2012 Book List - Part 2
My list of the 52 books I read in 2012, continued. Click here for Part 1.
(k) = Kindle
* = top picks
28. (k) The Tiger’s Wife – Tea Obreht
- This story took a long time to grab my attention but the vivid imagery and stories of this family and town in Eastern Europe have suck in my mind long after reading it.
29. Nineteen Seventy Four – David Peace
- Gritty detective novel set in England; lots of damp weather, bodies, smoking, and drinking. There are many more books in the series I’d like to read.
30. *(e) Bossypants – Tina Fey
- Hilarious! I love 30 Rock and I loved this book! Tina Fey reads the audiobook and it’s fun to hear her words from her voice. Great for car rides.
31. (e) The Cat Who Went Up a Creek – Lilian Jackson Braun
- Another cozy mystery – with the added bonus of a cute bed and breakfast setting!
32. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary
Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
- I enjoyed that this story was told through letters written between the characters. It’s set on a small island south of England right after WWII; great historical fiction.
33. (e) Runaway – Alice Munro
- Short stories about women running from different situations; the language is rich (sometimes slow) and always says a lot in few words. If I didn’t like one of the stories, another one came soon enough. Set in Canada.
34. Just Give Money to the Poor: The Development Revolution
from the Global South – Joseph Hanlon, Armando Barrientos, and David Hulme
35. *Still Life: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel – Louise
Penny
- So excited that I found this cozy mystery series set in Quebec! These stories paint a beautiful scene of small-town life and the mystery is better than most cozy mysteries.
36. (k) A Fatal Grace – Louise Penny
- Ditto to previous book.
37. (e) A Young Wife – Pam Lewis
- Story about immigration; young woman moves from her home in Amsterdam to Argentina and then New York in the early 1900s. I particularly liked the description of the Argentine frontier. Sometimes the wife was unrealistic and annoying.
38. The Soul’s Sincere Desire – Glenn Clark
- I get new inspiration from this book anytime I read it. However, this time the extended football and golf metaphors felt forced and old-school. Available free: http://cfointernational.org/?page_id=214
39. (e) A Cat Among the Pigeons – Agatha Christie
- Set in an English boarding school. A Poirot novel but, strangely, he doesn’t appear until the last 1/3 of the book!
40. Breadwinning Daughters: Young Working Women in a
Depression-Era City 1929-39 – Katrina Srigley
- I read this for my Canadian Working Class History class. I enjoyed reading so much about Toronto in the 1930s.
41. (e) The Private Patient – P.D. James
- I want to like her books. She’s so good at setting up gripping mysteries and then the end completely falls flat, ignoring all the good murder details she’s fed us throughout the story. So disappointing.
42. The Cruelest Month – Louise Penny
- Another great Quebec mystery. One of the detectives keeps making funny remarks about how Anglophones don’t dress as well as Francophones! J
43. Tick Bite Fever – David Bennun
- Memoir of a childhood in Kenya. This guy gets into SO much mischief! I read it in small chunks over a few months, otherwise it started to feel repetitive.
44. *(e) People of the Book – Geraldine Brooks
- Fabulous book! Similar in style to Bayatt’s Possession, there is a modern conservator who is researching the history of a Jewish Haggadah book and we get to hear about each of the historic owners of the book and their various fates. Wonderful characters, vivid historical descriptions, and beautifully read as an audiobook too.
45. The End of Men and the Rise of Women – Hanna Rosin
- I had to read this since I listen to her on the Double X Gabfest each week. She finds some interesting trends showing women are adapting to change and the new economy better than men are, leading to a gain of power. I don’t agree with it all, but fun to read and discuss.
46. *(k) Bedfellows – Bob Garfield
- Another podcast author! This is the guy from On the Media on NPR. The story can only be described as a mafia-comedy. It’s set in New Jersey, involves a mattress salesman, a kinder/gentler mod group, a hilarious heist, and caused me to laugh out loud more than a few times!
47. (e) The Litigators – John Grisham
- He does write a good lawyer novel! The main lawyers here are some ambulance chasers trying their luck at mass tort law. You so want the good guys to win!
48. The Moving Finger: A Miss Marple Mystery – Agatha
Christie
- By now, you should know I always like Agatha Christie.
49. (k) Gone Girl: A Novel – Gillian Flynn
- I waited to read this until I knew a flight to California would give me 5 straight hours to read it. It is a fast-moving thriller with some truly awful people. By the end I was disgusted with humanity and very happy with my marriage.
50. Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present – Frederick
Cooper
- Such a useful read. I follow current African politics but I didn’t know the details of the end-of-colonialism and nationalism era on the continent. It’s a book written for undergrad students and so it was the perfect level of complexity.
51. (e) Dune – Frank Herbert
- I’d never read this before – I’m not usually a sci-fi fan but it was pretty enjoyable as an audiobook.
52. Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed – Frances
Westley, Brenda Zimmerman, and Michael Patton
- Case studies of social change movements that actually worked! They had a fascinating discussion of the difference between thinking of something as complicated versus complex. Inspiring read.
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