It's Never Too Early for Great Literature

How much am I loving these?  So much!
Jennifer Adams and Alison Oliver bring you these delightful board book "versions" of your favorite classics, perfect for introducing the heavyweights to the little reader in your life.  I know a certain nephew who is getting the entire set!

Little Miss Austen: Pride Prejudice: A Counting Primer

Little Master Dickens: A Christmas Carol

Little Master Carroll: Alice in Wonderland: A Colors Primer

Little Miss Bronte: Jane Eyre: A Counting Primer

Little Master Stoker: Dracula: A Counting Primer

Little Master Shakespeare: Romeo & Juliet: A Counting Primer

And February brings three more titles:

• Moby Dick: An Ocean Primer  (YAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!!)
• Sense & Sensibility: An Opposites Primer
• Wuthering Heights: A Weather Primer

Bookseller Top Tens! Part One

So, it's a little late in the countdown list game, but here are our bookseller top ten lists for books read in 2012.  There are very few rules for this...books listed can be published this year, or not; they can be in English, or not; they can be old favorites, or new; the lists can be ordered, or not...really anything goes, as long as they're books, and even that's negotiable.  I'm breaking this into two posts, because I got so many responses from both our Lake Forest Park and Ravenna booksellers.  Without further ado...

Robert at Lake Forest Park

Robert says that all these were published this year except for Williams 1965 neglected classic Stoner – a beautiful and sad book that he would recommend to anyone who loves literature.

• 1. May We Be Forgiven by A M Homes 
• 2. Stoner by John Edward Williams 
• 3. The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson 
• 4. Lazarus is Dead by James Beard 
• 5. These Dreams of You by Steve Erickson 
• 6. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain 
• 7. A Million Heavens by John Brandon 
• 8. By Blood by Ellen Ullman 
• 9. Mr Penubra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan 
• 10. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Michael at Ravenna
Michael says he doesn't really have a favorite, but if forced...he would pick The Life of Objects

• Canada by Richard Ford 
• The Life of Objects by Susanna Moore 
• The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin 
• The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison 
• Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter 
• Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd 
• Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill 
• Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple
• Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz 
• Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst

Emily A. at Lake Forest Park

Emily cheated and picked 11- although I did say there were few rules...well played, Emily.

• Alif The Unseen by G Willow Wilson 
• The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin 
• The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison 
• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce 
• Mrs. Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn 
• A Very Minor Prophet by James Bernard Frost
• Leon and Louise by Alex Capus 
• The Round House by Louise Erdrich 
• Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson 
• The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey 
• Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

Ami at Ravenna

Ami is super stoked to see what everyone else picked for their top tens!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• 1. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace 
• 2. Almost No Memory by Lydia Davis 
• 3. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf 
• 4. Pan by Knut Hamsun 
• 5. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin 
• 6. Songs of the Dragon Flying to Heaven by Young Jean Lee 
• 7. Girl With Curious Hair by David Foster Wallace 
• 8. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov 
• 9. All the Days and Nights by William Maxwell 
• 10. Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha

Stan at Lake Forest Park

Stan's top ten is titled, Untitled...edgy, Stan!

• 38 nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier's End by Scott W. Berg
• Mrs.Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn
• On the Overgrown Path by David Herter
• The Luminous Depths by David Herter
• Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age by Bohumil Hrabal
• Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love by David Talbott
• Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
• Better Off Without 'em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession by Chuck Thompson
• The Fat Years by Chan Koonchung
• Mission to Paris by Alan Furst

Mark B. at Ravenna
I've never heard someone praise a book as much as Mark praised Gone Girl.

• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn 
• Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes 
• Elegies for the Brokenhearted by Christie Hodgen 
• Far North by Marcel Theroux 
• The Odds by Stewart O'Nan 
• Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy 
• The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes 
• Immobility by Brian Evenson 
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell  
• Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Patti H. at Ravenna
Patti makes a bold move and says that Icefall, is not only her number one for the year, but maybe one of her most favorite books...EVER!

• Icefall by Mathew Kirby 
• Graceling by Kristin Cashore 
• Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron 
• Across the Universe by Beth Revis 
• Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern 
• Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood 
• Books of Elsewhere (series) by Jacqueline West 
• Every Day by David Levithan 
• Paladin Prophecy by Mark Frost 
• The Emerald Atlas by John Stephens

Erin J. at Lake Forest Park
Erin finds the task of whittling her list to only ten books particularly daunting.  Agreed!

• Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman 
• Glaciers by Alexis Smith 
• You Are Not Like Other Mothers by Angelika Schrobsdorff 
• Radio Iris by Anne-Marie Kinney 
• The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson 
• The Widows Children by Paula Fox 
• Under the Glacier by Halldor Laxness 
• The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey 
• Steps and Exes by Laura Kalpakian 
• Magic For Beginners by Kelly Link

That's it for Part One.  Stay tuned for the sequel, chock full of even more, awesome books!