As reading years go, this was a very good one for me. I read 70 books this year, far more than usual. I read quite a few paranormal book series, which I thoroughly enjoyed. These included the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs, the Iron Druid chronicles (Hounded, Hexed, and Hammered) by Kevin Hearne, and Gail Carriger's Steampunk Parasol Protectorate series (Soulless, Blameless, Changeless, Heartless).

My favorite books of the year were:
1) A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. This just grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I can't wait for the second book of this planned trilogy to come out in 2012.

2) The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe. This earlier book is much along the same lines as ADoD, and I was delighted to find it at the bottom of my TBR pile.

3) The Distant Hours by Kate Morton. I've loved all her books and I'm looking forward to whatever she has coming up next.

4) Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks. I love her writing and this was not perfect, but very, very good.

5) The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The first two were better than the last, IMO, but these YA books were riveting and I'm looking forward to discussing them with my book group next week.

6) I Am Half-Sick of Shadows (a Flavia de Luce mystery) by Alan Bradley. This series just keeps getting better and better, and I absolutely adore Flavia, the 11 year-old sleuth and chemist who is the heart and soul of these books.

7) The Raven Ring by Patricia Wrede. Though definitely a YA book, this was still very enjoyable to an adult reader.

8) Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday. This was recommended here, and was wonderful and unusual.

9) Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. A long-overdue read that didn't disappoint.

10) Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I was totally surprised that (IMO at least) it lived up to the hype and was more than just a book group darling. I skipped the movie, though.

What were your favorites?

The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes. This year's Booker prizewinner. Astonishingly good.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Paul Torday. Yes, I loved this one too.

The Abandoned - Paul Gallico. An oldie for a good reason - wonderful story, over-the-top sentimentality, one that stays with you.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder. Classic novel about the meaning of life. No more needs to be said.

Sexually, I'm More of a Switzerland - David Rose. A curious little book sent to me by lemonhead containing personal ads from the London Review of Books. I laughed harder than I thought possible.

Please Look After Mom - Kyung Sook Sun. About a woman who disappears at a train station - the story unfolds as her various family look for her.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People - Classic text by the philosopher/rabbi Harold Kushner.

1Q84 - Haruki Murakami. Indescribable novel that hits every mark of good writing. Perfectly paced, compelling story, great characters.

Here are the rest:
"Sarah's Key" - Tatiana de Rosnay
"The Paris Wife" - Paula McClain
"The Lost Garden" - Helen Humphries
"The Forgotten Garden" - Kate Morton
" A Year by the Sea" - Joan Anderson
"Fair Stood the Wind for France" - H.E. Bates
"Committed: a Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage" - Eliz. Gilbert
"That Used to Be Us" - Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum
"Icebound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole" - Dr. Jerri Nielsen.

I have decided to add categories for my favorites.

Favorite Novels:

Pontypool Changes Everything by John Burgess.
Chatterton by Peter Ackroyd.
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious.
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier.
Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier.
Ghost Story by Peter Straub.
The Case of the Late Pig by Margery Allingham.

Best Non-Fiction Book (History): The Great Mortality by John Kelly.

Favorite Non-Fiction Book (Biography/Autobiography/Essay): Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen).

Funniest Book: Confessions of a Prairie B*tch by Alison Arngrim.

Scariest Book: Ghost Story by Peter Straub.

Favorite "Guilty Pleasure" Book: Peyton Place by Grace Metalious.

Favorite New Discoveries: Isak Dinesen, H. P. Lovecraft, Peter Straub, Margery Allingham.

Favorite Re-Discoveries: Daphne du Maurier, Agatha Christie.

"In the Garden of Beasts" - Erik Larsen
"Thirst" - Mary Oliver (this is a superb book of poems by the New England poetess).

Timallen, I,too, enjoyed rediscovering Daphne duMaurier this year.

I lent my mother Jamaica Inn, and she really enjoyed it. (JI was published the year my mother was born!)

Wives and Daughters - Mrs Gaskell
Stone Angel - Margaret Laurence
The Scapegoat - Daphne du Maurier
The Fortnight in September - R C Sherriff
The Summer Book - Tove Jannsen
The Seeds of Time - John Wyndham
South Riding - Winifred Holtby
The Other Side of the Bridge - Mary Lawson

I usually try to read quite a few non-fiction books but the only 'memorable' ones were

She Wolves - Helen Castor
Sisters in the Sinai - Janet Soskis

Fun reads:
Still Life - Louise Penny
The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss

Heartwarming and soothing read:
Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery

Most intriguing reads:
The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson
Soul Identity - Dennis Batchelder

These are my absolute favorites from this year:

Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea

Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love & Fallout by Lauren Redniss

Sorta Like a Rock Star by Matthew Quick

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley

Papa Married a Mormon by John D. Fitzgerald

Some authors I discovered this year that I love:

Patrick Ness
Edwidge Danticat
Daniel Woodrell

Hopefully, 2012 brings lots more great books and authors.

