Vaal's 12 in 12

k, I'm betting this will really become a 6 in 12 :)

1. Palliser Towers -> all of Trollope's Barchester and Palliser novels (I read The Warden and Can You Forgive Her? a long time ago, so they'll be re-reads)
2. SF backlog - read some of the unread SF books I used to buy too many of at the local used book store.
3. 30s British Mysteries - Sayers/Innes/Christie/et al.
4. 12 miscellaneous books
5. Books my wife has recommended to me
6. Short story bedtime reading
7. Math and Physics - non-fictional fun
8. Animal POV -ok, I want to read Watership Down. Gotta be other books that would fit in.
9. Chapter books read to my daughter - not sure if we'd get through 12 of these per annum, but atm we're reading a translation of the Hoffmann Nutcracker with illustrations by Maurice Sendak.
10. newly published books
11. graphic novels/superheros
12. hardboiled detectives + crime fiction

Palliser Towers

1. The Warden
2. Barchester Towers
3. Doctor Thorne
4. Framley Parsonage
5. The Small House at Allington
6. The Last Chronicle of Barset
7. Can You Forgive Her?
8. Phineas Finn
9. The Eustace Diamonds
10. Phineas Redux
11. The Prime Minister
12. The Duke's Children

SF backlog

1. Limbo by Bernard Wolfe
2. The Beast Master by Andre Norton
3. Davy by Edgar Pangborn
4. Nebula Award-Winning Novellas ed. Martin Greenberg
5-8: The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
9. The Squares of the City by John Brunner
10. The Cornelius Chronicles by Michael Moorcock
11. Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith
12. The Embedding by Ian Watson

30s British Mysteries

1. Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes
2. Five Red Herrings by Sayers
3. Have His Carcase by Sayers
4. Gaudy Night by Sayers
5. The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake
6. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
7. The Nine Tailors
8. Before the Fact by Francis Iles (well, a crime novel rather than a mystery)
9. The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr (American but takes place in London)
10. The Murder at the Vicarage by Christie
11.
12.

12 miscellaneous books (nixed the idea of reading 12 computer/technical books for work)

Books my wife has recommended to me:

1) The God of Small Things
2) The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
3) Kafka on the Shore
4) The Eyre Affair
5) The Woman in White
6 - 12) The Harry Potter Books

Short story bedtime reading

1.

Math/Physics

Animal POV

1. Watership Down
2. The Bear Went over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle
3. The Art of Racing in the Rain
4. Lives of the Monster Dogs
5. Black Beauty
6. The Plague Dogs
7. Doctor Rat
8. Watchers

Chapter books read to my daughter

Graphic Novels

1) Blankets
2) The Long Hallowe'en
3) Justice League of America: Team History
4) Fourth World Omnibus volume 1
5) Justice League of America: Dark Things
6) Superman/Batman: Torment
7) JLA: Tower of Babel
8) Gotham Central: In the Line of Duty
9) Gotham Central: Half a Life
10) Birds of Prey: Perfect Pitch
11) Superman: Ending Battle
12) Paying for it: a comic-strip memoir about being a john

newly published books

hardboiled detectives/crime fiction
1) The Man on the Balcony

Oh, I'll definitely be watching you. I love Trollope and the Pallisers are my favorites. Also a Sayers fan. Any new 30s mysteries (new to me) I might have to scarper off with.

I'll be curious to see what you think of Blankets. I have it on my list also, and I'm hoping to start it soon!

For Animal POV, one of my all-time favorite dog books is Watchers by Dean Koontz. Technically, I don't think it is told from the dog's (Einstein) perspective exactly, but I still remember feeling like much of it was based on how much we the reader comes to feel like we know Einstein and what he's thinking. I read that one like 15-20 years ago though, so it might not be exactly as I remembered.

As well as watership down adams also wrote the plague dogs which is worth reading iirc (I read it over 20 years ago)

Of course there is also animal farm

Can't think of any others off he top of my head but sure there must be more!

Actually this thread has a few http://www.librarything.com/topic/83345

I can think of two books for Animal POV:

Art of Racing in the Rain
Black Beauty

you might try them...good luck!

Lives of the Monster Dogs is a very unique twist on the animal POV concept. The story is told by a group of genetically altered dogs who can walk upright and speak. It's a dark tale, with a rather profound philosophical examination of what it means to be human. It was a 4 Star read for me. And I second the recommendation for The Art of Racing in the Rain - fabulous book!

Look forward to following your reading this year!

1. Justice League of America: Team History

I thought I'd start, since finishing this on 12/12/12 (as suggested by others) seems fitting.

My wife and I used to read a lot of DC comics, she far more than I tbh, but we stopped our subscriptions a few years ago. Instead, we've intermittently gotten our superhero fix by taking out whatever graphic novels show up at the library. This particular book would probably be a chore to read for anyone not immersed in the DC universe. Who knew that Congorilla was JLA material? Now that DC has rebooted its entire universe, I guess he didn't have much time in the sun...

BTW, thank you for the animal book suggestions. I think I'll probably read Watership Down, next.

13. Doorstops - multi-purpose fiction

1. Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
2. Sir Charles Grandison by Samuel Richardson
3. War and Peace
4. Infinite Jest
5. A Suitable Boy
6. Anna Karenina
7. Les Miserables
8. The Count of Monte Cristo
9. Gone with the Wind
10. Against the Day
11. 1Q84
12. Cryptonomicon

Extra kudos to anyone who completes this category. I certainly won't be. :P

cool categories and definitely starred!

A rec for your hard-boiled true crime category #12. I recently finished Chicago Lightning by Max Allan Collins and cannot recommend it highly enough.

Also, you might gain some overlap with your Animal POV/chapter books read to your daughter categories with the Redwall series...

Good categories and books! For an Animal POV I loved Rose in a Storm by Jon Katz. Not terribly long. And I LOVED The Bear Went Over the Mountain. Funny. My sides ached from laughing. Good reads ahead for you.

Another recommendation for your animal POV - the Chet and Bernie series by Spencer Quinn starting with Dog On It. I have a chunkster category on my thread also. I think A Feast for Crows will be the first for my list.

2. Fourth World Omnibus volume 1 by Jack Kirby et al.
3. Superman/Batman: Torment by Alan Burnett et al.
4. Justice League of America: Dark Things by James Robinson

Been busy over the holiday, but I read some DC superhero books I took out of the library. The Justice League book was the weakest of the three, although it was an improvement over the Team History book that preceded it. The trippy Kirby books from the early 70s, although often quite silly, were fun reads.

I've read most of The Eyre Affair, and I'm surprised to find that I'm not liking it all that much.

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the Fforde series. I hope you find another series that you like better soon.

5) JLA: Tower of Babel
6) Gotham Central: In the Line of Duty
7) Gotham Central: Half a Life
8) Birds of Prey: Perfect Pitch

9) Superman: Ending Battle
10) Paying for it: a comic-strip memoir about being a john

Looks like I'll be reading the graphic novels first. Chester Brown's memoir is an interesting read, except for the reductive libertarianism of his arguments for prostitution in the appendices.

11) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
12) Devices and Desires by P.D. James
13) Runaways: Live Fast by Brian K. Vaughan
14) Search the Sky by Pohl and Kornbluth (meh)
15) The Man on the Balcony by Sjowall and Wahloo
16) The Beast Master by Andre Norton
17) The Squares of the City by John Brunner
18) Runaways Vol. 5: Escape to New York
19) Runaways Vol. 6: Parental Guidance