The compilation of 180 sources is done, and the final version of the All the Best Books Compilation (ABBC) is ready for your download! In final tally, we found mentions of over 2700 books published in the United States in 2012.
You can download the ABBC spreadsheet here: Best2012. Librarians, booksellers, and others who work with readers are welcome to download the spreadsheet, re-sort the results by title, votes, or author and use it to identify great books, develop collections, build displays, or otherwise advise readers. If you re-publish any aspect of the ABBC, just make sure to credit Blogging for a Good Book, Williamsburg Regional Library, and chief compiler Neil Hollands.
Over the past weeks, I have annotated the leading books in each of the ABBC’s twelve categories, either here at BFGB or at my other blogging home, Book Group Buzz. Browse through past posts at both sites to find out more details about some of 2012′s most honored (the last of these posts, on the leading books in contemporary literary fiction, will appear April 1st, no fooling!) Don’t stop there! There are hundreds of fantastic books, many of which were less publicized and thus less frequently reviewed lurking further down in the lists.
Thanks again to Largehearted Boy and the Readers’ Advisor Online Blog for compiling links to many of the best-of-the-year lists. That head start makes compiling this resource, what I like to think of as the most thorough best-of-the-year list of all, much easier. Thanks to Williamsburg Regional Library and all of my colleagues here for the time and support needed to get this work done.
That said, here’s the quick version, the honor roll of the 95 books most frequently mentioned by 180 different authoritative sources: all of the books that were mentioned by at least ten different sources. Each listing provides, the title, author, the number of mentions the book received, and the category of the ABBC spreadsheet in which the book is listed.
Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn (65 mentions, crime and thrillers)
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo (53 mentions, nonfiction)
This Is How You Lose Her, by Junot Diaz (52 mentions, short stories)
Bring up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel (49 mentions, historical fiction)
Wild: from Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, by Cheryl Strayed (44 mentions, bios and memoirs)
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain (42 mentions, general fiction)
The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green (40 mentions, young adult fiction)
Building Stories, by Chris Ware (36 mentions, graphic works)
Beautiful Ruins, by Jess Walter (34 mentions, general fiction)
Passage of Power: the Years of Lyndon Johnson, by Robert A. Caro (32 mentions, bios and memoirs)
Where’d You Go, Bernadette (30 mentions, general fiction)
Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein (28 mentions, young adult fiction)
The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers (27 mentions, general fiction)
The Round House, by Louise Erdrich (26 mentions, general fiction)
Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Chabon (26 mentions, general fiction)
The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thompson Walker (25 mentions, speculative fiction)
Dear Life, by Alice Munro (25 mentions, short stories)
Canada, by Richard Ford (24 mentions, general fiction)
NW, by Zadie Smith (24 mentions, general fiction)
The Orphan Master’s Son, by Adam Johnson (24 mentions, historical fiction)
Alif the Unseen, by G. Willow Wilson (23 mentions, speculative fiction)
Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman (23 mentions, young adult fiction)
Are You My Mother?, by Alison Bechdel (22 mentions, graphic works)
Sweet Tooth, by Ian McEwan (22 mentions, historical fiction)
Arcadia, by Lauren Groff (21 mentions, general fiction)
Redshirts, by John Scalzi (20 mentions, speculative fiction)
Broken Harbor, by Tana French (19 mentions, crime and thrillers)
Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver (19 mentions, general fiction)
Tell the Wolves I’m Home, by Carol Rifka Brunt (19 mentions, general fiction)
Mortality, by Christopher Hitchens (18 mentions, bios and memoirs)
Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain (18 mentions, nonfiction)
The Diviners, by Libba Bray (17 mentions, young adult fiction)
The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller (17 mentions, speculative fiction)
Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: a Life of David Foster Wallace, by D. T. Max (17 mentions, bios and memoirs)
A Hologram for the King, by Dave Eggers (17 mentions, general fiction)
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan (17 mentions, speculative fiction)
Every Day, by David Levithan (16 mentions, young adult fiction)