Non-Fiction that I learned the most from:
Collapse - Jared Diamond
Superfreakonomics - Levitt & Dubner

Best Re-Reads
The Mammy - Brendan O'Carroll
Ethel and Ernest - Raymond Briggs

Worst Books of the Year
Winter's Bone - Daniel Woodrell
The Key, a true encoounter - Wally Streiber
A Cold Day for Murder - Dana Stabenow
Red Jade - Henry Chang
The Sweet Life in Paris - David Lebovitz
Comfort and Joy - by what's her name

PAM

* The Stone Angel - Margaret Laurence
* The Diary of an Ordinary Woman - Margaret Forster
* Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
* The Room of Lost Things - Stella Duffy
* The Diary of a Provincial Lady - E. M. Delafield

Honorable Mentions:
* Farewell Victoria - T. H. White
* Two Old Women: Alaska Legend - Velma Wallis
* Emily, Alone - Stewart O'Nan

Top Five Books for Non-Fiction (in no particular order):

* The Art of Gentle Domesticity - Jane Brockett
* The Genius Factory - David Plotz
* The Warmest Room in the House - Stephen Gdula
* Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation - Elissa Stein and Susan Kim
* The Assassin's Cloak - ed. Irene and Alan Taylor

Honorable Mentions:

* Bury the Chains (history of UK slavery) - Adam Hochschild
* Under the Banner of Heaven - Jon Krakauer
* The Ghost Map (history of 1800's cholera epidemic in London) - Steven Johnson

and a bonus couple:

* A Women's Place: 1910-1975 - Ruth Adam
* Behind Closed Doors: Everyday Life in Georgian England - Amanda Vickery

This is respectfully submitted with the caveat that tomorrow's version of this list could be *completely* different.

:-)

The Sisters Brothers - Patrick deWitt - my other favourite on the short-list.

One Day - David Nichols. Better than I expected.

1Q84 - Haruki Murakami. Just enthralling.

I'm sure there must be others, but those are the ones that jumped into my mind.

These included:

The Revolt of the Pendulum - Clive James
Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly
Starter for Ten - David Nicholls
Left Neglected - Lisa Genova
Good As Dead - Mark Billingham
The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon
The Help - Kathryn Stockett

And no, no one is expecting you to just take our choices on trust and read them. I would imagine that someone interested in a title would do similar to what I do: research it further.

This is just a fun thing we do at the end of the year.

In no particular order:

Fiction:

Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner*
The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner*
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett*
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute*

Nonfiction:

Meditations on Tolkein by Karen Haber
Jane Austen: a Life Revealed by Catherine Reef
Agatha Christie: an Autobiography by Agatha Christie
Down the Garden Path by Beverley Nichol
Come, Tell me how you Live by Agatha Christie

* re-read

It was a very good year, as the song says.

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell (first published in 1956).
An unconventional English mother, tired of the damp, dank English climate, moves her family to the Greek island of Corfu. Her son, Gerald, is a budding naturalist and relays his and the family's adventures. This was by far my best find of the year--I read it and also purchased the audiobook. If you like nature and love to laugh, this is the book for you.

Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English by Natasha Solomons
Very entertaining story of the Jack and Sadie Rosenblum, who flee Germany to England during the war, where they struggle to fit in--which involves Mr. Rosemblum attempting to ceate his own golf course when he learns that as a Jew, he is not welcome at the nearby facility. Mrs. R has many struggles of her own but the story really centers on Jack's attempts to behave as a proper Englishman.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
Delightful and humorous story of a late in life romance between a retired British Major and a Pakistani storekeeper who share a love of literature and a loneliness that brings them together. One of the best this year for me.

Dancing At The Rascal Faire by Ivan Doig
Memorable and beautifully written saga of Scottish 19 year old friends, Rob and Angus, who travel from Scotland to Montana as young men to settle in sheep country. It is part of a trilogy but certainly stands alone.

Other favorites were:
Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd
The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin
Solar by Ian McEwan (very humorous and has a scene I will remember for the rest of my life whenever I need a laugh)
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (YA)
O Aleph by Paul Coelho (dark but strangely compelling)

Annotated Pride and Prejudice and Annotated Sense and Sensibility - most informative of my many re-reads of these novels, and I look forward to the rest of the Austen novels as they come my way in this format

Unfortunately I don't keep lists so there are probably others I've loved that I have forgotten.

