The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion

What were your favorite books of the Fall 2012 Challenge?

Not just my favorite book of the Fall 2012 Challenge, but this book has earned a spot as one of my favorite books of all time...

The Disenchanted by Budd Schulberg


Other gems I found during the Fall challenge:

Fatale by Jean-Patrick Manchette
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

I would eagerly, enthusiastically push any of these books into the hands of a fellow reader.

I read several good books during this challenge.

which was the first zombie/steampunk book I've ever read. I really liked it and have the second one of that series waiting to be read ☺

was an excellent read about the Amish.

was an awesome book that I loved!!!

Other books I really enjoyed:

Insurgent was pretty good
Kiss the Girls was good.

my the best

I think Gone Girl probably topped the list for me- it was such a total mind f*** that I loved it - I really liked how the author didn't tie everything up in a nice pretty bow

The Hobbit - can't believe i've never read this

The Lifeboat and Everything I Needed to Know about Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume were also good reads

5-Star Reads

Hello, Groin Surprisingly good. I had wanted to read it for years, and I was really glad it exceeded my expectations. I liked the characters and thought the plot flowed naturally.

Too Close for Comfort Okay, I admit it. I'm a Quantum Leap junkie. I did the full-blown fangirl thing this summer when I got to meet them both (and get my picture taken! And ask a question at their panel!). So I'm a little biased. However, this book read just like an episode, and one of the really good episodes at that. Highly recommended if you can find it (I got my copy at a library book sale).

Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 4: Unstoppable Simply put, Whedon at his best. Gorgeous art and the perfect end to an exciting story arc.

Weird Al: The Book This was such a fun book. I read it in preparation for seeing Weird Al in concert, and while there wasn't too much information I didn't already know (Yay for Behind the Music!), the lyrics and the pictures and the sidebars (written by the man himself!) and everything made this book for me. Now if only I can get it back from the friend I loaned it to...

The Caves of Steel It's entirely possible that this was my first full-length science fiction novel, way back when I was nine or ten. My dad loaned it to me, and I loved it. I'm glad to say that it's still held up as an amazing book, even though it's been almost twenty years since then and I've devoured most of the SF I've come across.

Seventh Son WHY HAVEN'T I READ THIS BEFORE NOW?! It was interesting and philosophical and had so many wonderful quotes and ideas--and a great plot and engaging characters to boot! This would be a six-star read for me, if I could rate it that high. I even went out and bought the rest of the series.

The Running Dream This was surprisingly good. I liked how realistically the protagonist was portrayed, and while there was some suspension of disbelief with a few of the events, the story itself was strong enough to withstand those moments.

The Fault in Our Stars I went into this one with no idea what to expect, but I loved it. The narrator was funny and snarky and wonderful. I was bawling at the end, and I enjoyed every moment of it. I actually put down the book a few times specifically so it wouldn't have to end.

My two favorites were The Light Between Oceans and The Fault in Our Stars.

My favorite books Fall 2012

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
Every Day by David Levithan
Confessions of a Serial Kisser by Wendelin Van Draanen
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

Now that I'm done reading for the fall challenge, here are my favourites:

5 Stars:
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Jarrettsville by Cornelia Nixon
The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

Notable 4 Stars:
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
The Town That Drowned by Riel Nason
The Innocents by Francesca Segal
Man in the Dark by Paul Auster

My favorites from the Fall Challenge are-

and

5 stars:

My only 5 Stars were and .

I would give 4.5 Stars to and .

Three favorites this season:

The Green Mile by Stephen King

A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony

Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

5 star reads

My favorites this season:

My only 5-star rating in the Fall was for The Absolutist. The Boy in the Suitcase was also a favorite.

My favorites from Fall 2012:

The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama
Jana Bibi's Excellent Fortunes: A Novel by Betsy Woodman
A Room Full of Bones by Elly Griffiths
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King
The Sweetness of Forgetting by Kristin Harmel
God Save the Queen by Kate Locke
Mariana by Susanna Kearsley
The Blackhouse by Peter May
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

Considering there's a task, I'm going to stop being lazy and list out my favorites from fall...

Of Mice and Men
The Hunger Games
Beautiful Ruins
Cloud Atlas
The Round House
The Remains of the Day
The Night Circus
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

I also read and enjoyed all of Neil Gaiman's works.

OK Chaitra you shamed me into it. I'll stop being lazy too. Here are a few of my favorites from fall 2012

Sweetheart
In the Bleak Midwinter
Night Watch

I too finally did the list:

- from the October Daye Series

- Two superb works by Sanderson which shot him up to my favorite authors list.

