I recently asked some knowledgeable book people for the best books they’d read in 2012 (whether they were published this year or not.) Since I’m a reader as well as a writer, I’m always looking for something interesting to read. I loved the suggestions–I’d only heard of about a third of the titles, so my 2013 reading list is already underway. Dig in, see what you love, what you don’t know, what you maybe didn’t like as well as these people did, and feel free to add your own comments to the list below.
Ayo Onatade & Kelly Hager – Attica Locke’s The Cutting Season
Sara Jayne Townsend, Linda Gustavson, Izzanie Ismail, & Stephanie Wilkinson Hargett – Stephen King’s 11.22.63
Bob Calder – Rebecca Stott’s Darwin’s Ghosts
Lisa Eichholtz & Mary Kay Thompson – Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl
Jeffrey Robert Broido – Cornell Woolrich’s Night Has a Thousand Eyes
Debra Polk – Beth McMullen’s To Sin Again
Shirley Schwartz – Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance
Pema Newton – Malla Nunn’s The Silent Valley
Beverly Henrich – J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy
Robert Coupée – Molly Ringwald’s When it Happens to You
Patrice Brown – Tana French’s Broken Harbor
Susan Hewitt – Michael Buckley’s The Sister’s Grimm
Stephanie K. Eller – Robert Caro’s The Passage of Power
Christine Morton – Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies
Ken Eisenstein – Chad Hardbach’s The Art of Fielding, Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Pattern, A Rumor of War by Phillip Caputo