Hated it:

Little Bee - and alas, I'm going to have to revisit it for my book club next month

Surprising non-read:

The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Ruthfass - I looked forward to this book, waited an extra year for its release, and bought it in hardback as soon as it came out. And yet it sits on my shelf unread. I have no idea why.

Still Alice AND Left Neglected both by Lisa Genova
Russian Winter- Daphne Kalotay
Queen Hereafter- Susan Fraser King (loved Lady Macbeth too which I did not read this year)
Dreams of Joy-Lisa See
The Kitchen Daughter-Jael McHenry
Pictures of You-Caroline Leavitt
Between Shades of Grey-Ruta Sepetys
One Day-David Nicholls (skipped the movie)
The Butterfly Cabinet-Bernie McGill
The Lantern-Deborah Lawrenson
Iron House-John Hart
The Soldier's Wife-Margaret Leroy
The Homecoming of Samuel Lake-Jenny Wingfield
The Language of Flowers-Vanessa Diffenbaugh
A Gathering Storm-Rachel Hore

and my favorite novel of the yr. The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
none of the non-fiction books made my tops list except Unbroken (which I discovered I technically read in Dec. 2010) also none of my beloved mysteries

This year I discovered the author Carl Hiaasen. I read several of his (Basket Case, Lucky You, Nature Girl, Skinny Dip, Stormy Weather, and, my favorite, Sick Puppy). After awile his books got a little repetitive but they were still funny.

Revisited a lot of P.D. James. She's always good.

Finally read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I'm not sure how I missed it long ago but it was worth the wait.

Biggest waste of time was The Neuromancer by William Gibson. Maybe it was just me.

Most surprising was Fanny Hill by John Cleland. I'd heard about it but never read it. I didn't realize they were quite that explicit that long ago.

I did enjoy The Hours by Michael Cunningham. I didn't see the movie way back when and that was probably a good thing.

Best book I reread: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I had forgotten what a good writer he was and I found it had a lot to say given our conditions today.

- no particular order -

1) ""Get Me Out of Here" - Henry Sutton
A dark -- very dark -- satire set in modern-day London.... Tells of a once-successful financial professional who's on the skids -- yet, still hankers for the luxuries and amenities so many of his ilk had during the '80s - early-2000s - until the global financial crash.

2) "Bleak House" - Charles Dickens
My first reading of this classic. Like the above -- another tale of riches-to-rags -- for some characters, rags-to-riches. Teeming w/ delightful or creepy characters, high drama, ugly-beyond-belief slum scenes and human cruelty, enough neuroses to keep a psychiatric clinic busy for a decade (or more!), generosity of spirit, healthy lust for life, etc., etc. ... a rich cornucopia of humanity -- both wonderful and lousy.

3) "Left Early, Took My Dog" - Kate Atkinson
Very "juicy" mystery involving a kidnapped spunky little girl and one of the most delightful female police detectives I've ever encountered. ... She reminded me of the actress Dawn French.

4) "King Solomon's Carpet" - Barbara Vine / Ruth Rendell
One of the best books she's ever written ... even though I was annoyed w/ how meagre the explanation was at the end -- of a couple of the characters' outcomes. But, still, a fascinating ride -- in both senses! -- the story as well as the hair-raising subway ("Underground" in Brit speak) scenes. Some of the weirdest, most intriguing characters I've come across in a book in a long time!

5) "Bad Behavior" - Isabel Wolff
A woman's storybook -- I call this genre -- some call it "Chick Lit", which turns me off. Anyway -- a lovely story about a young, single woman setting up a new veterinary practice in London. She has a very awful secret in her past. A war photojournalist comes into her life, and the secret if blown open.

6) "My Cousin Rachel" - Daphne du Maurier
Several of us "chatted" about this in the August thread. I still think the dame did it!

7) "The Private Patient" - P.D. James
A professional investigative TV journalist goes to a posh country clinic to have an old scar removed from her face. But much more than that happens to her. Really intriguing who-done-it... although I felt that bringing Dalgleish's personal life into the story interrupted the flow.

That's it. This year think I'll read more non-fiction. After going over the lists of all the books I read - 2011 - I noticed I've been reading way too many mystery books! Some books keep popping up in the lists above and in discussion that I want to try -- "IQ84", "Discovery of Witches", "The Assassin's Cloak".

Kathy9norcal -

You named 2 of my all-time favourite books:

1) "Brazzaville Beach" - Wm. Boyd -- Every time I mention this novel I have the feeling I'm the only person who's read it, as no one seems to've heard of it! Although I've read some awfully good books set in Africa (fict. & non-fict.), this might be the best one of all.

2) "My Family and Other Animals" - Gerald Durrell