Every January I post a list of every book mentioned in posts from the previous year. In the past these have been titles I’d read and enjoyed and would recommend—an answer to the what-should-I-read-next question. This year you’ll find books like Fifty Shades of Grey on the list … because each title is linked to the post in which it appeared, and I’d rather you know what I think. You can make up your own mind!
Herewith just about every book mentioned in 2012 posts:
About a Boy (Nick Hornby)
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The (Sherman Alexie)
Alias Grace (Margaret Atwood)
All of These People (Fergal Keane)
All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque)
Almost French (Sarah Turnbull)
Almost There: The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman (Nuala O’Faolain)
Angelina’s Christmas (Katharine Holabird, Helen Craig)
Anno’s Journey (Mitsumasa Anno)
Anno’s Medieval World (Mitsumasa Anno)
Anno’s USA (Mitsumasa Anno)
An Old Woman’s Reflections (Peig Sayers)
Apothecary, The (Maile Meloy)
Are You Somebody? The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman (Nuala O’Faolain)
Arrival, The (Shaun Tan)
Artist’s Way, The (Julia Cameron)
Art of Fiction, The (David Lodge)
Art of Fielding, The (Chad Harbach)
At Swim-Two-Birds (Flann O’Brien)
August 1914 (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
Babar and Father Christmas (Jean de Brunhoff)
Bedtime for Frances (Russell Hoban)
Before We Get Started (Bret Lott)
Bel Canto (Ann Patchett)
Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott)
Black Swan Green (David Mitchell)
Blind Assassin, The (Margaret Atwood)
Blood, Bones & Butter (Gabrielle Hamilton)
Book Thief, The (Markus Zusak)
Botany of Desire, The (Michael Pollan)
Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It (Maile Meloy)
Bury Your Dead (Louise Penny)
Cancer Vixen (Marisa Acocello Marchetto)
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (Louis de Bernières)
C’est la Vie (Suzy Gershman)
Child’s Christmas in Wales, A (Dylan Thomas)
Chocolat (Joanne Harris)
Chocolate: A Bittersweet Tale of Dark and Light (Mort Rosenblum)
Christmas (Jan Pieńkowski)
Christmas Carol, A (Charles Dickens)
Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell)
Cold Mountain (Charles Frasier)
Crank (Ellen Hopkins)
Dairy Queen (Catherine Gilbert Murdock)
Darkness Slipped In (Ella Burfoot)
Deep and Wide (Susan May Warren)
Dictionary of American Regional English (Joan Houston Hall, ed.)
Diviners, The (Libba Bray)
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (Rebecca Wells)
Doctor Zhivago (Boris Pasternak)
Donkey’s Dream, The (Barbara Helen Berger)
Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes)
Dubliners (James Joyce)
Dune (Frank Herbert)
Early American Christmas, An (Tomie dePaola)
Eat, Pray, Love (Elizabeth Gilbert)
Einstein’s Dreams (Alan Lightman)
Elegance of the Hedgehog, The (Muriel Barbery)
Ellen Foster (Kaye Gibbons)
Empire Falls (Richard Russo)
End of the Wasp Season, The (Denise Mina)
Even the Dogs (Jon McGregor)
Eyewitness Travel Guides (Dorling Kindersley Publishing)
Fair and Tender Ladies (Lee Smith)
Family Daughter, A (Maile Meloy)
Farewell to Arms, A (Ernest Hemingway)
Fault in Our Stars, The (John Green)
Fever Pitch (Nick Hornby)
Fiction Editor, The Novel, and the Novelist, The (Thomas McCormack)
Fifty Shades of Grey (E. L. James)
Flotsam (David Wiesner)
Food Rules (Michael Pollan)
Forest for the Trees, The (Betsy Lerner)
Freedom (Jonathan Franzen)
French Milk (Lucy Knisley)
Gilead (Marilynne Robinson)
Ginger Man, The (J. P. Donleavy)
Girl Named Zippy, A (Haven Kimmel)
Going-To-Bed Book, The (Sandra Boynton)
Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)
Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown)
Gotham Writers’ Workshop Writing Fiction
Grandfather Twilight (Barbara Berger)
Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
Great Plains (Ian Frazier)
Great Railway Bazaar, The (Paul Theroux)
Great Shame, The (Thomas Keneally)
Guess How Much I Love You (Sam McBratney)
Half a Moon and One Whole Star (Crescent Dragonwagon)
Half in Love (Maile Meloy)
Hamlet’s Blackberry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age (William Powers)
Handmaid’s Tale, The (Margaret Atwood)
Happiness Project, The (Gretchen Rubin)
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows (J. K. Rowling)
Help, The (Kathryn Stockett)
Hide and Seek (Ian Rankin)
High Fidelity (Nick Hornby)
History of Love, The (Nicole Krauss)
Hobbit, The (J. R. R. Tolkien)
Home (Marilynne Robinson)
Homemade Life, A (Molly Wizenberg)
Hooked (Les Edgerton)
House in the Night, The (Susan Marie Swanson)
How a Book Is Born: The Making of the Art of Fielding (Keith Gessen)
How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? (Jane Yolen)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (Dr. Seuss)
How the Irish Saved Civilization (Thomas Cahill)
I Am Half-Sick of Shadows (Alan Bradley)
I Am Number Four (Pittacus Lore)
If Beale Street Could Talk (James Baldwin)
I Love You, Little One (Nancy Tafuri)
In Defense of Food (Michael Pollan)
