Following my always popular Hall of Fame ballot, I am going to present the literate side of me and rank the top 12 books I’ve read in 2012.
I would ask Stacie to do the same, but it would take her a year to finish typing. Why 12? Is it because it’s symmetrical with the year? Nope, it’s because that’s all I read reaching my goodreads.com goal of one for every month.
I admit that I am not much of a reader (who has the time), but am getting there. Hopefully, this list might inspire some non-readers who share similar passions in sport, politics or business or give others some ideas for books to read. Lastly, I want more friends on goodreads! I have grouped the books together based on the number of stars I am awarding. I am using the five-star scale with five stars being the highest
Hopefully, I can get some recommendations for 2013 from anyone here as I strive for 13, in 13.
The two star book:
#12: Coach – Lessons on the game of life – Michael Lewis.
I admit that I read this book for three reasons. One, I like Michael Lewis. Two, I am the coach of my Tuesday recreational hockey team and this was given to me by my bro to read. Lastly, it was maybe sixty pages and I could help pad my stats.
The book is described as a memoir to his high school coach and the role he played in his life. Despite its shortness, I was bored and didn’t enjoy it.
The three star books:
#11: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One that isn’t – Robert Sutton
I am having problems finding business books that I enjoy. I might be giving up completely on this genre. While the topic was interesting and the title was catchy, I found like with many of these books, the author makes a point and then re-writes the same point in fifty different ways filling up the pages of his book.
#10: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine.
Okay, maybe I don’t like Michael Lewis as much as I thought I did. Or, maybe I just don’t fully understand the recent full financial crisis. I didn’t hate the book by any means, but it barely cracked my top 10. You have to remember by reading only one book a month, I am fairly selective with many of my books hand-recommended from Stacie’s vast library.
#9: The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins.
For me, this is one of those rare instances where the movie was better than the book. I read the book about six months before seeing the movie. This was a book recommended to me by goodreads and one that was hyped by about half my office. So, I gave it a try. It wasn’t a bad book and actually got better as it went, but maybe I have just out-grown the Young Adult genre. I read much better books this year.
The 3.5 star books:
#8: Boys Will be boys: The Glory days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty – Jeff Pearlman
This was a fun read that contained no educational value whatsoever. The author provided a behind the scenes look at the Dallas Cowboys of the early 90s. What a dysfunctional group of criminals! It’s amazing how they were able to stay (and dominate) on the football field and out of jail (for the most part). The book starts with the story of Hall of Famer, Michael Irvin stabbing a man with scissors because it was his turn to get a haircut and it gets crazier from there. Amazing stuff from a world I wouldn’t understand.
#7: The Imposter Bride – Nancy Richler
This was an excellent book from the Giller Award finalist and a complete contrast from the one before. Admittedly, part of the reason I picked this up was that I got sucked into the Giller-hype, but secondly, because it was a story that resonated close to home. It is the story of a Holocaust survivor who fled the war in Europe to start a new life in Montreal. Just like my grandparents did 65 years ago. In this story, the survivor takes on the identity of a young girl who perished and comes to Canada to marry a man she has never met. It is well-written and a good read.
The 4 star book:
#6: Mr. Penumbra’s 24 hour book store – Robin Sloan
This was a book that piqued my interest after attending a reading at the International Festival of Authors. Apparently, I just used the word “piqued” correctly, so Stacie is very impressed. This is a quirky little book that was also fun to read. Set in current internet times, the book is about code-breaking and global conspiracies. The characters are all interesting and the book is very well-written.
The five star books:
This section was almost impossible to rank, but here goes:
#5: 11/22/63 – Stephen King
My first Stephen King novel! It was 849 pages of book that I could not put down, polishing it off in less than two weeks. This book had everything; time travel, historical fiction and even a love story for shits and giggles. This book is one that I would recommend to everyone. I can’t speak highly enough about it and it ranks just fifth on my list (shows how amazing my list is and that you should read on).
#4: Slumdog Millionaire (Original title: Q&A) – Vikas Swarup
This is the book that inspired the Oscar winning movie of the same name. I didn’t see the movie before reading the book (rented it five minutes after finishing). I will say that the book (and the movie) was excellent. If you loved the movie, you will probably like the book even more. As always, the book goes into greater detail showing the back-stories to all the questions. This was another book that was impossible to put down.
#3: Ready Player One – Ernest Cline
Okay, this will not go down as one of the classics of all-time, but I could not and did not put this book down (374 pages read in one day). It’s set in the future (2044), where life is played out inside a giant Utopian video game world. The game pits contestants in search of a giant inheritance left behind by the creator of this internet-created virtual world that everyone lives their lives through. I feel like it’s a world of warcraft type of world (never played the game) that you are exploring, looking for clues and keys to this inheritance. If this seems geeky, it gets worse. The creator is obsessed with the 80s, so 80s pop-culture is prevalent throughout the book. It’s a fun read and one that I would recommend to anyone who was a child/alive in the 1980s.
#2: 419: A Novel – Will Ferguson
419 is the section of the criminal code in Nigeria that makes illegal those chain letters we all get promising riches and fortunes. This is the intersecting story about a family in Calgary who get destroyed by one of these scams, the scammers themselves and life in Nigeria from the perspective of the people living in the north and south. Having never read a book about Nigeria, I found it completely fascinating. I enjoyed learning about the Nigerian tribes and their cultures along with the differences living in different sections of the country. This book won the Giller Award for fiction and was well-deserved.
Six Star book:
I realize that we are basing this list on five stars, but this book deserved a class all of its own.
#1: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption – Laura Hillenbrand
This book ranks up with the best all-time that I have ever read. This is the story of Louis Zamperini. It was well-written and will definitely become a movie that won’t do the book justice. If you have never heard or read the story, don’t cheat yourself or ruin the story by going to his Wikipedia page. Buy the book and thank me later.