Wednesday, January 02, 2013

Thursday Thirteen 269: Recently Read

I had a goal of 100 books for 2012, and for a third consecutive year exceeded my goal. Total books read for the year that was: 106. Here are the books with which I ended 2012. As always, click on any cover to find out more about a particular book.















BOOK NOTES

* As you can see, I always read a lot of winter or Christmas-themed books this time of year, all of which ended up being romances for December 2012. I did start one Christmas cozy mysterybut I was only a chapter into it when the tragedy in Newtown occurred, and just couldn't get into the mystery after that. Sometimes you have to set one book aside, for now, and try something else.

* Holly Lane by Toni Blake is book four in her Destiny series. Wonderful story for this time of year, and I look forward to book five, already on the shelves (just not on my shelf yet).

* The two by Lisa Kleypas are books one and five respectively in two different series. It had been a long time since I had read anything by her, but hope to catch up on both series soon!

* Night's Darkest Embrace was a novella by Jeaniene Frost, much different from her vampire series, but I enjoyed her demon world enough to hope she revisits it some day. If you like JF, you might want to give this a try!

* After a long deficit due to a change in publishers, we finally got two new Bishop books by Kay Hooper this year: Haven, which I devoured, and The First Prophet, which I have not yet gotten to.

* Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell was my first Kay Scarpetta, and I am glad the next two are on my shelf. I plan on getting to those in 2013! (Thanks, Jana!)

* In November, I reread The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, in anticipation of the movie that hit theaters December 14. Still haven't seen the movie, but am hoping to see it while it is still in theaters. Despite how long it had been since first reading it, there was only one scene in the book I did not remember, and I liked it as much as I did the first time through.

* I bought Paris in Color by Nichole Robertson as a Christmas present. I've been following her blog, and thought the book ideal for a friend with whom I travelled to Paris many moons ago. Naturally, I had to look it over before wrapping it, and couldn't resist leaving small sticky notes on some of the pages. Total hit, and talk about being on the same wave length she gave me a calendar featuring iconic Paris images at night. (grin)


Here's to a new year filled with lots of books and great reading!








32 comments:

Anonymous said...

WOW! You rock, Heather! My oldest son is reading The Hobbit right now for his Accelerated English class and so far he loves it. Happy Thursday!

Kimberly Menozzi said...

I'm so glad you enjoyed The Hobbit this time around - I'm hearing a lot of folks complaining it wasn't as good as they remembered, and I think they're judging it too harshly, somehow.

Happy TT to you - rest your eyes a bit, and find some more good books to read afterward! :)

Karin said...

Congratulations! My goal for 2012 was 75 books. I did it and raised my goal for 2013 to 104.

My advice? Read all the Scarpetta books! Patricia Cornwell is one of my favorite authors. That, and go see The Hobbit! It was fantastic.

colleen said...

You should do a best of the year in 13, if you haven't already.

Paige Tyler said...

Great books! And I agree about seeing The Hobbit! It's a fantastic movie!

*hugs*
Paige

My TT is at http://paigetylertheauthor.blogspot.com

CountryDew said...

Wow, impressive number read. My goal was 50 and I just did reach it, if I count a few half-finished books that I will never finish because they were bad books. I must do better this year.

I just finished The Hobbit myself after having seen the movie. I was reading to see what was different in the movie.

Alice Audrey said...

I saw The Hobbit movie last night. Now I want to re-read the book to confirm what they added to it. I hadn't realized it was only part one of three. Three movies to cover that one little book? Seems a bit excessive to me.

Heather said...

Stephanie: LOL...thank you. I'm glad your son is enjoying The Hobbit thus far.

Heather said...

Kimberly: I had not heard that complaint about Hobbit rereads. The people I know from GoodReads or various book blogs who have recently reread it all seem to agree that it was as good as they remembered, and many first time readers say it has inspired them to tackle LOTR.

Heather said...

Thanks, Karin! I've found joining the annual reading challenge at GoodReads to be quite motivating. I do hope to get to The Hobbit, as well as the other two Scarpetta books on my shelf. I also have the Andy Brazil trilogy to read.

Heather said...

Colleen: I usually do a different sort of year-end wrap up that I am hoping to finish for next week. Just have to pull up the form from previous years and plug in the appropriate answers. *g*

Heather said...

Thanks, Paige! It's definitely on my "must see" list -- not that I ever get to see many of the movies on that list, at least while they are in theaters. :-\

Heather said...

Anita: Thank you, and congrats on reaching your goal of 50. Part fo the reason I wanted to reread The Hobbit before seeing the movie, was so I'd have a better chance of picking out was added to expand such a small book into a three-part series.

Heather said...

Alice: Yes, they are apparently trying to milk the recent trend of popular books brought to the big screen, confident that fans of the novel will fall into lime. I did not know it would be three movies myself until about a month before the first opened.

thebluemuse, phd said...

BRAVO! My goal was 25 (non-school) books and I hit 38 which is a testament to my ability to procrastinate on work. :)

The Islander said...

Oh my word!!! What a wonderful list of books. That gives me some new fresh ideas. Thanks for the inspiration.

The Gal Herself said...

I love Kay Scarpetta -- the character more than some of the books she's appeared in. Cornwell has created such a compelling heroine! This year I read Red Mist and Bone Bed and enjoyed them both. But there are some real clunkers in the middle of the oeuvre (esp. Blow Fly) that you may wish to avoid.

Heather said...

Bluemuse: Thank you, and congrats on far exceeding your goal--even if it was at the expense of your work, lol.

I am Harriet said...

I love to reread my favorite too.
Happy New Year to you!

Heather said...

Hi Shirley! I'm glad you liked my list, and that you have found a few to add to your own list. And pstt... Did you happen to notice the book pages above from previous years? *WEG*

Heather said...

Gal Herself: I have heard that some of the middle to later books are not as good as others in the series. Seems fairly typical of authors who have such a long-running series.

Heather said...

Harriet: I haven't reread a lot of books, but the more recent rereads have been of books I enjoyed in childhood. It's been interesting, to say the least. *g*

Jennifer Leeland said...

I've been eyeing those Lisa Kleypas books for a while. Did you like them?
I didn't like The Hobbit very much as a book. Not getting in a dither to see it as a movie.
Love seeing the books you read.

Hazel said...

I marvel at the number of books readers like you read in a year. Maybe when I'm retired a hundred or so books per year will happen to me.

Jana said...

I'm so excited...I read four books while I was off for Christmas. FOUR. In a ROW. I need a couple of weeks off work more often. haha

Heather said...

Jennifer: Thank you. I loved the Lisa Kleypas books. I have picked up two of the Wallflower books so far, still need to acquire the other two. Sorry to hear you did not like The Hobbit.

Heather said...

Hazel: I've always been a voracious reader, more some some years than others. I read on the bus and every night before bed, as well as whenever (or wherever!) else I can fit it in. *g*

Heather said...

JANA! I did'nt think you were back until Monday. Glad to hear you found some time for reaing during your vacation. Lots for you to catch up on here, as I'm sure you've seen. *VBG*

Alice Audrey said...

I didn't know until the movie suddenly ended while I was waiting for them to get into Murkwook. The CG was excellent, but when I saw a newspaper article calling it puffed up, I couldn't argue.

Heather said...

I think that would be most unsettling, if you did not know going in that it was part of a series.

Alice Audrey said...

I might have been upset, but I already know how it ends. :)

Heather said...

LOL... I think most people seeing the movie(s) know how the book ends. *G*