Books of 2012

And here are my own newly-published books of the year for the series Books of 2012:-

JMG

Book of the Year: Robert Caro's The Passage of Power:-

The fourth volume of his extraordinary biography of LBJ, and one of the great story-telling achievements of our age. This is the most dramatic to date, covering Kennedy's assassination and Johnson's assumption of the Presidency, but the immense first volume, covering LBJ's early political years in Texas, is just as thrilling. 

And some others:

Non-Fiction

• Selina Guinness: The Crocodile by the Door - the story of a house, a farm and a family. Here's our review.
• Michael Gorra: Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece. An elegant and beautifully-achieved account of one of English literature's greatest novels.
• Jeanette Winterson: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Storytelling that is painful and funny. Also, a passionate defence of the power of literature.
• Thomas Newkirk: The Art of Slow Reading. Thoughtful meditation on the nature of reading, and on teaching English.
• Alan Jacobs: The Pleasures of Readingin an Age of Distraction. Our review here.

Fiction

• Belinda McKeon: Solace. Our review here.
• Keith Ridgway: Hawthorn and Child. Innovative and haunting. Read John Self's review on his blog here.
  
• Roddy Doyle: Two Pints. Two middle-aged men sit in a pub once a week and spout about life. It could be terrible. But it's not. It's seriously funny.
• Kevin Barry: Dark Lies the Island. The second book of short stories from the new shooting star of Irish literature. Here's our review of the award-winning 'Beer Trip to Llandudno'. The rest are very different. Barry has quite a range.
• Donna Leon: Beastly Things. Simply, always pleasurable. Leon's Brunetti detective series maintains its high standard, and in recent years she's expanded her concerns well beyond those of genre fiction.
• Gerbrand Bakker: The Detour. All the virtues of Bakker's award-winning The Twin are evident here too: the calm clarity of the prose (again beautifully translated from the Dutch by David Colmer), the underlying sense of unease, the narrative grip of a story in which, on the surface, not much seems to happen.
• Teju Cole: Open City. Our review here.

[Books first published in hardback or paperback in 2012].

'The Art of Fielding'

What was your Book of 2012? Fill in our survey here - we'll be blogging responses leading up to Christmas.

@LucyAughney chose Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding:

Amusing, literary, earnest novel about young people finding their way in college and life, and the baseball scenes are thrilling even to a non baseball fan. 

'Indian Horse' and more

What was your Book of 2012? Fill in our survey here - we'll be blogging responses leading up to Christmas.

@chrysalis57 chose Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese:
1. Literature should provoke an emotional reaction - this novel did that more than any other I've read in years - anger, empathy, sadness, joy - Indian Horse has it all.
2. The language - Richard's prose is beautiful and lyrical.

Teachcmb56 went for Katherine Boo's Beyond the Beautiful Forevers:
Following in the new form of fiction/non-fiction. I was the "fly on the wall" watching this Mumbai neighborhood ... could not escape, and I did not want to until the end.

Barney - The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt:
It was a fantastic book which kept hold of me from the very start. It had everything you would want from a book. It had action, drama, comedy, fleshed out characters and twists and turns you would never of expected. It was made me actually care a great deal about what happened to the characters and the ending was fantastic. It ended the book so well. I would highly recommend it to everyone as it would appeal to everyone.

And three anonymous recommendations:

 The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller - Beautifully written love story.

Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper - A beautiful tale of how every student has potential and what happens when we fail to recognize it.

Mr Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan - Clever clever clever!

 

'Home' & 'The Girl...'

What was your Book of 2012? Fill in our survey here - we'll be blogging responses leading up to Christmas.

@simonmlewis chose Bill Bryson's Home: a short history of private life:

I love Bill Bryson's narrative style. I love the way he can't help going off in tangents and this book about the rooms in his house gave him lots of freedom to deviate from describing the history of particular rooms to bizarre factoids and stories from American and English history. The book could have been twice as long and I still would have enjoyed it.

@acuparia went for the spectacularly named The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente:

This beautiful creation will be the source of a new generation's fairytales...

'Dark Lies the Island' & 'The Orphan Master's Son'

What was your Book of 2012? Fill in our survey here - we'll be blogging responses leading up to Christmas.

 

@rozzlewis chose Dark Lies the Island by Kevin Barry (see our review of one of the stories here):

Kevin is the new master of the Irish short story. His work demands performance. He writes in such a unique and comic way about everyday lives in awful places in Ireland. The people are mostly horrid, his stories are incredibly dark and end with an ultra non-epiphany. I don't usually reread books but have read and read his stories over and over.

@endaconneely went for The Orphan Master's Son, by Adam Johnson:

A fantastic insight into the reality of life behind the DMZ written by a man who has spent a lot of time behind it. Also, the best caricature of The Dear Leader since Team America!

'Behind the Beautiful Forevers'

What was your Book of 2012? Fill in our survey here - we'll be blogging responses leading up to Christmas. 

@literacyadviser chose a book often mentioned in the press surveys, Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers: life, death and hope in a Mumbai undercity :

This was possibly the best book I read in 2012 because it provides a powerful evocation of the differences between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' in one of the world's emerging economic powerhouses - India. Although listed as 'reportage' the book reads like a novel and the characters are beautifully drawn.

'Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight' & 'Sing You Home'

What was your Book of 2012? Fill in our survey here - we'll be blogging responses leading up to Christmas. 