Joseph Anton: a Memoir, by Salman Rushdie (16 mentions, bios and memoirs)
Angelmaker, by Nick Harkaway (15 mentions, speculative fiction)
Battleborn, by Claire Vaye Watkins (15 mentions, short stories)
The End of Your Life Book Club, by Will Schwalbe (15 mentions, bios and memoirs)
Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, by Andrew Solomon (15 mentions, nonfiction)
2312, by Kim Stanley Robinson (14 mentions, speculative fiction)
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss (14 mentions, bios and memoirs)
House of Stone: a Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East, by Anthony Shadid (14 mentions, bios and memoirs)
Iron Curtain: the Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956, by Anne Applebaum (14 mentions, nonfiction)
The Killing Moon, by N. K. Jemisin (14 mentions, speculative fiction)
Railsea, by China Miéville (14 mentions, speculative fiction)
The Raven Boys, by Maggie Stiefvater (14 mentions, young adult fiction)
The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey (14 mentions, historical fiction)
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, by David Quammen (14 mentions, nonfiction)
Defending Jacob, by William Landay (13 mentions, crime and thrillers)
Gods without Men, by Hari Kunzru (13 mentions, general fiction)
Home, by Toni Morrison (13 mentions, historical fiction)
Live by Night, by Dennis Lehane (13 mentions, crime and thrillers)
May We Be Forgiven, by A. M. Homes (13 mentions, general fiction)
The Orchardist, by Amanda Coplin (13 mentions, historical fiction)
The Rook, by Daniel O’Malley (13 mentions, general fiction)
Throne of the Crescent Moon, by Saladin Ahmed (13 mentions, speculative fiction)
The Twelve, by Justin Cronin (13 mentions, speculative fiction)
Why Be Happy when You Could Be Normal?, by Jeanette Winterson (13 mentions, bios and memoirs)
Bitterblue, by Kristin Cashore (12 mentions, young adult fiction)
The Casual Vacancy, by J. K. Rowling (12 mentions, general fiction)
Grave Mercy, by Robin LaFevers (12 mentions, young adult fiction)
HHhH, by Laurent Binet (12 mentions, historical fiction)
The Middlesteins, by Jami Attenberg (12 mentions, general fiction)
The People who Eat Darkness: the True Story of a Young Woman who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo–and the Evil that Swallowed Her Up, by Richard Lloyd Parry (12 mentions, nonfiction)
Red Country, by Joe Abercrombie (12 mentions, speculative fiction)
Thomas Jefferson: the Art of Power, by Jon Meacham (12 mentions, bios and memoirs)
The Cove, by Ron Rash (11 mentions, historical fiction)
Drama, by Raine Telgemaier & Gurihiru (11 mentions, graphic works)
The Gods of Gotham, by Lyndsay Faye (11 mentions, crime and thrillers)
How Should a Person Be?, by Sheila Heti (11 mentions, general fiction)
Jerusalem: a Cookbook, by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (11 mentions, how-to)
The Light between Oceans, by M. L. Stedman (11 mentions, historical fiction)
Shine Shine Shine, by Lydia Netzer (11 mentions, speculative fiction)
Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: the Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis, by Timothy Egan (11 mentions, bios and memoirs)
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce (11 mentions, general fiction)
At Last, by Edward St. Aubyn (10 mentions, general fiction)
Caliban’s War, by James S. A. Corey (10 mentions, speculative fiction)
Carry the One, by Carol Anshaw (10 mentions, general fiction)
Dare Me, by Megan Abbott (10 mentions, crime and thrillers)
Half-Blood Blues, by Esi Edugyan (10 mentions, historical fiction)
How to Be a Woman, by Caitlin Moran (10 mentions, bios and memoirs)
The Hydrogen Sonata, by Iain M. Banks (10 mentions, speculative fiction)
A Land More Kind than Home, by Wiley Cash (10 mentions, crime and thrillers)
The Last Policeman, by Ben H. Winters (10 mentions, crime and thrillers)
My Friend Dahmer, by Derf Backderf (10 mentions, graphic works)
Patriarch: the Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy, by David Nasaw (10 mentions, bios and memoirs)
The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, by Jonathan Evison (10 mentions, general fiction)
Seating Arrangements, by Maggie Shipstead (10 mentions, general fiction)
Shadow Ops: Control Point, by Myke Cole (10 mentions, speculative fiction)
The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, by Deb Perelman (10 mentions, how-to)
Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, by Cheryl Strayed (10 mentions, nonfiction)
The Troupe, by Robert Jackson Bennett (10 mentions, speculative fiction)
Zona: a Book about a Film about a Journey to a Room, by Geoff Dyer (10 mentions, nonfiction)
I’ll be back next year, with another installment of the ABBC!
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