This year I read 50 books in full, unfortunately still on a downward spiral like last year. I have written a review, or intend to write a review, of every one of those books, according to the goal I set myself. Having found the same as other bloggers, that writing a review helps the memory, and irritation with myself that the books I’ve not reviewed are sort of lost to the abyss, I intend to keep this up in 2013, too. Of the 50 books I read, 7 were non-fiction. I’m really trying to read more non-fiction and have found the pitches I receive to have helped a lot.

My best of the best list is, more than ever this year, a reflection of my aims to be objective. Thus you will not find my personal favourites in this selection, except of course where my personal feelings on a book matched the objective rating. A list of my personal favourites can be found after the lists of books.

As always, books that have been reviewed have a line underneath them and the title links to the review. The personal favourites is just a paragraph of book covers, because those covers (plus review links) are of course in the objective lists too.

The Best Of The Best

• Dodie Smith: I Capture The Castle – Cassandra writes about her quirky family who live in the remains of a castle in poverty and seclusion, that is until the Cottons come along. Funny, poignant, and influenced by the Victorians.
• Elizabeth Chadwick: The Champion – Monday wants a better life, as does Alexander, but a drunken night together changes everything and Monday makes a choice for both of them. One of the best books by Chadwick I’ve read so far.
• Gayle Forman: Where She Went – Mia split up with Adam after she woke from her coma; it’s three years later and Adam isn’t over it, but meeting Mia might give him the chance to find out why she dumped him. If If I Stay was good, this one is brilliant.
• J R Crook: Sleeping Patterns – Annelie presents us the writings of Crook, in which she is a character, but Crook is not really dead. Stunning unique fiction.
• Thomas More: Utopia – A philosophical discussion and debate about the fictional land of Utopia. Very good and lots to talk about, especially as Utopia, the country, isn’t as utopian as our usage of the phrase.

The Rest Of The List

5

• Asko Sahlberg: The Brothers
• Cheryl Rainfield: Parallel Visions
• Eowyn Ivey: The Snow Child
• Erin Morgenstern: The Night Circus
• Juliana Ross: Improper Relations
• L M Montgomery: The Blue Castle
• Laura Navarre: By Royal Command
• Pia Juul: The Murder Of Halland
• Roelof Bakker (ed.): Still
• Zadie Smith: NW

4.5

• Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca
• Elizabeth Chadwick: The Marsh King’s Daughter
• Hélène Grémillon: The Confidant
• Jesse Blackadder: The Raven’s Heart
• Kimberly Derting: The Last Echo
• Laura Rae Amos: Exactly Where They’d Fall
• Samantha Sotto: Before Ever After

4

• Aimee Bender: The Particular Sadness Of Lemon Cake
• Cat Clarke: Torn
• Charlaine Harris: Living Dead In Dallas
• Charles Dickens: Great Expectations
• Duane W Roller: Cleopatra
• Glynis Ridley: The Discovery Of Jeanne Baret
• Jodie Griffin: Forbidden Fantasies
• Lee Martin: Break The Skin
• Malinda Lo: Ash
• Richard Weihe: Sea Of Ink
• Robin Shulman: Eat The City
• Sarah Pekkanen: Skipping A Beat
• Shannon Stacey: Slow Summer Kisses
• Tom Reiss: The Black Count

3.5

• David Eddings: King Of The Murgos
• Debbie Dee: The Last Witch
• Ella Drake: Desert Blade
• Irving Bacheller: The Light In The Clearing
• Jim Al-Khalili: Paradox
• Kate Morton: The House At Riverton
• Keith Laidler: The Last Empress
• Mira Lyn Kelly: Waking Up Married
• Nichole Bernier: The Unfinished Work Of Elizabeth D.

3

• Elizabeth Chadwick: The Greatest Knight
• Joanna Denny: Anne Boleyn
• K Hollan Van Zandt: Written In The Ashes

2.5

• Shannon Stacey: Undeniably Yours

2

• EL James: Fifty Shades Of Grey

My Personal Favourites

This year was about reading more widely and aiming, for the most part, to choose books that would spurn in-depth and contextual reviews. The only “challenge” I signed up for was The Classics Club, and I’ve let myself take it slowly. I managed to meet a number of specific goals which I will discuss in another post shortly. I’m happy with my reading for this year, albeit that I didn’t get round to reading many of the books I’d planned to tackle, but I have managed to strike off some books I’ve had for a while.

This year was also about spending more time in the community. When I finished my exams that was the first thing I wanted to do, because my study had been intensive and I’d not had time. I’m happy to have “met” so many bloggers in these last six months and to have been able to follow blogs frequently.

Quotation Report

The Baynes family of The Light In The Clearing demonstrate how well, in the absence of knowledge of a foreign language, a word can be substituted for the plural “snags”, and as the Pocket family of Great Expectations shows, a woman brought up in the 1800s to be a thing of beauty and nothing else, was perfectly useless when it came to, well, anything at all. Whilst the heroine of Rebecca reminds us of the sad truth that we have for many years neglected the needs of our elders.

In Torn, Alice finds love amongst dead lizards, compared with Valancy from The Blue Castle who finds it in a much more appropriate beautiful forest on a tiny island. That said, I doubt Alice would wish, as Valancy does, that she could borrow a pair of legs from a cat, so perhaps finding love amongst lizards ensures your mind is kept in reality.

In Slow Summer Kisses Cam has a problem – how can he avoid Anna, and thus avoid kissing her, if she continually puts herself in dangerous situations? Whilst in Before Ever After, Shelley’s problem is that she’s finding it very difficult to eat breakfast while her elderly friend is discussing her great sex life.

If you listen to Rose of I Capture The Castle you may find the man you wish to be in a relationship with spurning your advances. Well, behaving like a bona fide Victorian woman in the 20th century is a bit much, don’t you think? However, if your father is refusing to write and you know that he has another book in him, and if you have a castle tower to spare, you can always lock him up until he’s written something. Or at least you can if you’re a fictional character, doing it in real life might be pushing it a bit far.

If Jodie of Exactly Where They’d Fall tells you she hates absolutely everything, don’t believe her, because for one she likes Drew, and Berges isn’t bad either. But if Jodie’s friend Piper says she’ll make you a dress, look out, you may end up in a peculiar mix of lavender and yellow – it’s what her bridesmaids will be wearing.

In the next few days I’ll be posting my goals for 2013.

What were your favourite books of 2012?