Books in 2012

One of my New Year's resolutions from last year was to read 50 books in 2012.

Did I achieve that goal? Yes and no. Let me tell you what I mean. I had originally set out to just read any 50 books, but as the year progressed and I got more and more into my reading, I decided that the only books that would count toward this goal were new books, ones I had never read before.

Sounds admirable right? (yeah, I know, I've got a huge ego)

Anyway, even though I read a total of 51 books this past year, only 37 of them were new to me.

It wasn't quite the accomplishment that I was hoping for, but I'm pretty proud of it nonetheless. It's a lot more than I read last year, and I enjoyed a much higher percentage of the books that I read.

And what books did I read? I'm so glad you asked.

Here is the definitive list of all of the "new" books that I read in 2012:

1.      30 Days of Night: Dark Days – Steve Niles, Ben Templesmith

2.      The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett

3.      Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – Anita Loos

4.     Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen

5.      One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

6.      The Hunger Games ­– Suzanne Collins

7.      The Sound and the Fury –William Faulkner

8.      Watchmen and Philosophy: A Rorschach Test – Mark D. White  

9.      30 Days of Night: Return to Barrow – Steve Niles, Ben Templesmith

10.   The Vampyre, a Tale – John Polidori

11.   Catching Fire ­– Suzanne Collins

12.   The Bridge Over the River Kwai – Pierre Boulle

13.   All the King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren

14.   The Family that Couldn’t Sleep ­– D. T. Max

15.  The Tommyknockers – Stephen King

16.  Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins

17.  Flying Home and Other Stories – Ralph Ellison

18.   Moby Dick – Herman Melville

19.   The Psych Ward Killer – Michael Price

20.   The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson

21.   A Smudge of Gray – Jonathan Sturak

22.   The Pleasure of Finding Things Out – Richard P. Feynman

23.   The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson

24.   The Dark Monk – Oliver Pӧtzsch

25.   Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution – Holly Tucker

26.   Four Part Midnight - Stephen King

27.   The Girl Who Played with Fire – Stieg Larsson

28.   Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic that Remains One of Medicine’s Greatest Mysteries – Molly Caldwell Crosby

29.   Christine – Stephen King

30.   Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter – Seth Grahame-Smith

31.   Mr. Darcy, Vampyre – Amanda Grange

32.  Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Society

33.  Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontё

34.  Rose Madder – Stephen King

35.  The Girl WhoKicked the Hornet’s Nest – Stieg Larson

36.  The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah” – Alan Light  

37.   Disease and History – Frederick F. Cartwright & Michael D. Biddiss  

One thing that I'm really proud of is that I didn't abandon any books last year. If I started a book (with the exception of one book that I'm still in the middle of reading), I finished it. This is new for me, and something that I really wanted to work on.
Another project I'm working on is re-reading any book that I said I hated, and seeing if I still feel that way. The Great Gatsby fell under that category this time around, and I'm happy to say that while it's never going to be my favorite book, I have much more of an appreciation for it now after my latest read-through.

If you guys want reviews of any of these books (beside the handful I already did a long time ago), just let me know. I'd be happy to let you guys know what I thought of any of these books!