Holiday Gift Suggestions: Some Favorite Books of 2012

This is the season of making “best books of the year” lists, which are both interesting and useful for those buying books for holiday gifts. Below I offer a list of some of my favorite books published in 2012. So this is not a general “best of…” list as much as a very individual, personal “some of the books I have most enjoyed” list. As I said last year at about this time, I urge readers to give books for gifts, and to buy those books from independent bookstores when at all possible. The dates I posted here about the books are in parentheses. FICTION: -The Beginner’s Goodbye, by Anne Tyler (4/15/12); -Carry the One, by Carol Anshaw (4/8/12); -Coral Glynn, by Peter Cameron (5/1/12); -Dear Life, by Alice Munro (12/6/12); -How It All Began, by Penelope Lively (1/21/12); -Married Love, and Other Stories, by Tessa Hadley (not yet posted about); -NW, by Zadie Smith (10/2/12); -The Odds, by Stewart O’Nan (1/26/12); -Shout Her Lovely Name, by Natalie Serber ((8/27/12); -The Theory of Small Earthquakes, by Meredith Maran (7/6/12); -The World Without You, by Joshua Henkin (8/19/12); NONFICTION: -Are You My Mother?, by Alison Bechdel (6/23/12); -Letters to a Friend, by Diana Athill (6/9/12); -The Secret Life of Objects, by Dawn Raffel (9/11/12); -Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (8/4/12): -Yes, Chef, by Marcus Samuelsson (7/21/12).