Giroux | 238 | 1990 | 2/9/2012 | read |
| Zeitoun | Dave Eggers | 4 | 4.14 | McSweeney’s | 342 | 2009 | ######## | read |
| Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading | Nina Sankovitch | 3 | 3.55 | Harper | 241 | 2011 | ######## | read |
| Running the Rift | Naomi Benaron | 4 | 4.03 | Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill | 365 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| The Translation of the Bones: A Novel | Francesca Kay | 3 | 3.31 | Scribner | 240 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| Girl Reading | Katie Ward | 2 | 3.42 | Virago Press (UK) | 342 | 2011 | ######## | read |
| Next to Love: A Novel | Ellen Feldman | 3 | 3.56 | Spiegel & Grau | 320 | 2012 | 3/2/2012 | read |
| The Fault in Our Stars | John Green | 4 | 4.55 | Dutton Books | 313 | 2012 | 3/5/2012 | read |
| Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away | Christie Watson | 4 | 4.05 | Other Press | 448 | 2011 | ######## | read |
| The Flight of Gemma Hardy | Margot Livesey | 3 | 3.61 | HarperCollins Publishers | 447 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| Busy Monsters | William Giraldi | 3 | 3.31 | W. W. Norton & Company | 282 | 2011 | ######## | read |
| The Patron Saint of Liars | Ann Patchett | 3 | 3.68 | Fourth Estate | 352 | 2003 | ######## | read |
| Carry the One | Carol Anshaw | 3 | 3.19 | Simon & Schuster | 253 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| When I Was a Child I Read Books | Marilynne Robinson | 3 | 3.9 | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 224 | 2012 | 4/4/2012 | read |
| Horoscopes for the Dead | Billy Collins | 5 | 4 | Random House | 128 | 2011 | 4/7/2012 | read |
| The Art of Hearing Heartbeats | Jan-Philipp Sendker | 4 | 4.02 | Other Press | 336 | 2012 | 4/9/2012 | read |
| Unless: A Novel | Carol Shields | 5 | 3.57 | Harper | 224 | 2002 | ######## | read |
| The Land of Decoration | Grace McCleen | 4 | 3.67 | Henry Holt and Co. | 320 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| The Underside of Joy | Seré Prince Halverson | 3 | 3.84 | Dutton Adult | 307 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories | Flannery O’Connor | 4 | 4.27 | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 252 | 1992 | ######## | read |
| The Healing | Jonathan Odell | 3 | 4.08 | Nan A. Talese | 352 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| A Land More Kind Than Home | Wiley Cash | 5 | 3.91 | William Morrow | 320 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| Girlchild: A Novel | Tupelo Hassman | 4 | 3.56 | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 275 | 2012 | 5/6/2012 | read |
| Home | Toni Morrison | 3 | 3.72 | Alfred A. Knopf | 160 | 2012 | 5/9/2012 | read |
| The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry | Rachel Joyce | 3 | 4.01 | Random House | 336 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| The Gilly Salt Sisters | Tiffany Baker | 3 | 3.36 | Grand Central Publishing | 370 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| Truth and Beauty | Ann Patchett | 4 | 3.88 | Harper Perennial | 257 | 2005 | ######## | read |
| The Flowers of War | Geling Yan | 3 | 3.49 | Harvill Secker | 250 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| The Homecoming of Samuel Lake | Jenny Wingfield | 4 | 4.17 | Random House Trade Paperbacks | 352 | 2012 | 6/1/2012 | read |
| Stone Arabia | Dana Spiotta | 4 | 3.3 | Scribner | 235 | 2011 | 6/3/2012 | read |
| Salvage the Bones | Jesmyn Ward | 4 | 3.78 | Bloomsbury USA | 261 | 2011 | 6/8/2012 | read |
| The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake | Aimee Bender | 5 | 3.13 | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group | 304 | 2010 | ######## | read |
| Blue Asylum | Kathy Hepinstall | 4 | 3.62 | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 271 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| Run | Ann Patchett | 4 | 3.46 | Harper | 304 | 2007 | ######## | read |
| The Snow Child | Eowyn Ivey | 3 | 3.97 | Reagan Arthur Books | 389 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| South of Superior | Ellen Airgood | 3 | 3.51 | Riverhead Hardcover | 384 | 2011 | ######## | read |
| Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter | Tom Franklin | 4 | 3.79 | William Morrow | 274 | 2010 | ######## | read |
| Gone Girl | Gillian Flynn | 5 | 4.01 | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | 419 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| Pigeon English | Stephen Kelman | 4 | 3.48 | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 263 | 2011 | 7/5/2012 | read |
| Office Girl | Joe Meno | 3 | 3.29 | Akashic Books | 295 | 2012 | 7/6/2012 | read |
| The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian | Sherman Alexie | 4 | 4.15 | Little, Brown Books for Young Readers | 230 | 2007 | 7/8/2012 | read |
