Books I Read in 2012

I only read 26 books in 2012, down from 36 in 2011 and 40 in 2010 but I still managed to find a new addition to my Top 10 All-Time Favourites List in Room by Emma Donaghue. The rest, in order read.

1. A Feast for Crows - George R.R. Martin
2. Bossypants - Tina Fey
3. Room - Emma Donaghue
4. Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger
5. Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
6. Heavy Weather - P.G. Wodehouse
7. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
8. Then We Came To The End - Joshua Ferris
9. Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
10. At Swim-Two-Birds - Flann O'Brien
11. Little Princes - Conor Grennan
12. Dogs in Books - Catherine Britton
13. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
14. The Farthest Shore - Ursula K. Le Guin
15. Boy Meets Boy - David Levithan
16. The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
17. Saturday - Ian McEwan
18. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
19. The Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rothfuss
20. Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson
21. The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein
22. Eating the Dinosaur - Chuck Klosterman
23. A Dance with Dragons - George R.R. Martin
24. Come, Thou Tortoise - Jessica Grant
25. Of Bees and Mist - Erick Setiwian
26. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole (re-read)

COMICS/GRAPHIC NOVELS
1-5. Sandman Vol. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 - Neil Gaiman
6. Bone: One Volume Edition - Jeff Smith

Aside from Room, my other favourites were Then We Came To The End (a workplace satire told in first-person-plural), Little Princes (not usually much for non-fiction but this was really great), Saturday and Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

After a re-read, A Confederacy of Dunces still holds up as my second favourite novel of all-time.

Showdown

The Movie vs. The Book: Is the Book Always Better?

When someone is asked what they thought of a movie adapted from a book that they've read, how often do they say "The book was better"? For me, I hear it quite a bit (I even say it myself sometimes). I certainly hear it more frequently than "It was better than the book". Why is that? Is it because books are written to be books and will always lose something in translation to the big screen? Is it because those who have read the book first already have their own perfect film adaptation in their head, complete with their own perfect cast? In the cases where the movie actually is better than the book, why? Is it due to the screenwriter? The actors? The director? Was the book originally imagined as a film but written as a novel instead? A screenplay disguised as a novel? Of course, the better the book is, the harder it is to adapt.

Does it make a difference if you read the book after seeing the film? This is not as common due to most people's reasoning of "I've seen the movie, why read the book?". Does already having the film's actors and setting visualized as you read remove that personal imagining you would have had if you'd read the book first, thereby reducing the risk of disappointment?

Let's take a look at a few examples after the jump. Click "Read More" below.

Books

Apocalypse Now: Five Apocalyptic Novels Worth Reading

I recently read The Stand by Stephen King. Upon finishing it, I began to think about other apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic novels I'd read in the past year or two and I realized I'd read some really good ones. The most common variations are probably the nuclear holocaust and pandemic subgenres. If you are easily hooked on hypothetical futures, doomsday plots or just a plain old What if...?, here are five novels I recommend.

The Stand by Stephen King

It begans with the accidental release of a human-made superflu that wipes out an estimated 99.4% of the world's population (although the book focuses on the United States). Those who are immune find themselves scattered across the country. They eventually form small groups and are all connected by two recurring dreams: one of a faceless dark man representing evil and one of an old woman representing good. Which dream does each survivor gravitate towards? Which side will they choose? How do they prepare for the inevitable showdown between good and evil? The result of an attempt to write an "American Lord of the Rings", The Stand is considered by many to be King's best work.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

A genetically modified virus wipes out the entire population except for the protagonist and a small group of genetically modified humans. Also among the survivors are transgenic wolvogs (wolf/dog hybrids), rakunks (racoon/skunk) and pigoons (pigs with balloon-shaped bodies bred with extra organs for human transplants). Although most of the story is told in flashbacks to a pre-apocalyptic time, it is the stark contrast of the protagonist's present situation that gives it gravity.

Blindness by Jose Saramago

Presented like the hypothetical question What if everyone suddenly went blind?, this novel breaks its characters down to the bare bones of human nature and instinct. Imagine a pandemic of complete blindess. Who do you turn to if most of the people around you are just as blind and the ones that aren't are too afraid to come near you? How quickly do people resort to utter barbarism? How are those who have contracted the blindness handled by those who still have their sight? If you can get past the lack of structure in the writing style (page-long sentences, sparing use of periods, dialogue not established with quotation marks, etc.), you will find a novel that is bleak, brutal, haunting, beautiful and often enlightening.

A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Considered one of the classics of science fiction, the story is set in a Roman Catholic monastery in the Utah desert after a worldwide nuclear war. Spanning thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself, the novel addresses the issues of cyclic history, church versus state and faith versus science.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

If you're looking for a bleak, heartbreaking Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a father and a son, look no further because The Road will not disappoint. After an unspecified event has left Earth essentially a barren wasteland with few survivors, a father leads his son across the country on a deserted highway in hopes that if they make it to the sea they might find more people like them. The danger they face is the existence of the cannibalistic nomads roaming the land. Having only each other, the father and son (named only "the man" or "the father" and "the boy" or "the son") find their relationship broken down to the basic love shared by a father and son and their own will to survive.

Want to recommend a apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic novel? State your case in the comments below.