In the spirit of our first annual Best of Books, in this week’s Friday Five the BookSparksPR team shares some of our book picks from 2012. Be sure to vote NOW for BookSparksPR Best of Books 2012! Without further adieu here are our personal picks.
What’s on my iPod: Fly by Night by Rush
What I’m reading: Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
The last person I followed on Twitter: @donttrythis
1. Crystal’s pick for best romance novel is Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter. Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.
2. Kim’s pick for best memoir is Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Imaculee Ilibagiza. The triumphant story of one remarkable young woman’s miraculous story of survival through the darkness of genocide. A profound and life changing read that will inspire generations to come with its message of endurance, faith, healing and forgiveness.
3. Erin’s pick for best fashion read is Women from the Ankle Down: The Story of Shoes and How They Define Us by Rachelle Bergstein. Bergstein shows how the story of shoes is the story of women. Women from the Ankle Down is a lively, compelling look at the evolution of modern women and the fashion that reflects—and has shaped—their changing lives.
4. Allyson’s pick for best suspense novel is Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Employing her trademark razor-sharp writing and assured psychological insight, Gillian Flynn delivers a fast-paced, devilishly dark, and ingeniously plotted thriller.
5. Sam’s pick for best satire novel is Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. Laced with cynicism and truth, “A Handful of Dust” satirizes a certain stratum of English life where all the characters have money, but lack practically every other credential. Murderously urbane, it depicts the breakup of a marriage in the London gentry, where the errant wife suffers from terminal boredom, and becomes enamored of a social parasite and professional luncheon-goer.
I’m drooling over A Handful of Dust…