The Point with Mindy Todd … 2012 Picks of the Year
Today Mindy, Melanie, and I talked about our favorite books of the year on The Point with Mindy Todd on WCAI (90.1). This is an eclectic list, and most of the books were not published this year, but we read them this year. This is always one of my favorite shows that we do, as we can share books that we really loved to read. So below the 2012 edition of our books of the year list (even if they were published originally in 1948!). Miss the show? You can listen at 7:30 PM tonight or you can always listen to the podcast on WCAI. By the way, as of this month we now have a regular monthly slot. You’ll be able to hear us talk about books on the last Wednesday of the month!
Mindy’s Picks
The Whip: a novel by Karen Kondazian
Fatal Decision: Edith Cavell, World War I Nurse by Terri Arthur
Riding on Duke’s Train by Mick Carlon
Travels With Louis by Mick Carlon
In the Words of E. B. White : Quotations from America’s Most Companionable of Writers, edited by Martha White
Branded on My Arm and in My Soul: a Holocaust memoir by Abraham W. Landau
Melanie’s Picks
Behind the Beautiful Forevers : Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo
The Long Walk: a story of war and the life that follows by Brian Castner
Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe by Charlotte Gill
The Twelve by Justin Cronin (second novel in the Passage Trilogy, first novel was called The Passage).
The Swerve: how the world became modern by Stephen Greenblatt
Other Favorites of 2012
Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
The Unconquered: in search of the Amazon’s last uncontacted tribes by Scott Wallace
Surviving Survival: the art and science of resilience by Laurence Gonzales
Rain Falls Like Mercy by Jack Todd
Jill’s Picks
The Silent History by Matthew Derby and Kevin Moffett. Right now only available as an app for your iPhone, iPad, or iPodTouch. You can sample one volume for $1.99 or get the full version for $9.99. Want to know more? Check out their web site at www.thesilenthistory.com One of the things I really love about this, is that it gives me the feeling of reading a 19th century serial novel (like Dickens) that used to arrive in pieces, as it too arrives in little bits each day.
With My Body by Nikki Gemmell
Time Will Darken It by William Maxwell (many editions, I read the Library of America version, which has great footnotes as well)
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
Other Favorites of 2012
My Ideal Bookshelf Art by Jane Mount, edited by Thessaly La Force. The book to read once you have run out of things to read.
Finding Time Again by Marcel Proust. As many of our regular listeners know, I’ve been reading Proust aloud with a friend for the past three years. This year we finished! The translation that we read of this volume was by Ian Patterson.
The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. A young adult novel that is both funny and heartbreaking.
The Conference of the Birds by Peter Sis. A Sufi poem with fabulous illustrations.
Today’s show was pre-recorded, but Joel from Brewster called in after the show to add three of his favorite books of the year:
The Island of Lost Maps : A True Story of Cartographic Crime by Miles Harvey
The Aran Islands by John M Synge
The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas