2013 is almost over – here are 24 great books that are a must read before the New Year! Some are new releases, some are becoming movies, others are classics - all must be read.
(The order of this list is completely random.)I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up For Education And Was Shot By The Taliban by Malala Yousafzi with Christina Lamb
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
“Brilliant and hugely ambitious…Some will argue that a book so difficult and sad may not be appropriate for teenage readers…Adults will probably like it (this one did), but it’s a great young-adult novel…It’s the kind of book that can be life-changing, because without ever denying the essential amorality and randomness of the natural order, The Book Thief offers us a believable hard-won hope…The hope we see in Liesel is unassailable, the kind you can hang on to in the midst of poverty and war and violence. Young readers need such alternatives to ideological rigidity, and such explorations of how stories matter. And so, come to think of it, do adults.” -New York Times "Zusak doesn’t sugarcoat anything, but he makes his ostensibly gloomy subject bearable the same way Kurt Vonnegut did in Slaughterhouse-Five: with grim, darkly consoling humor.” -Time Magazine Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
"[The Hunger Games] is a violent, jarring, speed-rap of a novel that generates nearly constant suspense... I couldn't stop reading." — Stephen King, Entertainment Tonight "I was so obsessed with this book that I had to take it with me out to dinner and hide it under the edge of the table so I wouldn't have to stop reading... The Hunger Games is amazing." — Stephanie Meyer, Author of The Twilight Saga "Brilliantly plotted and perfectly paced." — John Green, New York Times Book Review Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela 
"The authentic voice of Mandela shines through this book … humane, dignified and magnificently unembittered" - R. W. Johnson, The Times "This life of a man who has been a political activist for fifty years, in one of the most difficult and complex conflicts of the twentieth century, is a major achievement" - Martin Meredith, The Observer Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 
An absorbing mystery as well as a morality tale, the story of Pip, a poor village lad, and his expectations of wealth is Dickens at his most deliciously readable. The cast of characters includes kindly Joe Gargery, the loyal convict Abel Magwitch and the haunting Miss Havisham. If you have heartstrings, count on them being tugged. The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel 
"After World War Two I served as a British member of the 'Monuments' section in Germany. Our task, I believe, was truly important - we were restoring to Europe evidence of its own civilization, which the War seemed virtually to have destroyed - and I was lucky to have had a chance to participate. It is excellent that Mr Edsel has now recorded this remarkable episode, and I am grateful to him for devoting so much energy to telling the stories of those involved." - Anne Olivier Bell "Highly Readable ... a remarkable history" - Washington Post "Engaging and inspiring" - Publishers Weekly Twelve Years A Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup 
An Appetite for Wonder by Richard Dawkins 
“[Here] we have the kindling of Mr. Dawkins’s curiosity, the basis for his unconventionality.” - The New York Times Daily “Surprisingly intimate and moving. … He is here to find out what makes us tick: to cut through the nonsense to the real stuff.” - The Guardian “…this isn’t Dawkins’s version of My Family and Other Animals. It’s the beauty of ideas that arouses his appetite for wonder: and, more especially, his relentless drive … towards the answer.” - The Times (UK) The Circle by Dave Eggers 
“A vivid, roaring dissent to the companies that have coaxed us to disgorge every thought and action onto the Web . . . Carries the potential to change how the world views its addicted, compliant thrall to all things digital. If you work in Silicon Valley, or just care about what goes on there, you need to pay attention.” — Dennis K. Berman, The Wall Street Journal “Fascinating . . . Eggers appears to run on pure adrenaline, and has as many ideas pouring out of him as the entrepreneurs pitching their inventions in The Circle . . . [A] novel of ideas . . . about the social construction and deconstruction of privacy, and about the increasing corporate ownership of privacy, and about the effects such ownership may have on the nature of Western democracy . . . Like Melville’s Pequod and Stephen King’s Overlook Hotel, the Circle is a combination of physical container, financial system, spiritual state, and dramatis personae, intended to represent America, or at least a powerful segment of it . . . The Circlers’ social etiquette is as finely calibrated as anything in Jane Austen . . . Eggers treats his material with admirable inventiveness and gusto . . . the language ripples and morphs . . . It’s an entertainment, but a challenging one.” — Margaret Atwood, The New York Review of Books Dallas 1963 by Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis 
