I had so much fun giving high school yearbook-style awards to my 2011 books that I thought it’d be a hoot to do a 2012 edition!  So here you have ’em, my 2012 Book Superlatives:

(Source)

Brainiest

My “smartest” book this year was One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  It’s definitely one of those “intellectual” books that people pretend to read to look smart at cocktail parties.  This one had been sitting on my TBR forever, but once I got around to finally reading it, I was blown away by the lovely prose and imagery.  Magical realism isn’t really my thing, but One Hundred Years of Solitude was beautiful.

(Source)

Best Looking: Young House Love, by Sherry and John Petersik

This idea book is chock full of eye candy!  Sherry and John of Young House Love fame share 243 never-before-seen projects (some big, some small) to give your home a spruce.  Everything is doable, even for DIY novices.  I can’t decide which project is my favorite… maybe the dresser gradient (I love ombre-style pieces).  Or the “stenciled” lace table runner, which looks ridiculously simple and which I am so totally going to do.  I spent a day flipping through the book and came away with tons of fantastic, simple ideas for personalizing my own space, and plenty of inspiration to get going and take on some home projects.

(Source)

Best Friends: The Betsy-Tacy Series, by Maud Hart Lovelace

Betsy, Tacy and Tib are best friends growing up in turn of the (last) century Minnesota.  From Betsy’s first meeting with Tacy, to the girls’ weddings and lives as married women, every moment is charming.  On the way they fall in love with the King of Spain, learn that different can be good when they visit Little Syria, create their own fun with a Crowd of friends in high school, and dream about boys and school success.  I loved reading about these friends’ lives in a simpler – but richer – time.

(Source)

Class Clown: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), by Mindy Kaling

Mindy is the slightly goofy, totally dorky BFF of my dreams.  This book explores memories of her childhood as a “timid chubster afraid of her own bike,” her college days and her breaking into the comedy scene, and adds musings on the exact perfect amount of fame, why Hollywood stylists hate size 8, and what type of men Mindy simply will not date.  No matter what the topic, Mindy had me in stitches.

(Source)

Teacher’s Pet: The Chronicles of Faircare, by Miss Read

I might be cheating a bit here, but I’m naming an entire series (I haven’t finished it yet, but I’ve read the first fourteen books and I think that’s enough to get a feel for it).  Miss Read is the witty, wise, beloved head teacher of Fairacre School.  Her tales of life in a small English village in the 1950s are sweet without being saccharine, slyly funny, and even informative (not every book, but many, include commentary on rural education and socioeconomic issues of post-war England, but they’re presented in such a way that the reader never bogs down and hardly even notices she’s learning).

(Source)

Biggest Nerd: The Social Animal, by David Brooks

I like David Brooks’ writing, even though our politics are pretty wildly divergent.  The Social Animal was a fascinating look at 21st-century human life from cradle to grave through two “composite human” characters, Harold and Erica.  While it occasionally got a bit technical, for the most part it was social science that read like a novel.

(Source)

Most Creative: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente

The story of September, who is spirited off to Fairyland by a Green Wind, on the back of a Leopard, is full of charm and sweetness and creativity in abundance.  September believes that Fairyland will be a nice change from washing dishes while her mother is off at work, but soon finds that it is a troubled place under the thumb of an evil Marquess (nothing to be done; she has a hat).  This was a sweet, fun, extremely creative story.

(Source)

Most Opinionated: The Partly Cloudy Patriot, by Sarah Vowell

Sarah Vowell wins two years in a row!  With her essays on American history and culture, she makes learning – dare I say – FUN.  Last year I compared The Wordy Shipmates to that girl who always has her hand up in history class, but you should listen to her because she’s got good stuff to say.  The Partly Cloudy Patriot is much the same.

(Source)

Most Likely to End Up in Hollywood: Shadow of Night, by Deborah Harkness

It’s probably cheating, since I awarded this category to the first book in the All Souls Trilogy (A Discovery of Witches) last year, and this time I’m giving it to the second book in the trilogy.  But I still think this trilogy is going to get filmed eventually (after all, if Twilight was worthy…) and I maintain that Daniel Craig simply must play Matthew.

(Source)

Biggest Loner: Shine Shine Shine, by Lydia Netzer

Maxon and Sunny aren’t exactly loners, since they have each other.  But they’re both definitely the weird kids with big backpacks (much as Sunny tries not to be).  Still, get to know them – they’ll reward you with a beautiful love story that’s about how we are all different, and how we are the same.

(Source)

Cutest Couple: Freddy and Fredericka, by Mark Helprin

Prom King and Queen has to go to Mark Helprin’s royal couple, Frederick, Prince of Wales and Fredericka, Princess of Wales.  Freddy is stuffy, intellectual, terrible with the press, and completely hapless. Fredericka is blonde, vapid, and famously compassionate.  When they are dropped from a helicopter over New Jersey and told to prove their fitness for the throne by re-conquering the United States for Her Majesty the Queen Philippa, they learn to love one another in the process.  I laughed until I cried at these two heartwarming royal goofballs.