- So many raves about it from my friends and it lived upto it. Loved it!

- Mayberry is one of my favorite authors and her latest didn't disappoint.

Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

My fall favorites:

Jude the Obscure
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
The Girl with No Shadow
The Lotus Eaters: A Novel
Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
V is for Vengeance
Payment In Blood
The Fifth Witness

My fall favorites:

Alas, Babylon - an all-time favorite and I'm always recommending it.
Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
Montana 1948
Touching Spirit Bear
The Keeper of Lost Causes

My 5 star reads from the Fall challenge are

Bad Moon Rising
A Morning For Flamingos
Trust Your Eyes
The Secret Keeper
Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet
Night Road

My fall 5 star reads:

Here were some of my 5 star reads from the fall 2012 challenge:
The Hobbit
Beggars in Spain
The Reversal
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
High Fidelity
Running the Rift
Pirate Cinema
The Vanishing Point
Some Kind Of Fairy Tale
Flight Behavior

My 5-stars for the Fall Challenge are here.... not a lot, disappointingly! But I admit, I'm a tough critic. I gave a lot of 4 stars, but these three books made the 5-star cut:

: AWESOME continuation of this series. Read it if you love YA Paranormal anything... it really turns the latest YA Angel genre phenomenon on its ear... in a good way!

Beautiful Middle Grades story about acceptance and diversity. Wraps things up in a nice little bow at the end - but I love its positive message, and the author's talent in narrating from multiple viewpoints is deft.

- This fantasy world has a depth only paralleled by the likes of Tolkien or Rowling. If you're a fantasy-lover, you really shouldn't miss this series.

Notable 4-star books (really should be 4.5):
- If the ending of this YA realistic fiction/mystery had been a little more unexpected, I probably would have bumped this up to 5-stars. The voices are haunting though, and it is a well-deserved Printz Honor book.

: Libba Bray is a masterful storyteller, and this YA science-fiction book is bursting with the 1920s - which I loved - and an X-Men*ish plot twist - which I also loved. However, the slang is a little stilted and overused (if she said "posi-tootly" one more time I was going to "posi-tootly" barf")... hence the 4.5 rating.

I only had 1 5-star book: by Kate Elliot, but lots of 4-star books. From those, my favorites were:



I can't wait to read the next in each series!

I am under the impression that I give mostly 4 stars but, I found that my list of 5 star books for fall totalled 12. In looking over the list and seeing what I had included, two were rescored down to 4 stars, but that still left a long list. Guess it was a good season for me for reading.

Suspense/mystery/thrillers
I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly
Body of Lies: A Novel by David Ignatius
Winter House by Carol O'Connell

Science fiction/fantasy
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

Other categories
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - literature, cultural > africa, historical fiction
Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu - gothic horror, paranormal (vampire)
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein - animals

The most surprising of these 10 to me were the last three. The Poisonwood Bible was a book I have wanted to read but which I found intimidating. Was I surprised! The writing is so delightful and the story resonated with early experiences of my own in such a way that I was engaged almost in spite of myself. This was my first book by Barbara Kingsolver but will not be my last.
Carmilla also took me by surprise. Vampires are not a genre that I usually read, although I have enjoyed Charlaine Harris' Sookie series (light, funny) and Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire in past seasons of reading. But this gothic tale was delightful, scary, and well-written.
The Art of Racing in the Rain was a book that I was reading when my dog died. That might account for the 5 stars but I still think it is a really well written story of relationships and hope. Definitely inspirational.

I was pretty into the historical fiction genre this fall and loved

The Shoemaker's Wife by Adriana Trigiani (I think this will make it to my all time favorite books list)

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty
The Baker's Daughter by Sarah McCoy

In other categories I enjoyed

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Girls In Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares
Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
The Taking by Dean Koontz
Ashfall and Ashen Winter by Mike Mullin

My favorites were:

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
Incendiary by Chris Cleave
A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

I love the whole Song of Ice and Fire series.

My favorites were:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Sophomore Switch by Abby McDonald

I didn't read much this fall, but fortunately, the ones I did read were good!

My only 5* book was Three Day Road.

My 4* books were:
Ella Minnow Pea
The Diary of Pelly D
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
The Last Wild Wolves: Ghosts of the Rain Forest
Better by Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong

I'm also going to give an honorable mention to Paradise Lost. I only gave it 3 stars, but considering I had expected to hate it, I was pleasantly surprised!

Only two 5-stars. This has been a rather disappointing season overall.

The Sandman, Vol. 3: Dream Country

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society