2012 Best Books List Digest (From Other Sources)

I am always curious about what other people are reading. So I researched numerous sources of "best books of 2012," and although some of my 2012 favorites were on many of those lists, most were not. There were a number of books not on my list that kept popping up on other best of lists. Being the eternal, nieve optimist, I assume they must be good! So here's are the top 19:

Running The Rift, by Naomi Benaron 

People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman, by Richard Lloyd Parry

The Casual Vacancy, by J.K. Rowling

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan

The Passage of Power, by Robert A. Caro

The Round House, by Louise Erdrich

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo

The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers

Where'd You Go, Bernadette, by Maria Semple

The Light Between Oceans, by M.L. Stedman

The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thompson Walker 

A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty, by Joshilyn Jackson 

The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller

In the Shadow of the Banyan, by Vaddey Ratner 

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain

Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver

Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948, by Madeleine Albright

Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir, by Jenny Lawson

Bring Up the Bodies (Thomas Cromwell, #2), by Hilary Mantel 

The Best American Science and Nature Writing, Edited by Dan Ariely

Each January I can barely wait to purchase three books of The Best American Series: The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Best American Sports Writing, and The Best American Travel Writing. The Best American Series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction published in North American during the previous year, and chosen for inclusion by recognized writers within each given field. Today’s review is of my personal favorite, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, 2012, presented by guest editor, Dan Ariely (pictured), Duke Professor, and probably best know as the author of best seller, Predictably Irrational. 

Articles chosen annually for The Best American Science and Nature Writing tend to come from Scientific American, Discover, National Geographic, Outside, Popular Science, and Wired. And all genres of The Best American Series typically include a heavy dose of writing featured in The New Yorker and The Atlantic, which speaks to the publication standards of those two magazines.

Whether you have any interest in science or not, the annual articles published in The Best American Science and Nature Writing are easily digestible, and if you’re an armchair scientist like me, they are fascinating. For example, David Dobbs’ article in National Geographic, Beautiful Brains, in which he explains that although the dangerous risks taken by teen children cause their parents’ hair to turn gray overnight, risk taking is fundamental to the development of the brain, generates better adaptive abilities, and thus an improvement to the species. If early man hadn’t taken risk, we probably would even be around. Here’s an excerpt that further examines the intriguing peculiarities of developing teen brains:  CLICK ON READ MORE BELOW...