Pay a Visit: Diane's Top Books of 2012

Monday, December 17, 2012

Diane's Top Books of 2012

For the first time in about five years, I'm not going to hit my goal of reading eight books per month.

I've known this since May, when both morning sickness and motion sickness combined to allow me to read only five books that month. But I tried to make up for it by reading an extra book in June and again in August. That still put me one down, but I thought I could make it up by the end of the year.

But then I read only seven books in November -- totally understandable since I spent the last week learning to be a new mom. But that means I would have to read 10 books this month to get an average of eight books a month, and I'm only midway through my fourth book as it is.

But. Yes, another but. One of the books I read in March was "Parade's End." It's a one-volume book by Ford Madox Ford, but it was originally published as four separate novels between 1924 and 1928. So if you count it as four books, then I really only have to read seven books this month to meet the goal.

So I think I'll go with that.

Much easier to simply read eight books a month, cut and dry, as I've done the previous years.

Right now, however, Edith and sleep come before books, as they have ever since I found out I was pregnant in March. Maybe it was the thought of having a kid, but the overarching theme of the books I read this year has to be children's and young adult literature.

"The Hunger Games" trilogy got me through the beginning throes of my morning sickness in March and April. In advance of our trip to Prince Edward Island, I reread the eight "Anne of Green Gables" books. When we returned, I read the three "Emily of New Moon" books, also set in PEI.

In late August I read "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and have been regularly reading the other books in the Chronicles of Narnia. I'm now reading "The Last Battle," the seventh and last book.

And finally, I read in the New York Times Book Review about a series of 10 kids' novels I'd never heard of before, the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. Set in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the first book follows Betsy as a five-year-old. The last book sees her married. The writing style of the books gets progressively harder as Betsy gets older. I recently finished the third book; it reminds me of a Minnesota version of "Anne of Green Gables."

But if you're looking for some traditional adult books to read, here are my favorites that I read this year (although they may have been published earlier):