End of the Year Roundup - Best Books of the Year

What were the three best books you read this year? Why did you choose those those books as your favorites? Was it hard to narrow it down to just three, or was it hard to find three books you enjoyed?

The Eight by Katharine Neville
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
Curse of the Mistwraith by Janny Wurts

Not necessarily in that order

Strictly based on ratings, I gave 3 books 5 stars this year. I did not include children's or YA literature.

Overall
1) The Notorious Elizabeth Tuttle by Ava Chamberlain
2) A Most Contagious Game by Catherine Aird
3) Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Now, I'm going to separate this into Fiction & Non-Fiction with some Honorable Mentions. The ones not mentioned above earned 4.5 stars from me.

Fiction
1) A Most Contagious Game by Catherine Aird
2) Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
3) Dissolution by C. J. Sansom
HM) And Justice There Is None by Deborah Crombie
HM) Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
HM) The Blood Detective by Dan Waddell
HM) Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

Non-Fiction
1) The Notorious Elizabeth Tuttle by Ava Chamberlain
2) By Faith Alone by Bill Griffeth
3) The Children of Willesden Lane by Mona Golabek
HM) Fever Season by Jeanette Keith
HM) Sustaining the Cherokee Family by Rose Stremlau

I guess it wasn't hard to narrow it down to 3 because I only gave 3 books 5 stars!

Favorite YA reads:
Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick
The Midnight Palace by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (reread)

Favorite Adult reads:
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Sea Wolf by Jack London
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (reread)

Favorite Nonfiction:
Atlantic: The Biography of an Ocean by Simon Winchester

Not mentioned above are books from two fabulous series:
Dr. Siri Paiboun series by Colin Cotterill
Roma sub Rosa: The Investigations of Gordianus the Finder series by Steven Saylor

Discounting any re-reads, my favorite new-to-me books this year were:

1) The Once and Future King by T.H. White
2) The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
3) Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat by Stephen Sondheim

Closely followed by all the books in the Vorkosigan saga. None individually ranks above those other three, but I tore through the first nine books and the series totally won me over.

Other runners-up include: Liesl and Po by Lauren Oliver, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skroot, Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim, Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexei, and Building Stories by Chris Ware

I only had 3 books that were 4.5★ or 5★.

1) Grant by Jean Edward Smith
2) The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
3) Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I liked (4 stars) most of the books I read this year but three stood out:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - 5 stars
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham - 4.5 stars
Out of Africa by Tania Blixen - 4.5 stars

At this moment I can only think of two that outshone the rest, The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater and Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. They were my two best reads of 2012 by far, and they may even be two of my new all-time favorites!

I just started Code Name Verity yesterday. Wow!

ed spelling - ooops!

Cod Name Verity sounds like an intriguing underwater adventure. :)

Joking aside, I just acquired that for my library and have been eager to read it!

@ 9/10 -- I should say that Code Name Verity a tad slow to get into, but stick with it! It's truly a wonderful book, in my opinion.

I can also only think of two for now: The Snow Child and The Defining Decade.

If I only pick three it would be:

1. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
2. The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
3. Emma by Jane Austen

My other nominees who also received 5 star ratings this year are:

1. Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
3. Persuasion by Jane Austen
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White
6. Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
7. Force of Nature by C.J. Box
8. The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

@ 13 -- Great to see three Austens on your list! :)

I had some good reads this year, many of them 5 star for me.

My favorites were:
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Left Neglected by Lisa Genova
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Followed by:
Robbing Bees by Holley Bishop
March by Geraldine Brooks
The Map of Lost Memories by Kim Fay

I have to do something about my rating system. Looking back on my 2012 reads, almost everything was 4 stars! That makes no sense, I was probably being too generous. Anyway, my top three are:

1. Hunger Games
2. The Warmth of Other Suns
3. Gone Girl

My three highest rated this year were:
1. Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan
2. When the Air Hits Your Brain by Frank T. Vertosick Jr.
3. Suddenly, a Knock on the Door by Etgar Keret

There were quite a few close "seconds" - I had a very good reading year.

Only two books received full 5 star ratings from me this year:

The Island Walkers by John Bemrose
Bilal's Bread by Sulayman X

I did have eight 4.5 star rating reads this year:

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Conference of the Birds by Peter Sis
Strawberries in January by Evelyne de la Cheneliere
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Whylah Falls by George Elliott Clarke
Ru by Kim Thuy
Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley

>16 lsh63: Lisa - I had a lot of books that had high ratings too and might need to find a way to make things a little more logical. Basically the star system only gives you 10 rankings for a book. Makes it a little hard to shade things a little better or a little worse. Especially the more books you read. If you read 90 books a year, you'd have to have 9 books that were 5s, 9 that were 4.5s, etc down to 9 .5s. Probably not likely. So some rankings would have a lot unless you got a batch of baaaad books. Which we wish on no one.

I had a great reading year and had a terrible time both finding any bad books and narrowing down the number of great reads. But here they are, in no particular order:

The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake -- This is a fantastical, weird and lush tale set in a richly imagined world. This deserves to be as well known and read as Tolkein and Lewis.

Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky -- A collection of tiny, isolated islands described and with an interesting story about each. Utterly compelling.

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood -- Maybe it was a case of the right book at the right time, but I was blown away by the story, the writing; everything actually.

No way can I stick to just three! I posted a full 24 standouts in my thread but narrowing down even further I have these twelve.

Last Chance to See -- Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine
The Social Conquest of Earth -- E. O. Wilson
The Violinist's Thumb -- Sam Kean
1491: new Revelations of the Americas -- Charles C. Mann
Atlas of Remote Islands -- Judith Schalansky
The Half-life of Facts -- Samuel Arbesman
A Free Man of Color -- Barbara Hambly
American Gods -- Neil Gaiman
11/22/63 -- Stephen King
Great Sky Woman -- Steven Barnes
The Technologists -- Matthew Pearl
Dandelion Wine -- Ray Bradbury

I had a very good reading year. If I have to narrow my list down to the 3 best, I'll have to go with these:

Given Up for Dead: America's Heroic Stand at Wake Island by Bill Sloan
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (audiobook read by Simon Prebble)
The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn

Easy for me to pick just 3 as that was how many received top marks for me in 2012:

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Absolute Sandman Volume Three by Neil Gaiman
Fables: The Deluxe Edition Book Five by Bill Willingham

Only three? Ah! I had about 15 4.5 or 5 star reads! But I'll make myself choose.

Don Quixote by Cervantes
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet by Jennifer Homans

Hard to choose three. My 4.5 and 5's were:

Tell The Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Sweetness of Tears by Nafisa Haji
Gillespie and I by Jane Harris
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Songs in Ordinary Time by Mary McGarry Morris
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz

I had 5 five-star reads in 2012, I can narrow them down to:
1. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
2. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
3. Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey

Only 3? Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire takes up 5 slots! However, my favorite of the 5 was

A Storm of Swords

And my other 2 favorite books of the year were

Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella
The Invisible Ones by Stef Penney