Books of the Year 2012

I finally got around to tallying up the books I read last year. Grand total: 38! (26 less than last year, but what can you do?)

Here are a few of my favorites (in the order I read them):

A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS - Jennet Conant

You guys, basically Julia Child was a spy. Okay, not exactly, but that doesn't detract from the book. I love Julia Child, but to be honest, I mostly picture her as Meryl Streep in Julie and Julia and I didn't know a lot about her before I read A Covert Affair.

This book has a TON of really interesting tidbits about Julia (and Paul) and so many interesting characters, it's hard to believe it's nonfiction. I like to imagine Julia learned to debone a chicken from deboning communists during her spy days, but I suspect that's not the case

The Likeness - Tana French

The Likeness is the second in the Dublin Murder Squad "series". I say "series" because, while it would be helpful to read them in order, it's not totally necessary. Some of the characters overlap, but I read the first book, In the Woods, several years ago and didn't really remember much about it and didn't have a hard time keeping up with the second. In general, it's a great whodunit mystery, full of murder and suspicions and fake identities and Irish grad students.

Nothing Daunted - Dorothy Wickenden

Plucky is one of my favorite adjectives and I don't get to use it enough. Nothing Daunted is the account of two very plucky society girls from New York who decided to become schoolteachers in northwest Colorado in 1916. (Little did they know, they were really accepted as teachers because they needed brides for the locals.) The author is the granddaughter of Dorothy Woodruff, one of those plucky society ladies, she began writing the book after finding her grandmother's letters. I bet there were a few things her grandmother wouldn't have wanted her reading...

Ant Farm: and Other Desperate Situations - Simon Rich

I'm pretty sure I finished Ant Farm in about 8 minutes. It's only 160 pages and reads like a transcript of a stand-up show. Simon Rich is a twentysomething writer with just a few writing credits to his name. You know, just Harvard Lampoon, SNL, Mad Magazine, etc. Nothing big...And, if I may be so bold, he's a little reminiscent of David Sedaris. I think my favorite Ant Farm essay is "A conversation at the grown-ups' table as imagined at the kids' table." As one of the few unmarried people in my family, it's entirely likely that I'll end up at the kids' table at some family function. So what I'm saying is, I'm still wondering about what goes on at the grown-ups' table.