I read 24 books a year.  On good years, maybe more, but I always try to read at least two books a month. Reading is vastly important to me.  It’s one of my favorite parts about being alive. It’s my lifeblood as a writer. Read, read, read and read more.

One year I was horrified to realize I’d only read eight books.  Of course, that was the same year I became a new mother, but still. It’s too easy for mothers, parents and busy folks to lose a sense of priorities.  After that, I started keeping track. Two books a month, minimum. Since it’s mid-December that means I’ve finished book #23. Life’s simply too short to fit in all the books I want to read.

And I want to read GOOD books. If I only read 24 books a year, and I won’t live forever, I want to make every book count. I used to finish every book in my twenties, but now I stop and put a book aside if it’s not engaging me. Life’s too short to struggle through a bad book.

I read a startling statistic recently that 70% of American adults had read at least one book this year.  One book?!  That means that 30% hadn’t read any.  And that many more had only finished one.  I’ll stick to my 24, thank you.

So here at year-end I’ll share my favorite books of the year with you. They’re not all recent books –one of my absolute favorites was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) which I finally got around to reading–but they’re good ones. Maybe you’ll add them to your reading list for 2013?

In no particular order, here are the books I most enjoyed in 2012:

• Half Broke Horses   – Jeannette Walls     (creative nonfiction)
• The Glass Castle – Jeannette Walls          (memoir)
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith    (fiction)
• Nothing to Envy – Barbara Demick    (nonfiction – stunning book about North Korea)
• Annie John – Jamaica Kincaid      (fiction)
• The Hunger Games trilogy – Suzanne Collins    (fiction)
• The Art of Racing in the Rain –  Garth Stein     (dog’s point-of-view fiction)
• Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand – Helen Simonson   (fiction)

Happy reading!

What were your favorite reads this year?  How do you manage to make reading a priority?