Logan's 2012 Lit List!

I gain great pleasure from recounting the books I’ve read in the past year. Not only am I surprised at the amount I’ve been able to get through, but seeing this list reminds me of where I was when I read each of these books, for example, I read Dark Diversions one chapter at a time during  the most recent Festival week. One evening in particular, I just finished speaking with Mr. Saul in the hotel hallway before I made my way back to my room to dive back into his book; it’s memories like these that begin to surface when reading back over this list.

There’s a bit of a pattern and timeline to my book choices throughout the year. I begin in January by reading books that are left over from my “I’m done the Festival and the 2013 books aren’t out yet so I’m going to finally read what I want” phase. Usually that stage lasts only a book or two, as we begin receiving advance copies of Spring and Fall titles soon after the calendar year begins.

My second phase occurs around mid-January to February-ish. This is the “Oh jeez there are so many 2013 books that I need to read and they are all 400 pages for some strange reason; I better cancel all my library holds until next October” stage that typically lasts until July.

Once that time has mercifully passed and the majority of the program has been completed, I find myself in the “the Festival is getting closer and I need to read as many books as I can so I can discuss how much I liked their book when I meet the author” point of the year, which is really fun, although important to note that not all Festival books are ready for me to read before the author arrives, which leads me to the last phase. This is the “the Festival has just finished but I really liked this author so I’m going to read their book even though I don’t technically have to” phase, which is probably the most pleasurable of all the book phases, to be quite honest. Some of my favourite books are discovered at this time, and this is how I came upon a newfound fascination with Frida Kahlo, thanks to F.G. Haghenbeck’s colourful (in writing and cover art) The Secret Book of Frida Kahlo.

A Hidden Gem of 2012

Now this isn’t written in stone, I can and will read books out of this order when I’m feeling rebellious, so the above ramblings can only be seen as a general outline of my reading schedule. With that in mind, I give you the 2012 Logan Lit List.

1.  Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam
2. Web of Angels by Lilian Nattel
3. The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood
4. I am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley
5. The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen
6. Midnight Sweatlodge by Waubgeshig Rice
7. 419 by Will Ferguson
8. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
9. Magnified World by Grace O’Connell
10. One Good Hustle by Billie Livingston
11. The Headmaster’s Wager by Vincent Lam
12. People Who Disappear by Alex Leslie
13. Our Lady of Alice Bhatti by Mohammed Hanif
14. Mad Hope by Heather Birrell
15. The Blondes by Emily Schultz
16. Dr. Brinkley’s Tower by Robert Hough
17. Thirst by Shree Ghatage
18. Confined Space by Deryn Collier
19. The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
20. Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin
21. Y by Marjorie Celona
22. The Nun by Simonetta Agnello Hornby
23. Life is About Losing Everything by Lynn Crosbie
24. People Park by Pasha Malla
25. Radio Belly by Buffy Cram
26. Maidenhead by Tamara Faith Berger
27. White Horse by Alex Adams
28. In the Orchard, the Swallows by Peter Hobbs
29. Five Bells by Gail Jones
30. Why Men Lie by Linden MacIntyre
31. The Placebo Effect by David Rotenberg
32. Whirl Away by Russell Wangersky
33. Tom is Dead by Marie Darrieussecq
34. Suspicion by Rachel Wyatt
35. Inside by Alix Ohlin
36. Stray Love by Kyo Maclear
37. More in Anger by J. Jill Robinson
38. The Age of Hope by David Bergen
39. That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott
40. Office Girl by Joe Meno
41. Cures for Hunger by Deni Y. Béchard
42. Bitter Drink by F.G. Haghenbeck
43. The Western Light by Susan Swan
44. The Dead are More Visible by Steven Heighton
45. The Way we Fall by Megan Crewe
46. The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
47. Signs and Wonders by Alix Ohlin
48. The World by Bill Gaston
49. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
50. Missed Her by Ivan E. Coyote
51. The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks
52. The Milk Chicken Bomb by Andrew Wedderburn
53. Memoirs of a Porcupine by Alain Mabanckou
54. A Sunless Sea by Anne Perry
55. Lionel Asbo by Martin Amis
56. In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
57. Up and Down by Terry Fallis
58. The Deception of Livvy Higgs by Donna Morrissey
59. The Sweet Girl by Annabel Lyon
60. Becoming Holmes by Shane Peacock
61. Dark Diversions by John Ralston Saul
62. The Selector of Souls by Shauna Singh Baldwin
63. Bull Head by John Vigna
64. The Secret Book of Frida Kahlo by F.G. Haghenbeck
65. Canada by Richard Ford
66. Who Could that Be at This Hour? by Lemony Snicket
67. Without Honour by Rob Tripp
68. The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg
69. The Purchase by Linda Spalding
70. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
71. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
72. Gold by Chris Cleave
73. The Emperor of Paris by C.S. Richardson
74. I Feel Bad About my Neck by Nora Ephron
75. The Round House by Louise Erdrich
76. I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron
77. The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan
78. Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith
79. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
80. Runaway by Alice Munro