12 Months, 30 Books

I never told any of you, but last year on New Year's Eve I came up with a challenge for myself. The parameters for my challenge were simple: Read 30 new books in the year 2012.  My success is arguable, because while I did read 30 books, not all of them were books I hadn't read before. I just finished reading book #30, and I'm pretty proud of myself. Here is a list (in order, approximately), of the 30 books I read in 2012 (books I've read before will be indicated with a *).

1. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (very, very good)
2. Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club by Gil McNeil (this book was awful)
3. Escape Under the Forever Sky by Eve Yahalem
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney
6. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone* by J.K. Rowling
7. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer (This book was also awful, I think I wrote a post about it when I finished it)
8. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* by J.K. Rowling
9. Keeping Corner by Kashmira Sheth
10. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* by J.K. Rowling
11. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (great book)
12. Because of Winn Dixie* by Kate DiCamillo
13.Dave Barry is from Mars and Venus by Dave Barry (a pretty funny read...)
14. The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianne Malone
15.Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman (Surprisingly, I rather liked this one)
16. Comfort Food* by Kate Jacobs (inexplicably one of my favorite novels)
17. Hole in my Life by Jack Gantos (REALLY good)
18. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane* by Kate Dicamillo (makes me cry)
19. Going Dutch in Beijing* by Mark McCrum (one of my faves)
20. Brida by Paulo Coelho
21. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
22. Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah
23. Chinese Mythology retold by Claude Helft
24. The Tale of Desperaux by Kate Dicamillo
25. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (The last time I read this was in 5th grade so I counted it as not having read it before since I didn't remember much of the plot)
26. Paper Towns by John Green
27. Animal Farm by George Orwell
28. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
29. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
30. Peanut by Ayun Holiday (this is a pre-published book I checked out from the library, am I allowed to write about it on here???)

That's my list!! I'm sure as the last month of the year winds down, I'll be able to tack a few more books onto my list. I actually did read more than 30 books already, but I don't think that any of the Dear Dumb Diary books I read when I couldn't sleep actually constitute as reading a real book. Another thing I wasn't sure about including was Homestuck/Problem Sleuth.  Both of those involve quite a bit of reading, but since they're comics, I didn't add them on the list.

Doing this 30 book challenge was so much fun! I plan on doing it in 2013 as well. Do you have any suggestions that might make finding 30 new books to read easier for me? ;)