| The Madonnas of Leningrad | Debra Dean | 2 | 3.67 | Harper Perennial | 228 | 2007 | ######## | read |
| Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Harry Potter, #1) | J.K. Rowling | 4 | 4.34 | Listening Library (Audio) | 169 | 1999 | ######## | read |
| In One Person | John Irving | 3 | 3.58 | Simon & Schuster | 425 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| The Sandcastle Girls | Chris Bohjalian | 4 | 3.86 | Doubleday | 320 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| The Weight of All Things | Sandra Benitez | 4 | 3.92 | Hyperion | 256 | 2002 | ######## | read |
| The Sense of an Ending | Julian Barnes | 5 | 3.69 | Jonathan Cape | 150 | 2011 | ######## | read |
| Memory Wall | Anthony Doerr | 4 | 4.21 | Scribner | 256 | 2010 | ######## | read |
| This Is Where I Leave You | Jonathan Tropper | 4 | 3.9 | Orion | 352 | 2009 | 8/3/2012 | read |
| The Magician’s Assistant | Ann Patchett | 3 | 3.6 | 8/8/2012 | read | |||
| A Walk Across the Sun | Corban Addison | 4 | 4.17 | SilverOak | 371 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d’Art | Christopher Moore | 4 | 3.74 | HarperCollins | 403 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| Prodigal Summer | Barbara Kingsolver | 3 | 3.91 | Harper Perennial | 444 | 2001 | ######## | read |
| The Buddha in the Attic | Julie Otsuka | 3 | 3.57 | Random House Audio | 0 | 2011 | ######## | read |
| One Last Thing Before I Go | Jonathan Tropper | 4 | 3.79 | Dutton Adult | 324 | 2012 | 9/3/2012 | read |
| Playing with Matches: A Novel | Carolyn Wall | 3 | 3.71 | Bantam | 320 | 2012 | 9/9/2012 | read |
| Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2) | J.K. Rowling | 4 | 4.23 | Listening Library | 9 | 2001 | ######## | read |
| Songs Without Words | Ann Packer | 2 | 2.94 | Random House Audio | 0 | 2007 | ######## | read |
| One Amazing Thing | Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni | 3 | 3.41 | Hyperion | 220 | 2010 | ######## | read |
| We Need to Talk About Kevin | Lionel Shriver | 4 | 4.01 | Harper Perennial | 400 | 2006 | ######## | read |
| The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag | Alan Bradley | 4 | 3.95 | Random House | 2010 | ######## | read | |
| Beautiful Ruins | Jess Walter | 4 | 3.85 | Harper | 337 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| In the Shadow of the Banyan | Vaddey Ratner | 4 | 4.12 | Simon & Schuster | 322 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| The Weird Sisters | Eleanor Brown | 3 | 3.39 | Penguin Audio | 158 | 2011 | ######## | read |
| Where’d You Go, Bernadette | Maria Semple | 4 | 3.98 | Little, Brown and Company | 326 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| Astray | Emma Donoghue | 4 | 3.64 | Little, Brown and Company | 288 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| The Forgetting Tree | Tatjana Soli | 3 | 3.15 | St. Martin’s Press | 404 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| Fool | Christopher Moore | 4 | 3.93 | HarperAudio | 0 | 2009 | ######## | read |
| Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3) | J.K. Rowling | 4 | 4.43 | Listening Library (Audio) | 10 | 2000 | ######## | read |
| Gold | Chris Cleave | 4 | 3.7 | Simon & Schuster | 324 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake | Anna Quindlen | 4 | 3.73 | Random House | 182 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| The Perks of Being a Wallflower | Stephen Chbosky | 4 | 4.14 | MTV Books and Pocket Books | 213 | 1999 | ######## | read |
| Tell the Wolves I’m Home | Carol Rifka Brunt | 5 | 4.21 | Random House Publishing Group | 355 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| Taft | Ann Patchett | 3 | 3.36 | Harper Perennial | 246 | 2003 | ######## | read |
| Flight Behavior | Barbara Kingsolver | 4 | 3.9 | HarperCollins | 436 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| Live by Night | Dennis Lehane | 4 | 3.87 | HarperAudio | 2012 | ######## | read | |
| On Canaan’s Side | Sebastian Barry | 4 | 3.83 | Faber and Faber | 2011 | ######## | read | |
| When it Happens to You | Molly Ringwald | 3 | 3.6 | Harper Collins | 256 | 2012 | ######## | read |
| One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd | Jim Fergus | 4 | 3.83 | St. Martin’s Griffin | 420 | 1999 | ######## | read |
| Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Harry Potter, #1) | J.K. Rowling | 4 | 4.34 | Scholastic Press | 310 | 2003 | read | |
| Away | Amy Bloom | 0 | 3.31 | Random House | 240 | 2007 | read | |
Related articles
- Reading Resolutions – The 2013 Edition (sffbookreview.wordpress.com)
- NYT’s best books of the year (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
- 100 Notable Books of 2012 (nytimes.com)
- The Books We Loved in 2012 (theatlanticwire.com)
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