Best Books of 2012

Looking for something to read in the New Year?  Stop by the display in Teen & Adult Services and check out one of 2012's best nonfiction offerings.  Or try one of the "Top Ten Books of 2012" as chosen by Publishers Weekly, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

Publishers Weekly's top ten:  Happiness Is a Chemical in the Brain: Stories by Lucia Perillo (short stories), Bringing Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (historical fiction), The Round House by Louise Erdrich (fiction), The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle (suspense), Building Stories by Chris Ware (graphic novel), All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen (biography), Detroit City Is the Place to Be: The Afterlife of an American Metropolis by Mark Binelli (social science), People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo--and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up by Richard Lloyd Parry (true crime), The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600 to 1675 by Bernard Bailyn (history), and Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944 - 1956 by Anne Applebaum (history).
 

The New York Times’ top ten: Bringing Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (historical fiction), Building Stories by Chris Ware (graphic novel), A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers (fiction), NW by Zadie Smith (fiction), The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers (fiction), Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo (social science), Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon (social science), The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro (biography), The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy by David Nasaw (biography), and Why Does the World Exist:?: An Existential Detective Story by Jim Holt (philosophy).

The Washington Post’s top ten: Arcadia by Lauren Groff (fiction), Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain (fiction), Bringing Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (historical fiction), Broken Harbor by Tana French (mystery), Canada by Richard Ford (fiction), Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo (social science), House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid (memoir), Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944 - 1956 by Anne Applebaum (history), Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam by James G. Hershberg (history), and Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson (political science/economics).