2012 in Books

1. Best book you read in 2012? Two-way tie between “Atonement” by Ian McEwan, and “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger. I just love those two books with a passion of, well, a senior thesis :)

2. Book you were excited about and thought you were going to love more but didn’t? “Sexing the Cherry” by Jeanette Winterson. It had been compared to “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood (and a personal favorite of mine), which had me excited at first. It ended up being too heavy-handed and angry with its “men are abusers and they will never understand us, ever” mantra and I was annoyed by it instead.

3. Most surprising book of 2012? “A Storm of Swords” by G.R.R. Martin, for reasons that will be very apparent to anybody who has read that book. I did not expect that plot twist, and it make me love G.R.R. Martin for doing that with his characters. For those same reasons, I can’t wait for the next season of Game of Thrones, and the reaction from viewers :) 

4. Book you recommended to people most in 2012? I’d have to say “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger for this one. Mostly due to my honors thesis; the other two novels had been read in during one of the previous seminars, but this text was self-selected for my topic. As such, I constantly recommended it to everybody any time I talked about my thesis. 

5. Best series you discovered in 2012? “A Song of Ice and Fire,” followed by “The Hunger Games.”

6. Favorite new authors you discovered in 2012? G.R.R. Martin (of course), and Gregory Maguire 

7. Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for you? “The Woman in Black” by Susan Hill. It was one of my first forays into the Victorian gothic/horror genre and I liked it well enough. 

8. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2012? Going to have to go with “The Hunger Games” for this one. I read all three books, one after the other, in the span of five hours during spring break. Even for books I like, I rarely do this. I’m more of a read-books-bit-by-bit type of person. 

9. Book you are most likely to re-read in 2013? Any of the three texts I wrote my thesis on. (“Atonement”, “History of Love”, “Time Traveler’s Wife”) Add “Wicked” to that list, though I’m unlikely to read it cover-to-cover again.

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2012? I really liked the cover art for my copy of Kafka’s “The Trial”. 

11. Most memorable character in 2012? Elphaba. Fierce, enigmatic, and philosophical. Lonely, vengeful, independent, vulnerable. She runs the full spectrum of emotional states and she makes for a fascinating protagonist. 

12. Most beautifully-written book read in 2012? “Atonement.” So wonderfully, intricately written, I don’t even. “The anticipation and dread he felt at seeing her was also a kind of sensual pleasure, and surrounding it, like an embrace, was a general elation- it might hurt, it was horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but he had found out for himself what it was to be in love, and it thrilled him.” Just the interiority in his prose is amazing. 

13. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2012? “Game of Thrones.” To recap, I loved epic, medieval fantasy back in the day, but I’d largely fallen out of the genre for a while. I still liked urban fantasies like “Harry Potter,” “Dresden Files” and “Neverwhere,” but I had largely stopped reading high fantasy. I picked up “Game of Thrones” because the TV show was out and everybody was reading it. Fell straight back into loving high fantasy, started playing World of Warcraft again, and finished the book in three days. So there you have it. 

14. Book you can’t believe you waited until 2012 to finally read? “Wicked: Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.” So worth it.

15. Favorite passage/quote from a book you read in 2012? “She need not judge. There did not have to be a moral. She need only show separate minds, as alive as her own, struggling with the idea that other minds were equally alive. It wasn’t only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. And only in a story could you enter these different minds and show how they had equal value. That was the only moral a story need have.” Ian McEwan, Atonement

16. Shortest and longest books you read in 2012? Shortest; “On Chesil Beach” by Ian McEwan. Longest; possibly one of the G.R.R. Martin books?

17. Book that had a scene in it that had you reeling and dying to talk to somebody about it? The coda ending of “Atonement. That is, if spending an hour discussing it with my honors seminar counts as "talking to somebody about it.”

18. Favorite relationship from a book you read in 2012 (be it romantic, friendship, etc). Elphaba and Fiyero. Make no mistake, I love them together in the musical, but my goodness. Their story arc and relationship in the novel was incredibly-written. Romance with a good bit of angst, with long and insightful political and philosophical discussions. Elphaba gets her little bit of happiness, and she never forgets it. “And though she could not tried not to sleep, on occasion, she could not help it; her dreams brought Fiyero closer and closer to home.” (Wicked, page 390) 

“Atonement” and “The Time Traveler’s Wife” get honorary mentions. It would have been an impossible three way tie, but I’ve already spent three months of my life writing my honors thesis on the nuances in Robbie and Cecelia and Henry and Clare’s relationships and blogged fairly extensively on them as well. But seriously. Any author considering writing about relationships should read these three novels and take note. They show three very different romantic relationships and portray them with such pathos and humanity. 

*NB: I don’t consider romantic relationships to be the most important or special type of relationship to portray, but I do consider them to be the most easily portrayed terribly, particularly because they’re far and away the most popular. That’s why my respect meter goes up so high when an author is able to write a good one, despite everything.

19. Favorite book you read in 2012 from an author you read previously. “Sentimental Education” by Flaubert. I read “Madame Bovary” a while back. 

20. Best book you read that you read based solely on a recommendation from somebody else? “On Chesil Beach.” It was recommended to me by a professor for the topic of my undergraduate research symposium presentation. It was enjoyable and relevant to my research. So glad it was recommended to me.

21. One book you didn’t get to in 2012 but will be your priority in 2013? “A Feast for Crows” and “A Dance with Dragons,” at least, before I spoil anymore plot points for myself. Following that, J.K. Rowling’s new novel, and more of Gregory Maguire’s works.  

22. One thing you hope to accomplish or do in your reading/blogging in 2013? Quite simply, keep reading and keep blogging about literature. I’m technically done with the English major and while I could still take more classes just for interest, it’s likely that my days of being assigned reading and writing research papers on literature are behind me. That said, I firmly believe that reading literature intelligently and critically is a good thing.