The Best of 2012

By my count, I read 60 books cover-to-cover in 2012, started but couldn't manage to finish four others, and began reading one book (The Guns of August), which I anticipate finishing in early 2013. In keeping with the same formula from 2011, I've chosen to highlight the top 15% of what I've read this year. I've also included three "honorable mentions" that are nearly as deserving. My best of list, like my reading list, is dominated by non-fiction, but I have included two fiction titles that stood out from the crowd.

Appearing in the order in which I read them originally, the best of my 2012 reading list follows:

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President
(reviewed February 9, 2012)
I knew virtually nothing about James A. Garfield before I read this book, but came away with a deep admiration for him, as well as deepened cynicism about the current state of politics in this country.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
(reviewed March 13, 2012)
A lovely and fun historical fiction read set in the immediate aftermath of World War II in the Channel Islands. Yes, I hope to visit them someday.

Flyboys
(reviewed April 29, 2012)
James Bradley is the only author to appear twice on my list this year; clearly he has the touch. I had no way of knowing when I read this book last April that it would tell the story of Japanese-American relations up to and during World War II so perfectly that I would feel compelled to actually assign and teach the book to my Japanese culture class this coming spring.
 

The Food of a Younger Land
(reviewed May 10, 2012)
It is neigh on impossible for me to imagine an American in which ravioli is an ethnic specialty, eaten only in the homes of bonafide Italians. This book transports the reader to that place and enables one to see what we have gained in the past 80 years - and what we have lost.

The Worst Hard Time
(reviewed July 6, 2012)
Timothy Egan takes an unflinching look at the Dust Bowl and the series of calamities faced by those at its geographic center,as well as the government's role in creating the conditions that led to a decade of impossible-to-imagine drought and disaster. It seems justified to believe the end is coming when it rains mud from the sky.

An African in Greenland
(reviewed August 25, 2012)
From the lush, snake infested coast of West Africa to the snow- and ice-covered villages of Greenland, Tete-Michel Kpomassie's journey is as improbable as it is fascinating. Part memoir, part travelogue, and entirely anthropological, this book was engrossing from beginning to end. And of course now I want to visit the Arctic.


The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War
(reviewed October 3, 2012)
Such a secret history, in fact, that it's seldom (if ever?) taught in school. James Bradley's account of the imperialistic policies of the first Roosevelt administration is as eye-opening as it is damning and proves, rather conclusively, that the more things change, the more they stay the same. From trumped up charges to garner support for the Spanish-American War (when Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy and an aggressive war hawk) to waterboarding in the Philippines, the book covers some of the darker episodes in American history.

Suite Française
(reviewed October 8, 2012)
Written with a poignant urgency that vibrates through the pages, Suite Française is a book about war when the days are early and the outcome is uncertain. How long would this war go on? Sadly, Irène Némirovsky would never find out; she died at Auschwitz in 1942.

April, 1865: The Month That Saved America
(reviewed November 18, 2012)
When I finished this book, I thought, "My God, but that I should be able to write so masterfully myself." More than the story of a single month, it is the story of the choices that defined that month, as well as those that came before it and those that came after it - essentially, a synopsis of the American Civil War and a biography of all the major actors in it.

Honorable Mentions:

Devil in the White City
(reviewed January 13, 2012)
Erik Larson seems to have an especial genius for finding and depicting evil in this world (and in this book, at the Chicago World Fair). I look forward to reading whatever he writes next. 

The Beauty and the Sorrow
(reviewed March 14, 2012)
Calling all Downton Abbey fans. The war as even Julian Fellowes would not dare to present it: raw, wrenching, and completely uncut. Clearly far more sorrow than beauty in this book, but a rich and fantastic read.

America, 1908
(reviewed March 15, 2012)
Evidently March was a very good month for reading. In any case: perhaps I am a bit biased because my own great-grandfather entered the world in early February of 1909, but I found it fascinating to see how this country was a century ago. I was especially enthralled by the New York to Paris automobile race...across thousands of miles of virtually non-existent roads.