End of the year lists for 2012 Best Books

Amazon Best Books of the Month: I have found many books I really liked on these lists.

NPR's list (very eclectic)

And another NPR list 

Readers Choice awards in many categories from Good Reads

Pulitzer finalists

The Guardian's list

NYT Notable Books: Frankly, we haven't rated very highly books from this list lately. Might be a good time to branch out. (And their 10 best books for the year.)

Short list for the Booker Prize (and the long list)


The Yellow Birds and Dear Life are showing up on many of the end of the year lists.

Books we should have read, Part II

 Here is the list:

• Three men and a boat, Jerome K. Jerome
• Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
• Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
• Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle
• Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf (Recommendation for a movie: The Hours)

And for good measure, we added This is Spinal Tap to movies everybody should watch. Nothing great, just fun.


This was a repeat of the April 2011 topic.

Book talk, August and September

Here are some recent recommendations from Book Club

• Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn
• The Indian Clerk, David Leavitt

I though we mentioned more -- add others in comments.

And October is Should-Have-Read month. I got mine from a list in the Guardian, although I really thought the list was 100 Notable books, not 1000.

So what are people reading that they should have read? Here is a partial, tentative list that we won't hold anybody too if they change their mind:

• On the Road, by Jack Kerouac
• Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
• Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
• Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

Atlas Shrugged, by the way, clocked in at Audible.com as the longest book in their catalog at 60 hours. Or, as I recollect it, April and May 2010.

Again, add your own. I did an abysmal job in noting what people said. 

Book talk from July meeting

Books recommended
Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, by Michael Davis
Elmer Gantry, by Sinclair Lewis

And a movie recommendation
Being Elmo (available on Netflix)

Different location for August

August 19 is Move-In Day at NMSU, so to avoid campus, we will meet at Ann's house. Check your email for a link to a map for directions.

Recommendations (or not) from April

Here's a list of recommendations from today's discussion...

• Douglas Adams: Long dark tea time of the soul
• Graham Greene: The Quiet American
• Mark Haddon: A Spot of Bother
• Temple Grandin: Thinking in Pictures
• And a non-recommendation: Lunatics, by Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel

We talked about adding Temple Grandin's book to the list: any thoughts?

Recommendations from March meeting

Len and others recommended the books below for more reading on Vietnam:

• A Bright Shining Lie, by Neil Sheehan
• Sacred War, by William Duiker
• Chickenhawk, by Robert Mason
• Run Between the Raindrops, by Dale A. Dye
• Why Vietnam, by Archimedes Patti
• Matterhorn, by Karl Marlantes

Interestingly, all of these books rated over 4 stars on Amazon. Is Amazon deleting lower starred reviews, or are these books uniformly great? Chickenhawk is especially highly rated.

If anybody remembers the name of the historic figure we talked about from a 19th century Prussian war, could you post it in comments?

Hope to see you all in April.

New year, new location, new books

We added the following books to the list:

• The Yacoubian Building, Alaa Al Aswany
• Open City, Teju Cole
• Swamplandia, Karen Russell
• State of wonder, Ann Patchett
• Lessons in disaster, Gordon Goldstein

Good discussion about Freedom. I liked Amy's comment about how it is the job of the reader to judge. Thoughts?

See you next on February 19, 3:30, B&N for The Invention of Curried Sausage by Timm.