Best Books of 2012

I've read a decent amount this year.  Not the most I've ever read, but not the least either.  I hate to post this before the actual end of the year, but I figure it will be okay to leave off a great read or two if I polish them off in the next few days. ;)

The Violets of March – Sarah Jio: A heartbroken woman stumbles upon a diary and steps into the life of its anonymous author.  Beautiful story.

Blindsighted – Karin Slaughter: A small Georgia town erupts in panic when a young college professor is found brutally mutilated in the local diner. But it's only when town pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton does the autopsy that the full extent of the killer's twisted work becomes clear 

Winter Garden – Kristin Hannah: illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past.

Sarah’s Key – Tatiana de Rosnay: Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Still Alice – Lisa Genova: Alice Howland - Harvard professor, gifted researcher and lecturer, wife, and mother of three grown children - sets out for a run and soon realizes she has no idea how to find her way home. She has taken the route for years, but nothing looks familiar. She is utterly lost. Medical consults reveal early-onset Alzheimer's.

Looking for Alaska – John Green:  Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. Then he heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe.

Prisoner of Tehran – Marina Nehmet:  What would you give up to protect your loved ones? Your life?In her heartbreaking, triumphant, and elegantly written memoir, "Prisoner of Tehran," Marina Nemat tells the heart-pounding story of her life as a young girl in Iran during the early days of Ayatollah Khomeini's brutal Islamic Revolution.

Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn: Marriage can be a real killer. One of the most critically acclaimed suspense writers of our time, New York Times bestseller Gillian Flynn takes that statement to its darkest place in this unputdownable masterpiece about a marriage gone terribly, terribly wrong.

The Faith Club – Ranya Lidlby, Suzanne Oliver and Priscilla Warren: Welcome to the Faith Club. We're three mothers from three faiths -- Islam, Christianity, and Judaism -- who got together to write a picture book for our children that would highlight the connections between our religions. But no sooner had we started talking about our beliefs and how to explain them to our children than our differences led to misunderstandings.

We Are All Welcome Here - Elizabeth Berg: features three women, each struggling against overwhelming odds for her own kind of freedom.

Interesting facts: 6 of these were group reads that we did on the blog, 4 of these were Books & Bar picks, 6 were recommended by people I either met on the Internet or blogs and 1 I had no interest in picking up, but ended up liking a lot.

What were your best reads of 2012? Have you read any of these?