"In this harrowing, masterfully-paced depiction of a disaster waiting to happen, Minutaglio and Davis examine a prominent American city in its now-infamous moment of temporary insanity. Because those days of partisan derangement look all too familiar today, DALLAS 1963 isn't just a gripping narrative-it's also a somber cautionary tale." - Robert Draper, contributor, New York Times Magazine and author of Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives "After fifty years, it's a challenge to fashion a new lens with which to view the tragic events of November 22, 1963--yet Texans [Minutaglio and Davis] pull it off brilliantly." - Publishers Weekly The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 
"Dazzling....[A] glorious, Dickensian novel, a novel that pulls together all Ms. Tartt's remarkable storytelling talents into a rapturous, symphonic whole and reminds the reader of the immersive, stay-up-all-night pleasures of reading." - Michiko Kakutani, New York Times "The Goldfinch is a book about art in all its forms, and right from the start we remember why we enjoy Donna Tartt so much: the humming plot and elegant prose; the living, breathing characters; the perfectly captured settings....Joy and sorrow exist in the same breath, and by the end The Goldfinch hangs in our stolen heart." -Vanity Fair At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcon 
“Wise and engaging…a provocative study of the way war culture ensnares both participant and observer, the warping fascination of violence, and the disfiguring consequences of the roles we play in public…[a] layered, gorgeously nuanced work…the ending is a quiet bomb, as satisfying as it is ambiguous.” —New York Times Book Review "The delicate precision, mounting tension and unfolding tragedy in this masterful book make it difficult to remember the story did not actually take place...Alarcón teaches us, in these pages, that perception and memory are relative. We see what we want to see, we believe what we want to believe. Performance can consume and distort. And time moves differently for all of us." —Chicago Tribune “Alarcón is one of those rare writers getting away with doing exactly what he wants… Like Rachel Kushner’s...The Flamethrowers, this is a story about the initiation of a young artist …[At Night We Walk in Circles is] consistently compelling…Alarcón’s smoothly polished prose [is] flecked with wit and surprisingly epigraphic phrases…with lines that knock the wind out of you.” —Washington Post Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg 
“Honest and brave . . . The new manifesto for women in the workplace.” - Oprah Winfrey “If you loved Sheryl Sandberg’s incredible TEDTalk on why we have too few women leaders, or simply believe as I do that we need equality in the boardroom, then this book is for you. As Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg has firsthand experience of why having more women in leadership roles is good for business as well as society. Lean In is essential reading for anyone interested in righting the injustice of this inequality.” - Sir Richard Branson, chairman, The Virgin Group “Lively, entertaining, urgent, and yes, even courageous . . . Lean In is both a radical read and incredibly accessible . . . While it’s obvious that women have much to gain from reading Sandberg’s book, so do men—perhaps even more so . . .Lean In is the beginning of an important and long-overdue conversation in the United States—but it will only be a national conversation, and one that endures, if men do their part and lean in, too.” - Michael Cohen, The Guardian TransAtlantic by Colum McCann 
