Lists are fun. Unless they are lists of housekeeping chores, and then, well, never mind. (Move along, nothing to see here)

Book lists are fun. How many “best books of 2012” lists have you checked out? If you haven’t gotten your fill yet, Largehearted Boy is collecting every “best of 2012” book list he can get his virtual hands on. The list is positively ginormous, and guaranteed to do major damage to your wish list and/or TBR pile.

As I created my own “best of 2012” list at Reading Reality, I did a couple of other things. The natural thing is to create the accompanying list of “most anticipated books for 2013”, which yes, I also did.

Then I had this horribly guilty flash. How many of 2012’s most anticipated books did I actually read? Oops. I didn’t do very well. Actually, I sucked.

I’m not saying the books sucked. I’m saying that I don’t know. What I did a truly lousy job at was predicting what I’d actually get around to reading this year.

Of course, I also originally predicted I’d read 400 books in my Goodreads challenge, and I had to knock that down to 250. My crystal ball is seriously cracked.

But about those anticipated titles. The ones I actually read were J.D. Robb’s Celebrity in Death, John Scalzi’s Redshirts, Jean Johnson’s An Officer’s Duty, and Nalini Singh’s Tangle of Need.  (I still detest the U.S. cover of Tangle of Need. I’m also really annoyed about the game-playing about the next book in the series. Yes, I know, I’m on a digression. Again.)

I was right about all of them. They were definitely at least good. Some were better than good. But except for the copy of Redshirts, which I got by begging at the Tor booth at ALA Annual, these are books I had to buy. As a blogger, the sheer number of review books that are available to me, especially from NetGalley, seems to be pushing the books that I just plain want to read out down to the bottom of my TBR pile.

Even when that pile is virtual.

I say that because I did actually buy some of the other books on that anticipated list. When Maidens Mourn by C.S. Harris, and Dana Stabenow’s Restless in the Grave both popped up on my radar because the next book in both those series is coming out this winter, and I didn’t get around to last year’s. The reviews were awesome, so it’s not that I skipped something awful. I ran out of time.

At least with Simon R. Green’s The Bride Wore Black Leather, I think I pushed that one down the TBR pile because the reviews did turn out to be kind of “meh”.

I somehow managed to miss two of Jayne Ann Krentz/Amanda Quick’s Arcane Society titles last year; the contemporary Copper Beach and the Victorian Crystal Gardens. And now there are sequels to both.

I bought all of these. They are waiting for me on my iPad. I just never got around to them.  Or Lee and Miller’s Dragon Ship, or Alex Grecian’s The Yard (no excuse for this one, I have a print ARC) or Lindsey Davis’ Master & God.

When I looked at this list in early December, I thought about trying to finish it before the end of the year, and just went ARRGGHHH!

How do you feel about anticipated book lists? Do you do them? Do you get the books on them read? Or do other books, newer books, more tempting books, push them out of the way?

About Marlene

Marlene is a librarian, ebook advocate, science fiction fan, and RPG fan who lives in the Atlanta suburbs. She and her husband are owned by four cats, just ask them. She's a geek and a nerd and proud of it. She's also an avid reader of everything, including the back of the cereal box, and has been blogging since April 2011 at Reading Reality and is a reviewer at Library Journal as well as active on Goodreads. She is also the publisher of Ebook Review Central.

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