In the Night Kitchen (Maurice Sendak)
Ireland: An Illustrated History (Henry Weisser)
Irish Way, The (Robert Emmett Ginna)
Islandman, The (Tomás Ó Criomhthain)
It Takes a Worried Man (Brendan Halpin)
Jip, His Story (Katherine Paterson)
Julie & Julia (Julie Powell)
Julie of the Wolves (Jean Craighead George)
Kate Vaiden (Reynolds Price)
Kiss Good Night (Amy Hest)
Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
Knots and Crosses (Ian Rankin)
Kon-Tiki (Thor Heyerdahl)
Lace Reader, The (Brunonia Barry)
Last Poems, 1938–1939 (William Butler Yeats)
Letter to Daniel (Fergal Keane)
Letters Home (Fergal Keane)
Lesson for Max, A (Hanne Türk)
Liars and Saints (Maile Meloy)
Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster, The (Kaye Gibbons)
Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
Like Water for Chocolate (Laura Esquivel)
Literary Guide to Ireland, A (Thomas and Susan Cahill)
Little Friend, The (Donna Tartt)
Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)
Long Long Way, A (Sebastian Barry)
Lovely Bones, The (Alice Sebold)
Magician’s Assistant, The (Ann Patchett)
Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Julia Child)
Max’s Christmas (Rosemary Wells)
Max the Mouse series (Hanne Türk)
McCarthy’s Bar (Pete McCarthy)
Milkrun (Sarah Mlynowski)
Monster Calls, A (Patrick Ness)
Moon Spinners, The (Mary Stewart)
My Dream of You (Nuala O’Faolain)
My Sister’s Keeper (Jodi Picoult)
Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing (Margaret Atwood)
Night Circus, The (Erin Morgenstern)
Night Night Prayer, A (Amy Parker)
Not a Gold Rush: The Taleist Self-Publishing Survey (Steven Lewis, Dave Cornford)
Notes from a Small Island (Bill Bryson)
number9dream (David Mitchell)
O Christmas Three (Paraclete Press)
Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens)
Omnivore’s Dilemma, The (Michael Pollan)
Once and Future King, The (T. H. White)
On Beauty (Zadie Smith)
On the Night You Were Born (Nancy Tillman)
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Stephen King)
Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood)
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (Roddy Doyle)
Paris to the Moon (Adam Gopnik)
Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, The (Aimee Bender)
Peace Like a River (Leif Enger)
Picnic (Emily Arnold McCully)
Platform (Michael Hyatt)
Plot & Structure (James Scott Bell)
Polar Express, The (Chris Van Allsburg)
Poor Mouth, The (Myles na gCopaleen)
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce)
Possession (A. S. Byatt)
Powers That Be, The (David Halberstam)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
Red Book, The (Barnara Lehman)
Red Hugh: Prince of Donegal (Robert T. Reilly)
Ring of Bright Water (Gavin Maxwell)
Round Ireland with a Fridge (Tony Hawks)
Runaway Bunny, The (Margaret Wise Brown)
Santa Calls (William Joyce)
Schindler’s List (Thomas Keneally)
Sea, The (John Banville)
Season of Blood (Fergal Keane)
Secret Life of Bees, The (Sue Monk Kidd)
Sector 7 (David Weisner)
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers (Renni Brown and Dave King)
Shack, The (William P. Young)
Shallows, The: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (Nicholas Carr)
“Shut Up!” He Explained (William Noble)
Small Island (Andrea Levy)
Snowman, The (Raymond Briggs)
Stalking the Green Fairy (James Villas)
Starting From Scratch (Rita Mae Brown)
State of Wonder (Ann Patchett)
Steal Like an Artist (Austin Kleon)
Story of Lucy Gault, The (William Trevor)
Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert Heinlein)
Strawberry Statement, The (James Simon Kunen)
Stretch Marks (Kimberly Stuart)
Surprise for Max, A (Hanne Türk)
Sweet Life in Paris, The (David Lebovitz)
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, The (Alan Bradley)
Table Comes First, The: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food (Adam Gopnik)
10 Rules of Writing (Leonard Elmore)
Tender at the Bone (Ruth Reichl)
Theatre of Fish: Travels Through Newfoundland and Labrador (John Gimlette)
Third Policeman, The (Flann O’Brien)
Thirteen Reasons Why (Jay Asher)
Time for Bed (Mem Fox)
Time Traveler’s Wife, The (Audrey Niffenegger)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
Trinity (Leon Uris)
True Grit (Charles Portis)
Truth About Forever, The (Sarah Dessen)
Tuesday (David Wiesner)
Twelve Days of Christmas, The (Jan Brett)
Twenty Years A-Growing (Muiris Ó Súilleabháin)
Under the Blood Red Sun (Graham Salisbury)
Under the Tuscan Sun (Frances Mayes)
Very Long Engagement, A (Sébastien Japrisot)
Virtuous Woman, A (Kaye Gibbons)
War Horse (Michael Morpurgo)
Watership Down (Richard Adams)
We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lionel Shriver)
Weekend Novelist, The (Robert J. Ray)
Where Things Come Back (John Corey Whaley)
White Road (Olga Ilyin)
White Teeth (Zadie Smith)
Whole New Life, A (Reynolds Price)
Writing Down the Bones (Natalie Goldberg)
Writing Fiction for Dummies (Randy Ingermanson, Peter Economy)
Writing Life, The (Annie Dillard)
Year in Provence, A (Peter Mayle)
Have at it!
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”