Top 3 Books You Read in 2012

[SkynJay]

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Use of Weapons by Iain Banks

A giant 3 or 4 way tie for the rest, so I decided to keep at at 2. But those were two I had been wanting to read for a while, and both lived up to the hype.

[Daenerys is my queen]

1. The ASOIAF series

2. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

3. Insurgent by Veronica Roth

[pat5150]

Well, I just posted my Speculative Fiction Top 10 of 2012 here.

My favorite reads was Ian Tregillis' The Coldest War, Paul Kearney's Kings of the Morning, and James S. A. Corey's Caliban's War. . .

Patrick

[MaesterHeisenberg]

Hands down the best thing I read this year was The Devil All The Time by Donald Ray Pollock.

2. Ready Player One - Cline

3. Red Country - Abercrombie

[red snow]

1) The King's blood - Daniel Abraham

2) Red country - Joe Abercrombie

3) Wise man's fear - Patrick rothfuss

[Starkess]

According to goodreads, I've read 49 books so far this year. (Times like these I really love goodreads! I could never remember what I read this year otherwise. Not sure what that says about the lasting impact of my reading, but eh...)

My top three? Hm.

1. Hyperion by Dan Simmons (1989). Maybe one of my favorite books ever. Sucked me in and didn't let me go. Less than a week to read this one.

2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2009). One of those books that actually lived up to the hype for me. It was utterly enthralling, I tore through this one in a single day.

3. Devices and Desires by KJ Parker (2005). I like KJ Parker, but had only read her standalones before. Picked this one up and was done in two days flat. Couldn't put it down.

3. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1974). Wonderful book. Think it has really stood the test of time. Probably about 3 days to read this one, I cried, I laughed, I loved it.

Okay so I have a tie for #3! Sue me.

Looking at my list I realize that they are all first books of series. And futhermore, that the subsequent books in the series were enjoyable but not up to the standard of the first. (With the possible exception of The Forever War--I know it is part of a series but it felt so self-contained that I didn't feel the need to read on.) Kinda weird but oh well.

[Procrastimancer]

Angelmaker - Nick Harkaway

The White Forest - Adam McOmber

Year Zero - Rob Reid

Honorable Mention: Caliban's War - James S.A. Corey

Even so short a list isn't an easy one to make. I lost track of how many books I read this year and there were very few that actually impressed me. I'm not sure this list consists of the best that I have read this year because I haven't really given it any thought, but they are among the most enjoyable books that I read this year.

[RedEyedGhost]

I'm on book 55 for the year, and I only rated 3 of them five stars on librarything.

Of the three, I would put them in this order:

1. Gears of the City by Felix Gilman

2. Changes by Jim Butcher

3. The Rise of Ransom City by Felix Gilman

[PetyrPunkinhead]

The only three non-work related novels I read this year were the first three books from SOIAF. Naturally, A Storm of Swords was my favorite.

[delete this account pls]

1) Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel. Wolf Hall is one of my all-time favourites. The sequel is just as strong, while also having a different feel - leaner, more focused, and darker. I love the style and rhythm of Mantel's prose.

2) In The Woods by Tana French. The bare bones of the actual story is actually a bit ridiculous - which I soon learned was kinda a habit with French's books - but the tone, the atmosphere, the prose, the characterization were all amazing. Months later, and I can still remember, and be slightly creep-ed out by, some of the scarier passages. The highly ambiguous ending probably pissed off a lot of people, but I really liked it. The next two novels in the series, which I also read this year, are likewise very strong, but this one gets a slight edge because of the way it really got into my head and genuinely scared me at times.

3) Infinite Kung-Fu by Kagan McLeod. An incredibly entertaining and gorgeously illustrated graphic novel. Like the biggest kung-fu fantasy epic you can imagine. Look, if someone is going to write a comic book in which one kung-fu master punches another kung-fu master so hard that they begin to vomit up scorpions, it's going to make my "best of" list.

Honourable Mentions: Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian, The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe, A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel.

