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Favorite Books of 2012

22:43 Sun 13 Jan 2013
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2012 was another year of little reading for me. I finished 37 books, with long periods of not reading anything at all.

The best book I read was James Gleick’s The Information, a history of information and our ways of conceptualizing it. Some of it was familiar to me, but much of it was new, and all of it fascinating. I highly recommend it.

Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives was at times frustrating and at times brilliant. Ultimately it wasn’t a masterpiece, but it kept me in its way of thinking more than any other book I read last year.

Alone in Berlin was the stylistic opposite of The Savage Detectives, very steady and methodical, but extremely effective at conveying the atmosphere of Nazi-era Berlin.

I had read Consider Phlebas before, and I enjoyed it thoroughly this time, although some of its flaws (sections that clearly could have been cut, for example) were more apparent to me this time through. Still amazing science fiction, and I think the prologue and first chapter are both masterful pieces of writing. I also read The Hydrogen Sonata and loved it—as I’ve loved basically every Culture novel.

I finally got around to reading The Blind Assassin, and enjoyed it, although I did ultimately find it unsatisfying: the underlying plot didn’t quite seem to hold the weight of the various narrative pieces.

The same could be said for 1Q84, which I also liked. I wonder, though, if any Murakami book I read is doomed to pale in comparison to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl was really good, with a near-future setting that’s all too plausible. I also really liked The Lathe of Heaven, which had some amazing writing in it and which raises very pertinent questions about the wisdom of striving to improve the world.

I was most disappointed by My Name is Red, which I found nearly unreadable for large stretches. There were some fabulous chapters, but most of the book just did not work for me. I was disappointed in a different way with The God of Small Things—I liked it a lot, but had heard so many good things about it that I expected it to be better than it was. It’s possible that my perspective on modern Indian literature has been permanently skewed by A Fine Balance, which towers above the other works I’ve read.

The books I read in 2012:

01

About Time, Adam Frank

70%

07 Jan

02

The Adjustment, Scott Phillips

65%

07 Jan

03

The Information, James Gleick

90%

13 Feb

04

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford

75%

26 Mar

05

Half Blood Blues, Esi Edugyan

75%

28 Mar

06

Heavy Time, C. J. Cherryh

70%

14 Apr

07

Hellburner, C. J. Cherryh

70%

20 Apr

08

A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan

75%

23 Apr

09

The Baseball Codes, Jason Turbow, Michael Duca

80%

26 Apr

10

The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood

80%

28 Apr

11

The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi

80%

03 May

12

The Hammer, K. J. Parker

80%

04 May

13

The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolaño

85%

05 May

14

My Name Is Red, Orhan Pamuk

65%

16 May

15

This Time Is Different, Carmen M. Reinhart, Kenneth Rogoff

60%

06 Jun

16

God’s War, Kameron Hurley

75%

09 Jun

17

Alone in Berlin, Hans Fallada

85%

10 Jun

18

Transition, Iain Banks

80%

13 Jun

19

The Sea, John Banville

80%

17 Jun

20

The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

80%

28 Jun

21

No Place to Hide, Robert O’Harrow

70%

07 Jul

22

The Haunted Mesa, Louis L’Amour

55%

10 Jul

23

Anarcho-Syndicalism, Rudolf Rocker

75%

16 Jul

24

The Damned Utd, David Peace

75%

17 Jul

25

The Silent Season of a Hero, Gay Talese

75%

28 Jul

26

1Q84, Haruki Murakami

80%

22 Aug

27

Star Lord, Donald G. Phillips

40%

01 Sep

28

The Lathe Of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin

80%

07 Oct

29

The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks

80%

13 Oct

30

vN, Madeline Ashby

75%

06 Nov

31

Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks

85%

28 Nov

32

Red Country, Joe Abercrombie

80%

15 Dec

33

Sharps, K. J. Parker

70%

15 Dec

34

Company of Liars, Karen Maitland

75%

26 Dec

35

Ready Player One, Ernest Cline

75%

27 Dec

36

The Mote in God’s Eye, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle

75%

31 Dec

37

When Gravity Fails, George Alec Effinger

75%

31 Dec

The rating reflects how much I enjoyed the book, and is not my take on how good the book is, subjectively or objectively.

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