Goodreads Choice Awards 2012 Opening Round Announced

So the Opening Round has been announced. You can check it out and vote here http://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-books-2012

So how were my predictions?

Best Fiction included The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies made it into the Best Historical Fiction which is the prediction I was most confident about. The Secret Keeper also made it into that genre. And Fifty Shades made it into both Best Romance and Best Goodreads Author.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened was included in Best Humor although I also wish I had predicted Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops. I'm so pleased that book made the Opening Round. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy. And finally Young Adult Fiction had The Fault in Our Stars.

Which means (drum roll please...) that 6 out of 9 of predictions hit the mark. Not bad!

The 2012 Goodreads Choice Awards are coming soon

The 4th annual Goodreads Choice awards are launching on 30 October 2012. The awards will showcase 15 nominees in 20 categories and will be voted on by the 12 million Goodreads members.

The winners will be announced December 4th.

So who do I think will be making it into the Opening Round? Well you would have had to live under a rock to not experience the frenzy over the Fifty Shades series and although first published in 2011 the latest book Fifty Shades Freed was published in January 2012 so I wouldn't be surprised at all if that ends up in there; whether it deserves to be is another question.

I'm sure we will also be seeing Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel's sequel to Wolf Hall which won the Man Book Prize for 2012.

Rowling's foray into the adult book world, The Casual Vacancy, is the biggest question mark for me. It was easily the most highly anticipated novel of 2012 but it seems to have polarised readers. I wouldn't be surprised if it made it into the Opening Round but didn't make it much further.

And a few others we might see scattered around the categories in the Opening Round based on what I've seen around the blog world.

• The Time Keeper (Mitch Albom)
• The Fault in Our Stars (John Green)
• Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir (Jenny Lawson)
• In One Person (John Irving)
• The Secret Keeper (Kate Morton)
• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Rachel Joyce)

Do you agree with me? Which do you think will be in the shortlist?

Visit www.goodreads.com/choiceawards on October 30th for the 2012 nominations.

Anatomy of a Disappearance, Hisham Matar

Title: Anatomy of a Disappearance

Author: Hisham Matar

Published: 2011

Pages: 247

Source: Book club

Genre: Contemporary

Goodreads | Amazon.com


Anatomy of a disappearance follows the story of Nuri el-Alfi whose mother dies when he is a young boy and whose life is forever affected by her death. One day he meets Mona and everything changes, absolutely besotted he longs to be with her but she falls in love with and marries his father. Nuri's relationship with his father is changed forever and then his father, a political diplomat, disappears.

This book really is more than it seems, its the type of book where no description will really do it justice. Even the above paragraph really doesn't cover the scope of this extraordinary novel. At its heart a purely character novel, it also winds the reader through a number of mysteries which slowly unravel as you read. Unlike traditional mysteries there is no wow moment, no major twists and turns, quite simply the story is like a present being slowly unwrapped - revealing a little more with every page.

Split between Cairo, England and Geneva, ultimately this book is about the changing nature of relationships. The disappearance of Nuri's father has a profound effect on him and it impacts his interactions with other people in a variety of ways. This book alludes to a number of other components to Nuri's story that allow you to explore your own imaginations. Of course I struggled a little with the slightly unhealthy relationship with his step mother however the story telling was so well done that it had me riveted.

I can highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a character novel that explores the dynamics of human relationships.

Read It

Anatomy of a Disappearance by Hisham Matar

Gifts

I'm so excited I just have to post. I received these as a gift from a work client today which is ridiculously nice of them and I think the Alice in Wonderland cover is so beautiful I just had to share with you all.

Couldn't have been better timing too as I missed my book club last night because I'm in the wrong city so was feeling a little sorry for myself, missing the book club girls so much, so this was a nice little pick me up.