Cathie Cahill chose Alexandra Fuller's memoir, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight:

Beautifully written, poignant, funny, fascinating account of a Rhodesian childhood with eccentric parents. 

@gillmac went for Jodi Picoult's Sing You Home :

Stunning story, well written. Its characters stuck with me afterwards.

'City of Bohane' and more

 What was your Book of 2012? Fill in our survey here - we'll be blogging responses leading up to Christmas.

@allprops crammed in four books ... 

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward; City of Bohane by Kevin Barry;  Pure by Julianna Baggott ; A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash:-

A wonderfully dark, resolute warning for a dark resolute age. Each narrator adds to the
layers  of evil that permeate this book. The Pastor is as nasty and brutish as any Claudius or Iago.

'The Passage of Power'

What was your Book of 2012? Fill in our survey here - we'll be blogging responses leading up to Christmas.

John Fanagan chooses The Passage of Power by Robert A. Caro:-

It is the fourth and penultimate volume of what is the best biography I have ever read. Its subject, President Lyndon Johnson, was a deeply flawed political figure, president by accident when Kennedy was assassinated. Yet he achieved more than any president in history in his great civil rights reforms. Indeed the election of Barack Obama might be said to be his political legacy. The Passage of Power deals with Johnson's miserable three years as Kennedy's vice-president up to the day of his first State of the Union address two months after becoming president. His assured assumption of power, and how he immediately set to work using it, was astonishing. You will not read a better book this year. 

 

'The Yellow Birds'

What was your Book of 2012? Fill in our survey here - we'll be blogging responses leading up to Christmas.

@gutterbookshop chose The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, winner of the Guardian First Book Award recently (hear him discuss the novel on a podcast here):

I read this over the Summer and was blown away by the raw honesty of Powers' writing. An unflinching portrayal of what young soldiers go through in modern warfare and the psychological effects it has on them when they return to 'normality', this is a stunning piece of writing that stays with you long after you've finished reading it.

'Jammy Dodger', 'The New Kings of Non-Fiction'

What was your Book of 2012? Fill in our survey here - we'll be blogging responses leading up to Christmas.

@Elaine_Dobbyn went for Ira Glass's collection The New Kings of Non-Fiction:  
A brilliant collection of fascinating non-fiction articles.

Rachel Jones chose Jammy Dodger by Kevin Smith:
By a mile the best book I read this year, a hilariously funny satire about two guys trying to run a poetry magazine in Belfast. Lots of wisecracks about poetry but also about life in general, with some fabulous descriptive passages and a very convincing love story thrown in. This was recommended to me by a friend and to be honest I didn't like the sound of it but once I started reading I couldn't put it down. Comic fiction that will really cheer you up.

'Reamde' and 'The Wind-up Girl'

What was your book of 2012? Fill in our survey here - we'll be blogging responses leading up to Christmas.

@1healigan chose two books -  

Reamde by Neal Stephenson:
This was geek, action & mythic journey all in one book. Characters I loved included a 6' 2" Chinese gamer and hacker named Marlon, a tiny Chinese big foot woman, a British-Chinese MI6 agent by default, a beautiful African adoptee magma flow scientist, a hairy Hungarian mob techie, drug smuggler turned game entrepreneur, American assassin, a chivalrous Russian hitman, an autistic Seattle programmer and gun enthusiast, Russian mobster gone crazy (?), and a charming jihadist truly worthy of a Bond movie (Abdallah Jones? really?)....a rollicking ride through a world I know nothing about. Very satisfying.
 
The Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi:
I loved this book. Was it cynical, dystopian, fatalistic? Of course. But Bacigalupi's new Garden of Eden was gorgeous, and troubling and absolutely absorbing. An extra bonus? A new Eve.

'Oogy' and 'Wonder'

What was your book of 2012? Fill in our survey here - we'll be blogging responses leading up to Christmas.

@march4teachers chose Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love  -

It was the best because it didn't end with a cliffhanger-buy-the-sequel type situation. It was about unconditional love and tolerance. 
 
And @wilkins105 went for Wonder by R.J. Palacio, which we reviewed here in the summer -

It is a great book for all ages that teaches compassion for others with disabilities.

'Wilderness'

What was your book of 2012? Fill in our survey here - we'll be blogging responses leading up to Christmas.

Wilderness by Lance Weller is the choice of @kenc18:

Beautifully written, richly descriptive book. Two plot lines with the same protagonist: one, set in 1899, a harrowing account of a dying, ex-Confederate soldier confronting brigands in the Pacific northwest; the other, set in 1864, a gut-wrenching narrative of his service in the Civil War's Wilderness Campaign. If you like war literature and writers' writers, you'll embrace Weller's debut work.

Charles Dickens: a life

What was your book of 2012? Fill in our survey here - we'll be blogging responses leading up to Christmas.

Claire Tomalin's Charles Dickens: a life is the choice of @bellitum:

Fascinating in its detail. Wonderfully researched. Third Tomalin biog I have read (Pepys, Hardy). All great. Intrigued as to how Dickens was so humane towards the downtrodden and yet so cruel to some of his own family. A puzzle. Great springboard for reading more Dickens - read Barnaby Rudge in the past year as a result.

Best Book of 2012

What was the best (new or old) book you read in 2012?

Just click here or fill in the form below (remember to click 'Submit' at the end).

We'll be blogging your responses in the lead-up to Christmas, as well as (soon) compiling our Best of the Year lists from the media, as we did in 2011 and 2010.