Best Reads of 2012

Happy New Year's Eve, fellow readers!  I hope you all have super exciting plans for this non-holiday - I shall be going to a movie, dinner, and bowling?!  Such happenings.  I probably shall not be reading much today, but I shall be talking about books.  The best books... that I read in 2012.

Sometimes I feel like my book reviews are super-negative honest (but not always in the nicest way) and people must wonder why I read when I clearly hate it so much, but then I was going back through the blog and my Goodreads account to review what I read this year and I got super-excited about so many titles!  So excited that I couldn't contain myself to two top five lists (one for print and one for audio) so I ended up with a top eight list for print books, even while counting the various books of a series as one entity.  Oh well.  So, in case you can't tell how much I love reading (what with the blog and all) and in no particular order, I give you my best books and audiobooks of 2012!

Print books:
1) The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
2)  The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
3) The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
4) A Song of Ice and Fire Series by George R.R. Martin (still in progress)
5) Possession by A.S. Byatt
6) Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (if I had to choose, this might be my favorite of 2012)
7) A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving
8) Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

Audiobooks:
1) The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins (for the story, not the narration)
2) Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (for both the story and the narration)
3) Shine, Shine, Shine by Lydia Netzer (for the story, not the narration)
4) Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (for everything!)
5) Dublin Murder Squad Series by Tana French (mostly for the stories, narration varies)

Also, it would appear that I read/listened to something like 36 non-school books this year (again counting series as one entity and not counting rereads), which probably isn't as many as most book bloggers, but I'm cool with that.  I haven't written all of the reviews of the books I've read in the last month, so those will be coming in early 2013.  In the meantime, have a Happy New Year's everybody! May your books be well-written and your resolutions long-lasting!