Top 3 Books You Read in 2012

[King Tyrion I]

I also read ASoIaF this year, and I'm also going to count that as one.

Another great book I read was "The city and the city" by China Miéville.

Another fine read was "Monster" by A. Lee Martinez.

[mjgambino]

1. The Count of Monte Cristo. Loved every second of it. It started me on a Dumas kick for the rest of the year.

2. Red Country. I only "just liked" The First Law Trilogy, but Red Country blew me away. I happen to be a huge fan of westerns, so I'm sure that helped.

3. Jack Glass. I didn't think I would like this based on the description, but my brother managed to talk me into checking it out. I'm glad I did, it was awesome.

[Opisthokont]

Apparently a lot of people read Use of Weapons this year, myself included. Nothing wrong with that, it's a very good book. In fact, as well as being on my list of best books I read this year I'd probably consider it one of my favourite books, period.

I haven't read any Culture novels since Consider Phlebas, which I thought was bloody awful. The Algebraist was nice though, so I'm not completely averse to Banks. I'm reading Feersum Endjinn now.

[Liffguard]

I haven't read any Culture novels since Consider Phlebas, which I thought was bloody awful. The Algebraist was nice though, so I'm not completely averse to Banks. I'm reading Feersum Endjinn now.

I haven't read Consider Phlebas yet. From what I've heard it's one of Banks' weaker novels. Like I said upthread, if you want to get into more Culture novels I'd recommend The Player of Games followed by Use of Weapons.

The Player of Games is a pretty good book and helps flesh out the setting a fair bit. Use of Weapons is absolutely sublime.

[Garett Hornwood]

I read 28 books this year (27 complete books and 1 partial one at the beginning of January). Of those 12 of them were from the WoT series which included the prequel, New Spring. So instead of ranking my top three books of the year, I'm going to select the top book in three categories...

Best WoT book-- The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan

Best History-- The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan

Best Nonfiction-- The Monster of Florence by Preston Douglas w/Mario Spezi

Next year, I'll be reading from several different series so I should be able to do a more traditional ranking Top 3.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Ah! I finished "The Forever War" a few days ago. It's definitely tied with someone in my top 3. Great book, and it's aged surprisingly well, since Haldeman was wisely vague about the advances in technology.

[Swift]

I read 20 books this year - 18 fiction and 2 non-fiction (excluding texts and such that I read for work). My top three are:

1. Prince of Nothing/Aspect Emperor

2. Thrawn Trilogy (also read the Hand of Thrawn Duology, but it wasn't as good)

3. The Hunger Games (read the first book and thought it was pretty fun, but had no desire to read the sequels .. maybe I'll get to that in 2013).

Feels kind of cheap to list series, but if I didn't my top three would be even more boring than it already is.

[Larry.]

Although I wrote a fuller list of 25 (and 10 honorable mentions) on my blog, the top 3 out of that were:

3. László Krasznahorkai, Satantango

2. Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies

1. Junot Díaz, This is how You Lose Her

[Biter]

- 11/22/63 by Stephen King

- Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

- The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

[mjgambino]

Larry, not to derail the thread, but said in your blog that you read 501 books this year. How is that even possible? Are you just an insanely fast reader or do you do some kind of speed reading type thing? Also, how do you have to time to do other things... like write a blog... or sleep?

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to be a smart ass. I read 60 books this year, and I felt like I was using all of my free time (and even some time when I should have been working) to read, so I'm just trying to comprehend how some can read 8x as much as me in one year.

...and to think, I was proud of myself for averaging more than 1 book a week.

Although I wrote a fuller list of 25 (and 10 honorable mentions) on my blog, the top 3 out of that were:

3. László Krasznahorkai, Satantango

2. Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies

1. Junot Díaz, This is how You Lose Her

[Procrastimancer]

He taught himself how to speed read at the age of two and used the subsequent years to hone it into a skill that could almost double for a lame mutant power. Now, at the height of his power he can read a hundred pages per hour and over two hundred if he brings his army of highly-trained reading squirrels into play.

[sologdin]

book per week is a good pace. don't guilt out over it.

larry is our setting's miles teg, able to speed up his metabolism to the point that he might read a newspaper in the time the rest of us read a headline. it makes him very dangerous, with some prescience--but with the trade-off that his abilities require him to consume sufficient foods to fuel the increase: typically two full turkeys plus eight servings of stuffing, ten potatoes, and twelve cans of faux cranberry sauce per volume.

[Larry.]

Larry, not to derail the thread, but said in your blog that you read 501 books this year. How is that even possible? Are you just an insanely fast reader or do you do some kind of speed reading type thing? Also, how do you have to time to do other things... like write a blog... or sleep?

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to be a smart ass. I read 60 books this year, and I felt like I was using all of my free time (and even some time when I should have been working) to read, so I'm just trying to comprehend how some can read 8x as much as me in one year.

...and to think, I was proud of myself for averaging more than 1 book a week.

Most days, I read maybe 2-3 hours/day max (sometimes, I'll spend a lazy weekend reading, if there's nothing going on). I read comfortably at a rate of around 300-400 pages/hour and since most of the books I read are around that range, it means slightly more than a book a day.

How I do it? Hard to say, as I don't read word-by-word, but I take it about 2-3 lines at a time and process it all very quickly. Not trained, just something I've been able to do since I taught myself how to read before my kindergarten teacher did. But I usually give up on explaining here at this point and just claim it's really because I have a team of Serbian reading squirrels who do most of the effort for me :P

[mjgambino]

Most days, I read maybe 2-3 hours/day max (sometimes, I'll spend a lazy weekend reading, if there's nothing going on). I read comfortably at a rate of around 300-400 pages/hour and since most of the books I read are around that range, it means slightly more than a book a day.

How I do it? Hard to say, as I don't read word-by-word, but I take it about 2-3 lines at a time and process it all very quickly. Not trained, just something I've been able to do since I taught myself how to read before my kindergarten teacher did. But I usually give up on explaining here at this point and just claim it's really because I have a team of Serbian reading squirrels who do most of the effort for me :P

I'll have you know I've spent far too much time today looking up ways to increase my reading speed.

[sologdin]

the key is self-training prior to getting indoctrinated by the fascist public schools.

[Spockydog]

I always thought my brother was a quick reader, but three to four hundred pages an hour? Larry, colour me impressed.

[Lummel]

Only two really stand out for me as exceptionally good, Robert Caro's The Power Broker and Lizzie Collingham's The Taste of War: World War Two and the Battle for Food.

[Liffguard]

Another fantastic book I read this year that I forgot to put on my list, The Heart and the Fist by Eric Greitens.

[thistlepong]

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Thinking in Circles: An Essay on Ring Composition

[Seiche]

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke

The First Law Trilogy - Joe Abercrombie