Best books and best sellers 2012

Our first entry of 2013 is about last year's books. In December magazines and newspapers published their best-book lists. Digital Book World also announced the best-selling ebooks of the year. The most popular: the Fifty Shades trilogy, followed by the Hunger Games trilogy. Surprise: the critics' preferences were different form the public's choices, none of these titles appear in their lists.

Not that there are many coincidences among the critics, but let me write about one of them: Hillary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies, winner of the 2012 Man Booker Prize. What's special about her is that she also won the Booker Prize in 2009 for Wolf Hall (available at our library). She can add these to a long list of awards, which includes more than a dozen.

Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies are part of the Thomas Cromwell Trilogy, about King Henry VIII's secretary. Cromwell helped the king break with Rome and marry Ann Boleyn. If you think you've had enough of Henry VIII, give it a try: you won't be disappointed. Both books are wonderful psychological portraits and an opportunity to learn about life in those years. There's a lot of intrigue, too, so you won't get bored. Cromwell himself is a fascinating character, a corrupt highflying type that is so popular on film and TV these days.

You can read an excerpt from Wolf Hall here.