My Reading List for 2012

A few more days until 2011 bids adieu. I think this is the time when most of us would reflect on the past 12 months.

What have I read this year? What are those noteworthy?

Aside from discovering A Song of Ice and Fire Series by George R.R. Martin, I could not recall other milestones in terms of reading- quite acceptable since I was too preoccupied with the joys of motherhood. ;)

But for next year, I'm determined to make progress. For 2012, I promised myself to:

• read more books,
• discover new authors and
• be more serious in writing book reviews

In connection with my goals above, I've listed down the books that I'd like to read next year.

A Song of Ice and Fire Series by George R.R. Martin

Didn't I just mention that I already read these books? I've already sold my copies and belatedly realized my mistake. I will most likely have to wait for years before the Winds of Winter is published. For now, I will have to be contented with the five books and this sample.

"Noli Me Tangere" and "El Filibusterismo" by Dr. Jose Rizal

These books were required reading when I was still in high school. What I liked about it is that the lessons (as well as the characters) in these novels are still relevant in the modern times. I wish to see a movie version of these books. Perhaps the lessons that our national hero tried to impart will reach a wider audience through this medium.

The following books were picked from the list best books of 2011 by Huffington Post and Amazon.Com:

"The Tiger's Wife" by Téa Obreht

In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. By the time she and her lifelong friend Zóra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Secrets her outwardly cheerful hosts have chosen not to tell her. Secrets involving the strange family digging for something in the surrounding vineyards. Secrets hidden in the landscape itself. But Natalia is also confronting a private, hurtful mystery of her own: the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. After telling her grandmother that he was on his way to meet Natalia, he instead set off for a ramshackle settlement none of their family had ever heard of and died there alone. A famed physician, her grandfather must have known that he was too ill to travel. Why he left home becomes a riddle Natalia is compelled to unravel.

"The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. 

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands. 

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead. 

"A Discovery of Witches: A Novel" by Deborah E. Harkness

A richly inventive novel about a centuries-old vampire, a spellbound witch, and the mysterious manuscript that draws them together.

Deep in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks.

But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell. 

"22 Britannia Road: A Novel" by Amanda Hodgkinson

"Housekeeper or housewife?" the soldier asks Silvana as she and eight- year-old Aurek board the ship that will take them from Poland to England at the end of World War II. There her husband, Janusz, is already waiting for them at the little house at 22 Britannia Road. But the war has changed them all so utterly that they'll barely recognize one another when they are reunited.

 "Survivor," she answers. 

 Silvana and Aurek spent the war hiding in the forests of Poland. Wild, almost feral Aurek doesn't know how to tie his own shoes or sleep in a bed. Janusz is an Englishman now-determined to forget Poland, forget his own ghosts from the way, and begin a new life as a proper English family. But for Silvana, who cannot escape the painful memory of a shattering wartime act, forgetting is not a possibility. 

"The Restorer (The Graveyard Queen)" by Amanda Stevens




My name is Amelia Gray. I'm a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. In order to protect myself from the parasitic nature of the dead, I've always held fast to the rules passed down from my father. But now a haunted police detective has entered my world and everything is changing, including the rules that have always kept me safe.

It started with the discovery of a young woman's brutalized body in an old Charleston graveyard I've been hired to restore. The clues to the killer—and to his other victims—lie in the headstone symbolism that only I can interpret. Devlin needs my help, but his ghosts shadow his every move, feeding off his warmth, sustaining their presence with his energy. To warn him would be to invite them into my life. I've vowed to keep my distance, but the pull of his magnetism grows ever stronger even as the symbols lead me closer to the killer and to the gossamer veil that separates this world from the next.






"Please Look After Mom" by Kyung-Sook Shin

A million-plus-copy best seller in Korea—a magnificent English-language debut poised to become an international sensation—this is the stunning, deeply moving story of a family’s search for their mother, who goes missing one afternoon amid the crowds of the Seoul Station subway.

Told through the piercing voices and urgent perspectives of a daughter, son, husband, and mother, Please Look After Mom is at once an authentic picture of contemporary life in Korea and a universal story of family love.

I won't officially start buying books until I've disposed of my current pile of books. Given my current inventory, it would take me at least three months to do that. I hope I have enough time to read the books I've listed.

What about you? What books would you like to read next year?