2012 in review: Books

I actually read some books this year...like real, actual, written for adult, non-picture books.

Yeah, I probably read twenty times as many comic book collections (trade paperbacks, you know) as I did non-picture books this year.

What were the best of the books I read this past year?

• Breakfast of Champions - I would put this as Vonnegut's second greatest work just a bit behind Slaughterhouse, but it's close. This is Vonnegut's darkest great work, one that saw a writer exploring his world. It's a tough read at times, but it's brilliant.
• Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut's second great work and the one that is almost his most light-hearted. Yes, the world ends as a direct result of the characters' actions, but it ends entertainingly.
• Dream Team - Fun to see the behind-the-scenes relationships and rivalries that never prevented the original Dream Team from becoming the greatest basketball team ever...also fun to see how much went into the creation of the team
• Hunger Games - Gripping opener for what has become a massive literary hit trilogy...very much enjoyed learning about this post-apocalyptic world of the United States after an obviously disastrous civil war. Solid characters, though the romantic triangle would become troublesome after a while.
• Just After Sunset - Stephen King's latest short story collection is hit or miss but with more hits than misses
• Methland - This one's terrifying but not without hope as it looks at the history of crystal meth (and methamphetamines) in the United States, the effects of addiction on one Iowa town, and the lives of addicts. Thankfully the book is not without hope.
• Mockingjay - The climactic Hunger Games book wrapped the story up fairly well and avoided the whiny crap of Katniss in book two.
• Mother Night - Vonnegut's first great book...and the one that is sort of the least impossible...It's not happy, but it was his first great work.
• Slaughterhouse Five - I've read this dozens of times now, and it held every bit of the impact for me on the newest reading. I'll still put it forth as Vonnegut's finest work.
• Summerland - Read this one for one of the two two-person book clubs in which I took part this year. (Tough to judge which was more successful, but that's for another day.) It's an odd book in that it's clearly written for young people - probably pre-teens or earlier - but is large enough that it might not hold their attention long enough to get to the payoff. It also has some pacing issues, but in the end I again found myself in tears.