Books of 2012

Been thinking about my favourite books of the year (and records, but more of that later) and realised that I never made a list for 2012. I don't think I did one for 2011 either, but that seems like an eternity away, and for some reason 2012 feels like it just finished. Probably something to do with the speed that 2013 seems to have passed by at.

Anyway, here is the top ten, with basic statistics underneath. Apparent again is a heavy bias towards fiction, male authors and books published in the last three years; although with an interesting peak from the early noughties mainly due to my Russell Hoban obsession.

Top 10
1 That Summer – Andrew Greig
2 Sightlines – Kathleen Jamie
3 Open City – Teju Cole
4 Gods Without Men – Hari Kunzru
5 Hawthorn and Child – Keith Ridgway
6 The Emperor of All Maladies – Siddhartha Mukherjee
7 The Gone-Away World – Nick Harkaway
8 Not the Last Goodbye – David Servan-Schreiber
9 The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared – Jonas Jonasson
10 Backroom Boys – Francis Spufford

Statistics
Total: 41 books
Fiction: 29 titles
Non-fiction: 12 titles
Number of authors: 36
Male authors: 31
Female authors: 5
Published in 2012: 6
Published in 2011: 16
Published in 2010: 4
Published in 2009: 2
Published in 2008: 0
Published in 2007: 1
Published in 2006: 1
Published in 2005: 0
Published 2000-04: 8
Published 1990-99: 2
Published 1980-89: 1
Published before 1980: 0

And because I love a good graph, or three, here is the last three year's reading broken down month-by-month:

Which looks all right, not hitting my target of 52 books a year, but still not too bad for someone at my stage of life, with a heavy iPad Scrabble habit.

However, things start to look a little less rosy when you compare this to the number of books acquired over the same timeframe (noting the different scale on the y-axis of course):

And then the really scary one:

Assuming I manage to survive for another 30 years what this tells me is that I need to stop buying any books (or asking for them as Christmas presents) in about 10 years. Either that or start to read quicker.

Best albums of 2012: 10 to 6

10 Lana Del Rey – Born to Die

Mannered, manufactured(?), but soaring, glorious pop melodies. I don't read enough about music anymore to know where Lana came from or how this album came into existence. I watched Video Games on YouTube and as I went to buy it as a single thought I should have a listen to the album just in case there was anything else even close to its sublime, irresistible pure pop hit. Of course the whole album isn't quite that good, but there are another three or four tracks that are close and the rest is pretty wonderful too. Perfectly modern but beautifully timeless, this is the sort of album that burrows deep into your brain with melodies that are all but impossible to dislodge.

9 Human Don't Be Angry – Human Don't Be Angry

Malcolm Middleton's side project may not have the emotional impact of his usual work, but it sounds like he is having a lot of fun here. And if anyone deserves a bit of fun you would hope that Malcolm would be near the top of the list. The last track, Getting Better (At Feeling Like Shit), is the only clue that this record is from the man whose attempt at a Christmas number one was called We're All Going to Die. Highlighting his hitherto unknown love of 80s pop, synthesisers and drum machines it is a wonderful showcase of another side of his amazing talents. 

8 Ghost Society – The Back of His Hands, Then the Palms


If you were going to put together a band designed to cater purely for my tastes you would probably come up with something pretty close to Ghost Society – dreamy female/male vocals, distorted My Bloody Valentine-esque washes of guitar, left field melodies from Scandinavia. The shoegaze inspirations can be picked out if you are looking hard, but the sublime vocals are more Cocteau Twins than Ride. Sparkling and shimmering this is a beautiful collection of songs to lose yourself in.

7 Mystery Jets – Radlands


Earnest indie-boys and their guitars make up surprisingly little of my current listening, but I have made an exception for Radlands. There are one or two cheesy moments, try Greatest Hits for a prime example, but overall this is a good selection of well-written, intelligent and mostly jangly songs that stand up to repeated listening. There is a bit of variety, with the rather lovely ballad Take Me Where the Roses Grow and the lo-fi Luminescence rounding things out and providing a counterpoint to the simpler pleasures.

6 Best Coast – The Only Place
Low slung guitars, songs three minutes or less. Like an Elastica for 2012, only better.

Best albums of 2012: the near misses

Very late, almost embarrasingly so, and slightly less detailed than usual, but for the record here are the Geography of Hope albums of 2012. Starting with the near misses, the top 10 will follow as quickly as I can manage.

Saint Etienne – Words and Music

It doesn't have the subtlety or the charm of earlier albums, but there are still some flashes of brilliance to remind me of the glory days. Lots of shiny big pop numbers, chiming piano chords and pumping drum beats, but Sarah Cracknell's vocals always seem to have an edge of melancholy and Words and Music seems especially nostalgic for those teenage/early adult years of mix-tapes, a music press that mattered and when music was an essential part of defining who you are.

Richard Hawley – Standing at the Sky's Edge

His vocal delivery and guitar histrionics remind me a bit of Eric Clapton and that would normally be enough to have me running screaming from the room, but somehow he turns it into something resembling a mythical lost Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood album. Full of swirling, menacing harmonies, the languid vocals are mostly undecipherable and when you can hear them you realise that is probably a good thing. Even so this is a gloriously uplifting and out of time album that sounds immediately recognisable and also like nothing else you have ever heard before.