Read Much, Read Well

I read at least 30 books during this past year. That's pretty good! But I can do better. It helps that one of the classes I took had an extensive reading list. I'm going to make a goal to read more books this year and to read better books. I typically read for escape. That is all fine and well, but that gets tiring after a while, like too much candy. So I'm going to throw in a few literary vegetables every once in a while: something non-fiction, a classic or two. I'm also going to occasionally try out something I wouldn't typically read; maybe I'll try some urban fiction. (Probably not.) Or some murder mysteries, which I never read. I don't know why. Lots of people love them. Anyway, here's a list of my 2012 reads. Not very extensive, and there's a lot of "candy" in there. Still it wasn't a bad year for reading:

• The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling (actually haven't quite finished this one. So maybe this shouldn't count.)
• How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age by Dale Carnegie
• A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
• Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
• The Ramos Brothers Trust Castro and Kennedy by Roger DeBlanck
• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
• A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
• Follow the River by James Alexander Thom
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Children of the Great Depression by Russell Freedman
• The Shadows of Ghadames by Joelle Stolz
• The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
• Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Not Reading by Tommy Greenwald
• The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
• Herbert's Wormhole: The Rise and Fall of El Solo Libre by Peter Nelson and Rhoitash Rao
• Island of Thieves by Josh Lacey
• Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
• One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
• The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
• A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
• The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen
• Child of the Prophecy by Juliet Marillier
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
• Borrowed Light by Carla Kelly
• The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
• Jane by April Lindner
• The Maze Runner by James Dashner

So. What was your favorite book you read last year?