[TheEvilKing]

1. Deadwood by Pete Dexter - Gritty as fuck, funny, sad.

2. Nothing To Envy by Barbara Demick - A non-fiction account of the lives of a handful of North Korean refugees. A fascinating read.

3. The Collector by John Fowles - So creepy and disturbing and frustrating.

Interesting that none of my top three are sci-fi/fantasy novels.

Honourable mentions: God's War by Kameron Hurley, Brasyl by Ian McDonald, Talulla Rising by Glen Duncan, The Scar by China Mieville, Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King

Best book I read that was released this year - Sharps by KJ Parker.

[Cuchulain]

Goodreads tells me I've read 80 books this year. These are the ones I've rated the highest:

Railsea - China Miéville

The Dervish House - Ian McDonald

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline

V - Thomas Pynchon

The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins

[wolverine]

1) Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel. Wolf Hall is one of my all-time favourites. The sequel is just as strong, while also having a different feel - leaner, more focused, and darker. I love the style and rhythm of Mantel's prose.

Good to hear as Wolf Hall is on my TBR pile.

1. Matterhorn-One of the more moving and authentic feeling books I have ever read.

2. The Wind Through the Keyhole-I really enjoyed this fairy tale like return to Mid-World. Which is kind of strange because I did not really like King's other fairy tale attempt.

3. Heroes Die-This read was just too much fun for me.

Honorable Mention: Left Hand of Darkness

[Bellis]

Railsea - China Mieville

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

Eutopia - David Nickel

[Zach H]

1. Mother London, Michael Moorcock

2. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami

3. Forge of Darkness, Steven Erikson

[Spockydog]

Fuck it, I'm naming five...

1. Of Blood and Honey - Stina Leicht

2. The Passage - Justin Cronin

3. To Reign in Hell - Steven Brust

4. Caliban's War - James S A Corey

5. Breed - Chase Novak

[Turinqui-Calima]

Thinking back (i,e, checking my Goodreads list) I had a pretty crappy year when it comes to reading. I need to spend more time on the board for some good recommendations. Having said that I did read (all for the first time):

1) Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams

2) The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

3) The Harry Potter Series (Plot holes and all, I really had a lot of fun reading these books and really cared about some of the characters.)

[Datepalm]

I appear to have had a pretty awful year, bookwise. I'm really struggling to think of 3 books that were simply blow-me-away excellent, and i've got none in fiction. I read about 70 books this year, and the three that make the cut are

- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

- Jack Glass, by Adam Roberts,

- Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer

Life was the best of the three, Jack Glass was flawed but interesting and unusual and Into Thin Air is excellently written and gripping, but it feels like a flimsy book to name one of the top 3 of the year, but I guess it's been that kind of year. I enjoyed sequels to a few series I usually enjoy - Tchaikovsky, Novik, Griffin, Aaronson, Banks, but all of them feel a little insubstantial and more of the same. I also like the new books from Rowling, Brin, Reynolds and Robinson, but all were way short of best books of the year status. I read some older stuff, but none of it was mindblowing and some of it downright bad (hi, Tigana) though I did finally find some Charles Stross I could like and the Ken Macleod and Jasper Fforde books weren't bad.

Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men by Mara Hvistendahl.

I've been meaning to read this - glad to hear it's good.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

According to Goodreads, I've read 79 books. Picking just three is hard, but these ones stand out for me.

The NIght Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon

The General's Mistress by Jo Graham (I thought is was her best novel since Black Ships).

Honourable mentions: The Air War by Tchaikovsky, The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway, Canada's Stonehenge by Freeman, Spirit's End by Rachel Aaron.

[Starkess]

1. Matterhorn-One of the more moving and authentic feeling books I have ever read.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I read this one last year and loved it. In fact, I thought it was so great that I got a copy for my dad for Christmas this year, even though I'm about 50% sure I got him a copy last year. I decided that the risk of him not reading it was worse than the risk of him having two copies! (And I included a gift receipt, just in case.)