A big part of the festive season for me has always been the anticipation of books, carefully selected as gifts or put aside for personal enjoyment in the quiet times we all savor during the holdiay rush. If good reading matters to you too, look through our recommendations of the best books of 2012 below (limited to only 3 per genre with difficulty and personal bias). These are mainly hardcovers - find great reads most likely published in paperback in 2012 in our Recommended Reads 2011.

FICTION
Contemporary	Fantasy	Historical
Attachments The Cottage at Glass Beach Island Apart	Banner of the Damned Echoes of Betrayal Shadow of Night	In the Shadow of the Banyan The Stockholm Octavo The Winter Palace
Horror	Literary	Mystery
The Bedlam Detective The Ridge The Whisperer	A Land More Kind Than Home The Submission The Orchardist	Afterwards The Expats Mandarin Gate
Romance	SF	Thriller
The Great Escape Hell on Wheels The Witness	Arctic Rising Earth Unaware The Long Earth	Bleed for Me Phantom The Survivor
NON-FICTION
Biography	General	Travel
Queen of the Conqueror Sister Queens On a Farther Shore	Garbology The Power of Habit Twilight of the Elites	Come, Tell Me How You Live Journeys on the Silk Road Radio Shangri-La
KIDS
Chloe and the Lion The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? If All the Animals Came Inside
TEENS
YA Contemporary	YA Fantasy
Crusher The Taming What Happens Next	Dust Girl Seraphina Shadowfell
Find more book gift suggestions in our many previous Holiday Columns. And if we missed any of your own 2012 favorites, please write and tell us about them.
All of us at BookLoons wish you and yours the best of times, the happiest of holidays, and a joyous, healthy, prosperous and peaceful 2013 to follow!!