Not to worry, I didn’t forget about my last book list of 2012: the books that got away. These are books that either came out in 2012 that I wish I had gotten to read or books that I bought in 2012 that have languished on my shelves unread. This list isn’t exclusive to books published in 2012, but includes several books that have come out in the last couple of years. There’s also a poll at the end of this post to help me pick which of the books I bought I should make a priority to read first.
Lifespan of a Fact by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal — In this book, journalist John D’Agata and fact-checker Jim Fingal document their back-and-forth negotiations over the fact-checking in one of D’Agata’s magazine pieces. This book was nearly tailor-written for me… but I haven’t read it yet.
Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed — I loved Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild so much that I bought Tiny Beautiful Things, a collection of Strayed’s “Dear Sugar” advice columns, as soon as it came out. But I waited so long for the hype to die down that I never read the book.
Breasts by Florence Williams — In this book, science reporter Florence Williams explores the latest scientific research about, well, breasts. I’ve read many great reviews of this one, but am waiting until the paperback comes out so I can buy a copy myself. May 6, 2013 can’t come soon enough!
The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver — Despite all of my political reading late in 2012, I never got around to statistician extraordinaire Nate Silver’s book about the world of prediction… a massive oversight on my part.
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg — This is another book I can’t believe I missed reading. In the book, Charles Duhigg looks at the science of habits and what science can tell us about how to change our own habits. I am trying to read this one right now so I can participate in Joy’s (Joy’s Book Blog) January read-a-long.
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Last December I signed up for my one and only challenge for 2012, Adam’s (Roof Beam Reader) 2012 TBR Pile Challenge. The goal of the TBR Pile Challenge is to read 12 books that have been your “To Be Read” pile for at least an entire year. And you’re allowed to put 14 books on the list, in case two of them end up not working out.
I dutifully made my list of 12 books, even pulling them out onto their own “Shelf of Doom” — a phrase inspired by Jill (Fizzy Thoughts) — and then utterly failed the challenge. I only finished three of the 12 books I put on my list!
I’m really not sure what happened, other than I must continue to be allergic to reading the books I put on piles for challenges based on the way I seem to avoid them. The three I finished — Complications by Atul Gawande, Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman and Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood — were all wonderful; I’m just not sure what kept me from the others. Luckily (?) I’m not the only person who has this problem. According to Adam’s “Final Stretch” post, only seven of the 123 people signed up in 2012 have finished their list. So I’m not alone.
After some debate, I decided I’m going to try the challenge again in 2013. I thought about sticking with the same pile of books, but this morning I realized I was tired of look at that Shelf of Doom and wanted to create a mostly new one. Here’s my 2013 TBR Pile Challenge List (with two alternates):
- Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessel (2006)
- Alone Together by Sherry Turkle (2011)
- Bring on the Books for Everybody by Jim Collins (2010)
- All the President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward (1974)
- The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (2009)
- Salt by Mark Kurlansky (2002)
- House by Tracy Kidder (1985) (repeat from 2012)
- Thunderstruck by Eric Larson (2006)
- Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (2009)
- The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (2009)
- The Race Beat by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff (2006) (repeat from 2012)
- The Truth by Terry Pratchett (2000)
- Possession by A.S. Byatt (1990) (repeat from 2012/alternate)
- Rereadings by Anne Fadiman (2005) (repeat from 2012/alternate)
Honestly, this shouldn’t be that hard. If I can read one book from the pile each month, I will easily finish it. But we’ll see… reading challenges are like my kryptonite. That’s probably a bad analogy, but you know what I mean.
In other news, I’m not sure what I will be reading today. I have a lot of blogging chores to get caught up with since I was away from everything for the last week. My plan is to start on those things right away this morning, take a break for breakfast and reading in an hour or so, and then settle in to write reviews and catch up on comments while I watch football this afternoon. Happy Sunday, everyone!
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I am one of those perennial over-packing people. I always take a bigger suitcase than necessary, and cram it with more outfits than I could possibly wear during my time away from home.
I’m the same way when I pack books. I am always aggressively optimistic about how much time I will spend reading over my holiday vacations, particularly Christmas. In my brain, I have the next several days to laze about and do whatever I want (i.e. read). In real life, I’ll be spending a lot of time just goofing off with my family… which is awesome.
This year is no exception, as I brought five books with me: Good Prose by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd, As Texas Goes… by Gail Collins, The Atlantic Ocean by Andrew O’Hagen, Arcadia by Lauren Groff and Friendfluence by Carlin Flora. Plus, I have vague plans to read all of Ally Condie’s Matched trilogy at my sister’s recommendation. We’ll see what happens.
Slightly related, if you’re looking for some last minute ideas for great books to buy as presents, or looking for some recommendations on what to spend your Christmas gift cards on, I spent all of this week recapping my favorite reads of 2012. I hope you’ll check out these posts for some ideas:
And with that, this little blogger is on vacation through Christmas. I may have some posts up after the holiday… or I might not. We’ll see what vacation brings.
Have a Merry Christmas (or whatever festive holiday you happen to celebrate)!
Photo Credit: macinate via Flickr
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I think cheated a little bit, splitting out my favorite memoirs from my favorite nonfiction since technically memoirs are also nonfiction. But, this way I got to highlight even more of my favorite books from the year, and there’s nothing wrong with that, right?
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This is part two of a series of post highlight my favorite books of the year and the books that got away. On Monday I highlighted my favorite fiction, and this Friday I’ll showcase my favorite memoirs.
I tried, really, to get this list down to five books… but, you guys, I read a lot of fabulous nonfiction this year. So instead of ignoring some deserving books I decided to highlight 10 of my favorites in 140 characters or less each. The links with each title go to posts with my full reviews, if you want to learn more.
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