2012 was a good reading year for me, particularly the first half of the year.

Depending on how you count it, I read 156 or 160 books in 2012.  I read 156 distinct books, but I reread some of them, putting my total count at 160.  (That’s not counting books I didn’t finish for whatever reason– there are at least 3 where I made it to the halfway point before abandoning them.)

I went through to pick my top books I read during the year. I came up with a 16 of them I wanted to recognize– a top 10 list and 5 more I didn’t want to leave off .

The list is:

1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2. The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
3. The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani
4. Bury Your Dead/A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
5. Wonders of the Invisible World by Patricia McKillip
6. Spy Mom by Beth McMullen
7. Wallflower in Bloom by Claire Cook
8. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
9. Insurgent by Veronica Roth
10. Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
11. Garment of Shadows by Laurie R. King
12. The Lola Quartet by Emily St. John Mandel
13. How to Eat a Cupcake by Meg Donohue
14. The Garden Intrigue by Lauren Willig
15. How it all Began by Penelope Lively

The books on the list are fairly recently published– 11 from 2012, 4 from 2011, and 1 that I snuck in combined with another book, from 2010.  Only 45 of the books I read were published in 2012, so that’s pretty impressive.  I also read 40 books from 2011, 10 from 2010 and 47 from 2000-20009.  8 were from the 1990s, 3 from the 1980s, and then I had books from 1961, 1953, 1929 and 1595 (Romeo and Juliet).

Of the books on my list, I read 11 of them  before July 2012.  I liked most of the books I read during the year, but not many got past that level in the second half. This indicates that I need to start thinking harder about how I’m picking my books again.   I’ll set that as my first goal going forward to 2013.  I don’t know what form that will take, but I want to read more books I’m going to love, not just like.

My other goal is to get back to writing one review per week.  That won’t be everything– I’m planning to read around 150 books again this year, with an increasing number of them as audiobooks, but it is a number I think I can sustain.

Happy New Year everyone!  May 2013 bring you many books that you love.