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Year consensus · 2012

The Most Recommended Books of 2012

We counted 3,928 entries from 126 sources in 2012. Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel appeared on 22, 3 more than any other book.

A source counts once per book, whatever the result: a win, a shortlist place, or a list pick. We show books named by 3 or more sources. 2012 is the award or list year, not the publication year.

22 sources

  1. Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

19 sources

  1. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

15 sources

  1. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

14 sources

  1. The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro

  2. This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz

13 sources

  1. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

12 sources

  1. NW by Zadie Smith

11 sources

  1. Building Stories by Chris Ware

  2. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

  3. Joseph Anton: A Memoir by Salman Rushdie

  4. Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon

  5. The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

  6. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

10 sources

  1. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

  2. Dear Life by Alice Munro

  3. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

  4. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1945-1956 by Anne Applebaum

9 sources

  1. Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel

  2. Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon

  3. The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

  4. The Round House by Louise Erdrich

  5. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

8 sources

  1. A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers

  2. And Then It's Spring by Julie Fogliano and Erin E. Stead

  3. House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid

  4. Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead

  5. This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen

7 sources

  1. Arcadia by Lauren Groff

  2. Canada by Richard Ford

  3. Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen

  4. Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

  5. Mortality by Christopher Hitchens

  6. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

  7. Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

  8. The Diviners by Libba Bray

  9. Thomas Jefferson by Jon Meacham

6 sources

  1. Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

  2. Among Others by Jo Walton

  3. Ask the Passengers by A.S. King

  4. Broken Harbor by Tana French

  5. Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story by D.T. Max

  6. Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

  7. No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson and R. Gregory Christie

  8. People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman by Richard Lloyd Parry

  9. Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen

  10. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan

  11. Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

  12. The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

  13. The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin

  14. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

  15. Wonder by R.J. Palacio

  16. Z Is for Moose by Kelly Bingham

5 sources

  1. At Last by Edward St. Aubyn

  2. Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson

  3. Embassytown by China Miéville

  4. Every Day by David Levithan

  5. Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

  6. Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

  7. HHhH by Laurent Binet

  8. Home by Toni Morrison

  9. Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power by Steve Coll

  10. Son by Lois Lowry

  11. The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes by Steven Pinker

  12. The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss

  13. The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan

  14. The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

  15. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

  16. The Signal and the Noise: Why so Many Predictions Fail — But Some Don’t by Nate Silver

  17. We've Got A Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children's March by Cynthia Levinson

4 sources

  1. 11/22/63 by Stephen King

  2. 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson

  3. A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin

  4. A Home for Bird by Philip C. Stead

  5. A Land More Kind than Home by Wiley Cash

  6. Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass: The Story Behind An American Friendship by Russell Freedman

  7. Absolution by Patrick Flanery

  8. All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen

  9. Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway

  10. Beyond Courage: The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust by Doreen Rappaport

  11. Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

  12. Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

  13. Dearie by Bob Spitz

  14. Defending Jacob by William Landay

  15. Double Cross by Ben Macintyre

  16. Drama by Raina Telgemeier

  17. Fobbit by David Abrams

  18. Gods without Men by Hari Kunzru

  19. Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems

  20. Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

  21. How Children Succeed by Paul Tough

  22. How Music Works by David Byrne

  23. In A Glass Grimmly by Adam Gidwitz

  24. Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis

  25. Jimmy the Greatest by Jairo Buitrago

  26. Keeping the Castle by Patrice Kindl

  27. Learning To Swim by Sara J. Henry

  28. Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King

  29. Magnificence by Lydia Millet

  30. Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Phillip Hoose

  31. My Book of Life by Angel by Martine Leavitt

  32. Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure by Artemis Cooper

  33. Penny and Her Doll by Kevin Henkes

  34. Phantom by Jo Nesbø

  35. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

  36. Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan

  37. Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz

  38. The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

  39. The Cove by Ron Rash

  40. The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle

  41. The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

  42. The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa

  43. The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

  44. The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente

  45. The Mansion of Happiness by Jill Lepore

  46. The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

  47. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

  48. The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane

  49. The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy by David Nasaw

  50. The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

  51. The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward O. Wilson

  52. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

  53. Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage

  54. Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante

  55. Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys by D. A. Powell

  56. What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander

  57. Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

  58. Winter Journal by Paul Auster

3 sources

  1. 1222 by Anne Holt

  2. A Black Hole Is Not A Hole by Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano

  3. A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny

  4. After the Apocalypse: Stories by Maureen F. McHugh

  5. Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making by John Curran

  6. All Cry Chaos by Leonard Rosen

  7. All That I Am by Anna Funder

  8. Arguably by Christopher Hitchens

  9. Bear Has A Story to Tell by Philip Christian Stead

  10. Boot & Shoe by Marla Frazee

  11. By Blood by Ellen Ullman

  12. Carry the One by Carol Anshaw

  13. Chuck Close: Face Book by Chuck Close, Amanda Freymann and Joan Sommers

  14. Cronkite by Douglas Brinkley

  15. Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley

  16. Dodger by Terry Pratchett

  17. Dr. Brinkley’s Tower by Robert Hough

  18. Dreaming up: A Celebration of Building by Christy Hale

  19. Drift by Rachel Maddow

  20. Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson

  21. Edge of Dark Water by Joe R. Lansdale

  22. Endangered by Eliot Schrefer

  23. Fifty Cents and A Dream: Young Booker T. Washington by Jabari Asim

  24. Fun & Games by Duane Swierczynski

  25. Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman

  26. Haiti by Laurent Dubois

  27. I Am an Executioner by Rajesh Parameswaran

  28. I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King Jr.

  29. In One Person by John Irving

  30. Inside by Alix Ohlin

  31. Island by Jason Chin

  32. Live by Night by Dennis Lehane

  33. Lulu and the Duck in the Park by Hilary McKay

  34. Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable

  35. Nazareth Child by Darrell James

  36. On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines – and Future by Karen Elliott House

  37. On the Eve: The Jews of Europe Before the Second World War by Bernard Wasserstein

  38. Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece by Michael Gorra

  39. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

  40. Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton

  41. Rule & Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party from Eisenhower to the Tea Party by Geoffrey Kabaservice

  42. Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead

  43. See You at Harry's by Jo Knowles

  44. Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer

  45. Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin

  46. Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy by Andrew Preston

  47. The Beetle Book by Steve Jenkins

  48. The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies by David Thomson

  49. The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty

  50. The Coldest Night by Robert Olmstead

  51. The Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett

  52. The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour

  53. The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan

  54. The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  55. The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

  56. The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness by Kevin Young

  57. The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy

  58. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick

  59. The Informationist by Taylor Stevens

  60. The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin

  61. The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis

  62. The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger

  63. The Odds by Stewart O'Nan

  64. The Presidents Club by Nancy Gibbs

  65. The Purchase by Linda Spalding

  66. The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

  67. The Second World War by Antony Beevor

  68. The Submission by Amy Waldman

  69. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt

  70. The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín

  71. The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura

  72. The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones

  73. The Violinist's Thumb by Sam Kean

  74. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

  75. Three Strong Women by Marie N'Diaye

  76. Toby's Room by Pat Barker

  77. Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe by George Dyson

  78. Twelve Kinds of Ice by Ellen Bryan Obed

  79. Unspoken: A Story From the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole

  80. Watergate by Thomas Mallon

  81. When I Was a Child, I Read Books: Essays by Marilynne Robinson

  82. Who Could That Be at This Hour? by Lemony Snicket

  83. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

  84. Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoğlu

  85. Winter of the World by Ken Follett

Sources counted in 2012