Cross-posted as “Favorites of 2012” on the Robbins Library blog.

My colleague Linda posted her favorite reads of the year a few days ago, and we’ve definitely enjoyed some of the same ones: I too would highly recommend the fresh and funny Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, the wise, wonderful and heartbreaking The Fault in Our Stars, the paranoia-inducing Gone Girl, and the erudite essays in More Baths, Less Talking.

To these, I’ll add a few of my own, with links to reviews (below). These are books I’ve read in 2012, not necessarily books published in 2012, though many of them were.

Fiction

 Gold by Chris Cleave

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

Cascade by Maryanne O’Hara (this is our Staff Picks book for February, and Maryanne herself will be joining us for the discussion!)

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

 Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (sequel to Wolf Hall; both books won the Booker Prize)

Arcadia by Lauren Groff

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell (author of Cloud Atlas)

Vaclav and Lena by Haley Tanner

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

 The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher

Nonfiction

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson (a.k.a. The Bloggess)

The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell (I listened to the audiobook)

Agree? Disagree? What are some of your recent favorites? Leave a comment!