Books I Read in 2012 and My Top 5 Favorite Books

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Can’t believe 2012 is about to end. It’s time for my top 5 favorite books I read in 2012 (I feel like I have just done this few months ago).

This year, I didn’t read as much as I used to. The reason is because early this year I was in grief and grief made me unable to imagine things (it even made me stop writing my short stories/flash). I spent more time in watching TVseries and movies because they could make me forget things. Beside that, 2012 has been the year with the most unfinished books….I think it was more than 5 books.

You can see the list of all the books I have read plus the links at PAGE 2 (Only 14 books, 67 graphic novels and 8 short stories)

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Let’s move on to my favorite books in 2012 (I am excluding One Piece because I re-read that manga every year…it’s a routine and it doesn’t seem fair to put it in the list)…Remember, these are my favorite books, it doesn’t mean they are the best books I read in 2012, they are simply the books I enjoy the most.

20th Century Ghost by Joe Hill

Modern horror is not often subtle. Most of those who practice the art of the unsettling far too often go for the jugular, forgetting that the best predators are stealthy. Nothing wrong with going for the jugular, of course, but writers of genuine skill and talent have more than one trick in their bags.

…Joe Hill is one stealthy bastard.

~Christopher Golden

This is my second book by Joe Hill, the son of my number one author Stephen King. His full name is Joe Hillstorm King. Joe wanted to succeed as a writer without carrying his father’s great name, hence he cut his name into Joe Hill.

20^th Century Ghost is a collection of his short stories, just like his father, he began his carrier from writing short stories for some magazines. 20^th Century Ghost received several awards, they were Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection (2005), World Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Collection (2006), Audie Award (2008), Tähtifantasia Award Nominee (2010), British Fantasy Award for Best Collection (2006)

Don’t let the title tricks you!! 20^th Century Ghost is not merely about ghost and monster ready to scare you.

Joe Hill started his book with extra short story called Scheherazade’s Typewriter. It was about a typewriter that continued typing after the owner had died. The owner wanted to be a writer but his stories were never published. A week after he dies, the typewriter continued his stories. His daughter read all his stories and wanted them to be published because they were better than when his dead was still alive. I think this story is a good way to start a book.

Now, let’s summarize his 15 stories in this book.

Best New Horror is about the editor of American’s Best new Horror, a book filled with short stories from new horror writers. He was getting bored with his job because lately he hadn’t found good stories. One day, his friend sent him a story by Peter Kilrue called Buttonboy. The story was like fresh air to him. He wanted to publish the story and tried tracking peter Kilrue’s to ask his permission. Unfortunately, this first story is not as powerful as I expected it to be. I sort of guessed what will happen in the end…and a horror story that can be predicted is not going to be in my favorite list.

It’s June…Time to List My Books

It’s June, the 6^th month in a year, we can consider it as the middle of the year. I have too much sadness and excitement this past half year and those two emotions had made me too busy to read…I better get back on track now.

When I look at my bookshelf this afternoon, I realize that I have quite a few books I haven’t read yet and books I haven’t finished yet. Since it is in the middle of the year, maybe this month is the perfect month to do a little cataloging

Here are the books I have read and haven’t finished … yet.

The Wordsworth Collection of Irish Ghost Stories. I haven’t finished it yet because I am taking my time to read each story on its own time. When I bought it, I knew it’ll be a book I will finish in years

Captives in Time by Malcolm Bosse.  The book is not boring, it’s not that exciting either…but the book my friend lent me a couple of weeks ago really intrigued me and made me drop this book for a while. I am still at page 50.

Heart-Shaped Box

Someone told me about Joe Hill somewhere last year, she said that he is a very good writer that people tend to overlook. I never heard of him before. Then I kept reading her post and found out that he is Stephen King’s son…everyone who knows me knows how crazy I am over Stephen King. But being Stephen King’s son is not a guaranteed reading, I mean I once found Tabitha King’s book but I didn’t pick it up and bought it because I still had no idea what kind of writer she is. The same thing happened with Joe Hill, I’m not about to read his book simply based on the fact that he is SK’s son.

I did a little search on him, tried to find out how good he is. And it was quite surprising, he won some awards for his books without letting anyone knew who his father is, he told everyone who he really is after he got his own success by his own talent. He is not trying to live under his father’s wing. That fact made me so eager to read his books.

The problem is…he is not well-known here. I tried looking everywhere…I finally found one of his books last month, it was Heart-Shaped Box.

The story is about a famous Goth rocker who liked to collect mystical stuff. His name is Judas Coyne. One day, Judas received a mail about someone who was planning to sell her stepfather’s ghost. It intrigued him a lot. He started bidding for the ghost and finally bought it for one thousand dollars. He received a black heart-shaped box with a death man suit inside it, along with that box came the ghost. He didn’t believe, at first, till he saw him sitting on the hall. He wanted to send the ghost back to the owner, but both the suit and the ghost couldn’t be returned and he knew that it was a set up.

Teaser Tuesday – Heart Shaped Box (2)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read
2. Open to a random page
3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I’m still reading the same book as last week because I was very busy, but it’s almost at the end.

The book I’m still reading is Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill.

My teaser comes from page 211

Only in the mirror her eyes were covered by a blindfold of black gauze and her throat was slashed. A red mouth gaped obscenely across it, and her shirt was soaked in blood.

Teaser Tuesday – Heart Shaped Box

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read
2. Open to a random page
3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I’m currently reading a book byJoe Hill, the son of my number one author, Stephen King. Like father like son, Joe also writes horror book. But don’t think that he only rides his father’s name, he had already won 2 Bram Stroker Awards.

The book I’m reading right now is called Heart-Shaped Box. This is his second book..

My teaser comes from page 93

He considered this, forming his reply slowly, and only with effort. At last he said, “I don’t think it would do any good, just to up and run. He isn’t haunting the house. He’s haunting me.”