The nominees are in for 2012. No, I’m not talking about Iowa. I’m talking about nominees for the 2012 Andys, of course. The list of books I read last year seems to have a pretty good variety to me. (What’s your opinion?) But certain trends may be discernible. Below you’ll find:
- five books at least fifty years old
- a number of fiction and nonfiction bestsellers
- some new fiction
- a couple of history selections
- several IVP titles (not ones I read prior to publication but after) and a few from other Christian authors
- two “professional improvement” titles
Here are the books I’ve read and listened to, listed in the order I completed them. (Seeing the movie version didn’t count.)
Beatrice & Virgil, Yann Martel
Defending Constantine, Peter Leithart
Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan
Merchants of Culture, John Thompson
South of Broad, Pat Conroy
Foundation, Isaac Asimov
The Good & Beautiful God, James Bryan Smith
Half the Sky, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
The Early Work of Philip K. Dick, Volume One, Philip K. Dick
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thorton Wilder
Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond
Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis
The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsythe
God Behaving Badly, David Lamb
Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl
Jesus the Temple, Nicholas Perrin
Feed, M. T. Anderson
Love Wins, Rob Bell
Unbroken, Lauren Hillenbrand
Made to Stick, Dan Heath & Chip Heath
Born Standing Up, Steve Martin
The Prodigal God, Timothy Keller
Our Kind of Traitor, John le Carré
Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
The next post will feature the much-anticipated awards.
Andy, that is an awesome list of books! YOU must be an awesome man! How would I ever know????
Looking forward to your awards. Speaking of the wise book “Made to Stick,” I humbly challenge you to school us in Simplicity — write twelve-word summaries for a handful of your favorite award-winners. 🙂
Adam
Twelve-word summaries! Quite a challenge. Twitter worthy. (That’s eight so far–oops, twelve. Now fourteen. Phooey!)
Andy
Andy, you just had a good idea for a Tweet series about your post. Niiiice…
Hmmm, I’m not seeing “God in a Brothel” there. Now is that “Andy behaving badly” or “the prodigal Andy”? 🙂 One mustn’t read just a quarter of the sky–that would be freakonomical. Jesus (in) the Temple might turn out to be Jesus (in) the brothel too–the omnireader’s dilemma! 🙂
I came here to vote for (and now, second the motion to) include (brief) summaries of your winners.
Jadell,
The people have spoken. ‘Twill be done!
Andy
I realized this morning that we didn’t discuss your list of books over vacation. I look forward to your Andys-it helps me start my list for the coming year!