Jill’s 2012 Book List

For 2012, I set a goal to read sixty books between 1/1/12 and 12/31/12.  And for the bulk of the year things were plugging along nicely.  Until sometime in late May, when Bethany and I started working on this blog in earnest.  There’s something about having to actually sit down and think about, and then write about, a book that slows a person’s reading down quite a bit.  I’ve been intermittently annoyed that I’ve fallen off pace to complete my sixty book self-challenge.  But as I think about it now (it’s mid-November as I’m writing this), I’m okay with maybe not hitting sixty books.  Let me tell you why: I love working on Postcards from Purgatory with Bethany; I feel like I’m getting more out of the books I’m reading these days than I was earlier in the year because I have to actually process what I’ve read; and I have more of a reading plan than I used to.  And it’s good to have a plan.  Besides, I’m ahead of my total read in 2011, so at least I will have beat my 2011 self, if not my ideal 2012 self.

1. Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: Stories, Ben Fountain
2. A Handbook to Luck, Cristina García
3. The Cookbook Collector, Allegra Goodman
4. Corduroy Mansions, Alexander McCall Smith
5. I Curse the River of Time, Per Petterson
6. Bone Fire, Mark Spragg
7. Out of Oz, Gregory Maguire
8. In A Strange Room, Damon Galgut
9. To the End of the Land, David Grossman
10. Something Borrowed, Emily Giffin
11. Something Blue, Emily Giffin
12. A Perfect Blood (The Hollows #10), Kim Harrison
13. Trail of the Spellmans, Lisa Lutz
14. Enduring Love, Ian McEwan
15. The Whistling Season, Ivan Doig
16. The Tie that Binds, Kent Haruf
17. Zeitoun, Dave Eggers
18. The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
19. The Map of Love, Ahdaf Soueif
20. Summertime, J.M. Coetzee
21. Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese
22. The Girl who Chased the Moon, Sarah Addison Allen
23. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs
24. The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
25. Sarah’s Key, Tatiana de Rosnay (My Review)
26. Freedom, Jonathan Franzen (My Review)
27. The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende  (My pre-reading notes) (My Progress Report) (My Wrap Up comments) (Bethany’s pre-reading notes) (Bethany’s First Progress Report) (Bethany’s Second Progress Report) (Bethany’s final comments)
28. A Country Called Home, Kim Barnes (My Review)
29. The Wolf Gift, Anne Rice (My Review)
30. Measure for Measure, William Shakespeare (My Review) (Bethany’s Pre-Reading Notes) (Bethany’s Thoughts on Act I) (Bethany’s Final Thoughts)
31. Sacré Bleu, Christopher Moore (My Review)
32. Jeneration X, Jen Lancaster (My Review)
33. The Book of Jonas, Stephen Dau (My Review)
34. Shadow of Night, Deborah Harkness (My Review) (Bethany’s Review)
35. The Listeners, Leni Zumas (My Review)
36. Light in August, William Faulkner (Pre-reading notes) (Progress Report) (Final Thoughts) (Bethany’s Pre-reading notes) (Bethany’s Progress Report) (Bethany’s Final Thoughts)
37. Deadlocked, Charlaine Harris (My Review)
38. The Age of Miracles, Karen Thompson Walker (My Review)
39. Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad (Pre-reading notes) (Final Thoughts) (Bethany’s Pre-reading notes) (Bethany’s Progress Report) (Bethany’s Final Thoughts)
40. My Reading Life, Pat Conroy (My Review)
41. The Lords of Discipline, Pat Conroy (My Review)  (Bethany’s Review)
42. The Secret Scripture, Sebastian Barry (My Review)
43. The Wilderness, Samantha Harvey (My Review)
44. Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck (My Review)
45. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert (Pre-reading thoughts) (Progress Report) (Final thoughts) (Bethany’s Pre-reading notes) (Bethany’s Progress Report) (Bethany’s Final Thoughts)
46. Life of Pi, Yann Martel (My Review)
47. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (My Review)
48. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer (My Review)
49. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (Pre-reading notes) (Final thoughts) (Bethany’s Pre-Reading Notes) (Bethany’s Progress Report) (Bethany’s Final Thoughts)
50. The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes (My Review)
51. A Fairly Honourable Defeat, Iris Murdoch (My Review)
52. A Doll House & Hedda Gabler, Heinrik Ibsen (A Doll House Review) (Hedda Gabler Review) (Pre-reading notes)