Books Read in 2012

Well, it's the end of 2012 and I managed to finish 56 books in the last 366 days--that's 5 more than in 2011. That's probably due to the long stretches between new Doctor Who episodes and the extra 24 hours thanks to Leap Year. That and the fact that the lawn-mowing season started in May this year, and continued through November. Stupid grass.

I made my first BookCrossing wild releases on the European continent this year when I travelled to Paris, France, in May. Two of the books I released there were caught and journalled, making them my first international catches.

Here is a list of the books I finished in 2012. You can follow the links to their journal entries on BookCrossing; those books without a link were either borrowed, or are in my permanent collection for the moment. (K) indicates they were read on my Kindle Fire or the Kindle app on my iPod Touch; (A) means they were audiobooks; (R) means I re-read some old friends. My favorites this year? The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter, by Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook; Let's Pretend This Never Happened, by Jenny Lawson, a/k/a The Bloggess (who I was lucky enough to meet in person!); The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain; Gathering Blue, by Lois Lowry; Messenger, by Lois Lowry; American Gods, by Neil Gaiman; and The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman (who I was lucky enough to see in person!).

January

1. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs (K)
2. The Brilliant Book of Doctor Who 2012, edited by Clayton Hickman
3. The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain (K)
4. The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter, by Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook
5. I Want It Now!, by Julie Dawn Cole (K)
6. Death on a Silver Platter, by Ellen Hart
7. Espresso Shot, by Cleo Coyle

February
8. Big Fish, by Daniel Wallace
9. Hemingway's Ghost, by Layton Green (K)
10. Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry
11. Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris (A)

March
12. The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern (K)
13. Doctor Who: Night of the Humans, by David Llewellyn (A)
14. Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him, by Danielle Ganek

April
15. Waiting for Gertrude, by Bill Richardson
16. Wishful Drinking, by Carrie Fisher (A)
17. Highlander: Scimitar, by Ashley McConnell

May
18. Chasing Mona Lisa, by Tricia Goyer and Mike Yorkey (K)
19. Star Trek: Nemesis, by J.M. Dillard (A)
20. 1776, by David McCullough (A)
21. Because She Can, by Bridie Clark (A)
22. Doctor Who: The Last Voyage, by Dan Abnett (A)
23. Doctor Who: Dead Air, by James Goss (A)
24. Let's Pretend This Never Happened, by Jenny Lawson, a/k/a The Bloggess
25. The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain
26. Murder on the Eiffel Tower, by Claude Izner

June
27. In Our Time, by Ernest Hemingway
28. The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo (A)
29. A Study in Scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (K)
30. Any Place I Hang My Hat, by Susan Isaacs

July
31. The Guinea Pig Diaries, by A.J. Jacobs (A)
32. I Was Amelia Earhart, by Jane Mendelsohn (A) (R)

August
33. The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton (K)
34. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum (K)
35. Survival of the Sickest, by Dr. Sharon Moalem
36. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by J.K. Rowling (A) (R)

September
37. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
38. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde (R)
39. Best Foot Forward, by Joan Bauer (A)
40. Portrait of Bethany, by Anne Weale
41. Gathering Blue, by Lois Lowry
42. Messenger, by Lois Lowry

October
43. Reunion, by Michael Jan Friedman (A)
44. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman (K)

November
45. The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
46. Pearl Harbor, by Randall Wallace (A)
47. Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys
48. Moranthology, by Caitlin Moran
49. FlashForward, by Robert J. Sawyer
50. Visions of Sugar Plums, by Janet Evanovich
51. If We Ever Break Up, This Is My Book, by Jason Logan

December
52. Holiday Grind, by Cleo Coyle
53. The Mirror Crack'd, by Agatha Christie
54. Dead End in Norvelt, by Jack Gantos
55. The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester
56. A Shtinky Little Christmas, by Patrick McDonnell

Chasing Mona Lisa, by Tricia Goyer and Mike Yorkey

I really liked the action-adventure-spy-mystery parts of this book that takes place in the days just before and after the liberation of Paris in August 1944, but I could have done without the cliché love stories. It was like the authors took a few pages from a Ken Follett book, then a few pages from a Harlequin romance, back to the action, time for some gooey stuff, back and forth, and so on. I did enjoy it, but I would have liked to like it all.

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern

Wasn't there an episode of "Torchwood" that featured a circus that was open only at night and that seemed to appear like magic in a clearing in the forest? With that in mind, I thought this book would be more sinister than it turned out to be. Erin Morgenstern was very adept at describing her fantastical world and drawing the reader in, but I'm not sure anything really happened plotwise. Perhaps that's part of the mystery of the circus.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs

Borrowed from my local library. I was expecting this book to be a grownup horror story. It started off strong and properly spooky, but the second half devolved into some sort of teen X-Men-wannabe action-adventure with an icky-if-I-think-about-it-too-much love story thrown in. It was a promising premise: I loved the strange old photos, but the story took a wrong turn for me. If Riggs had finished the story he started, or started the story he finished, I probably would have liked both books better than this amalgamation.