I came very close to forgetting to wrap up my year in books, mainly because I shut down the whole reading process weeks ago in favor of focusing on writing.

I was actually shocked to look back and see that I finished 15 books — much higher than I expected given how much reading time I’ve diverted this year.  Luckily though, the list brings back some fond memories of what were some really awesome reads.

Here’s the obligatory yearly stack, which is slightly smaller this time due to the introduction of a Nook to my reading arsenal:

(Note: You can read about my previous years here)

This year in list form, with links to their respective blog entries:

–The Last Juror by John Grisham
–Stories From Floris
–A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
–Sixty Feet, Six Inches by Bob Gibson & Reggie Jackson
–In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
–Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
–The War For Late Night by Bill Carter
–Trouble Is My Business by Raymond Chandler
–If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
–Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
–Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
–High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
–Leviathan by Paul Auster
–Moneyball by Michael Lewis
–Cup of Gold by John Steinbeck

This means absolutely nothing, but I find it randomly interesting that the average number of pages in this year’s books is 307, compared to 306 last year.  Also, unlike previous years in which the number of days it took me to read each book was wildly different for each title, this year most of them took me 20-something days to get through (max 30, min 6).

There weren’t any this year that I wouldn’t read if I had the chance to do it again, though I was slightly disappointed by “High Fidelity.”  But I mostly blame the timing of when I read it, since I’ve loved every other Nick Hornby book before that.  I did do well though with books that were recommended to me, with “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand” and “If on a winter’s night a traveler” being two of my favorites

If you read just five from my list, I would go with: “A Brave New World,” “In Cold Blood,” “The War For Late Night,” “Leviathan” and “Outliers.”

I have to give an extra plug for “Leviathan” and author Paul Auster, who I don’t think enough people know about.  This is the third book of his that I’ve read (“The Book of Illusions” & “The Brooklyn Follies”), and each has been fantastic.

Next year is probably going to get off to a slow start as I continue to focus on trying to finish my writing project (I promise to post an update about this in the next few days).  Let me know if you have any titles to add to my 2012 list.

Happy New Year.