“A dazzlingly talented author’s latest high-wire act . . . National Book Award winner Colum McCann weaves an intricate tapestry that illuminates the anguish of Irish history and the deeper agonies of war. TransAtlantic reads as a series of interconnected novellas, shifting between decades, among an unlikely cast of richly drawn characters. . . . Reminiscent of the finest work of Michael Ondaatje and Michael Cunningham, TransAtlantic is Colum McCann’s most penetrating novel yet.” - O: The Oprah Magazine “What distinguishes TransAtlantic from McCann’s earlier work isn’t the stunning language or the psychological acuity or the humor and imagination on display—all of that has been there before. It’s the sheer ambition, the audacity to imagine within the same novel the experience of Frederick Douglass . . . then the first nonstop trans-Atlantic flight . . . then to leap into the near-present and embody the former senator George Mitchell . . . and finally to unite these stories, to give them even larger purpose than the historical significance they already possess, by knitting through and around them the stories of four generations of women.” - Joel Lovell, The New York Times Magazine And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini 
“And the Mountains Echoed opens like a thunderclap. . . . [Hosseini] asks good, hard questions about the limits of love. . . . Love, Hosseini seems to say, is the great leveler, cutting through language, class, and identity. No one in this gripping novel is immune to its impact.” - O, the Oprah Magazine “The Kite Runner author’s latest is a moving saga about sacrifice, betrayal, and the power of family. . . . More expansive than The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, the novel spans three generations and includes overlapping tales of expatriates and aid workers, parents and children, doctors and drug lords. Hosseini shows how easy it is for people to brutalize or abandon those they should protect. But his ultimate achievement is demonstrating the power and persistence of family.” - People “Like a sculptor working in a soft medium, [Hosseini] gently molds and shapes individual pieces that ultimately fit together in a major work. . . . Family matters in ways small and large in this novel. Whether or not the connections are visible, they exist nevertheless. Hosseini seems to be telling us that the way we care is who we are and, ultimately, the face we show to life.” - New York Daily News Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn 
“Ice-pick-sharp… Spectacularly sneaky… Impressively cagey… Gone Girl is Ms. Flynn’s dazzling breakthrough. It is wily, mercurial, subtly layered and populated by characters so well imagined that they’re hard to part with — even if, as in Amy’s case, they are already departed. And if you have any doubts about whether Ms. Flynn measures up to Patricia Highsmith’s level of discreet malice, go back and look at the small details. Whatever you raced past on a first reading will look completely different the second time around.” — Janet Maslin, New York Times “Ms. Flynn writes dark suspense novels that anatomize violence without splashing barrels of blood around the pages… But as in her other books, Ms. Flynn has much more up her sleeve than a simple missing-person case. As Nick and Amy's alternately tell their stories, marriage has never looked so menacing, narrators so unreliable.” — Wall Street Journal Inferno by Dan Brown 
"Jampacked with tricks...A BOOK-LENGTH SCAVENGER HUNT that Mr. Brown creates so energetically."- Janet Maslin, The New York Times "AS CLOSE AS A BOOK CAN COME TO A SUMMERTIME CINEMATIC BLOCKBUSTER…Brown builds up Langdon's supporting cast, which is the strongest yet."- USA Today "FAST, CLEVER, WELL-INFORMED…DAN BROWN IS THE MASTER OF THE INTELLECTUAL CLIFFHANGER."- The Wall Street Journal Margaret Thatcher: From Grantham to the Falklands by Charles Moore 
“It’s an incredible level of access….Margaret Thatcher: From Grantham to the Falklands is the first of two volumes, and it presents a remarkable and richly detailed portrait.” – Craig Fehrman, Boston Globe “Thatcher was a remarkable politician and Moore does justice to her distinctive qualities.” – David Runciman, London Review of Books David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell 
"As always, Gladwell's sweep is breathtaking and thought-provoking....I've long admired Gladwell's work." - Joe Nocera, New York Times "David and Goliath readers will travel with colorful characters who overcame great difficulties and learn fascinating facts about the Battle of Britain, cancer medicine and the struggle for civil rights, to name just a few topics upon which Mr. Gladwell's wide-ranging narrative touches. This is an entertaining book." - Christopher F. Chabris, Wall Street Journal "Gladwell sells books by the millions because he is masterful at explaining how the world works---the power of critical mass, the arbitrariness of success, etc.---packaging his ideas in fun, accessible, and poignant vignettes." - Lionel Beehner, USA Today Orange Is The New Black by Piper Kerman 
“This book is impossible to put down because [Kerman] could be you. Or your best friend. Or your daughter.” - Los Angeles Times “Moving . . . transcends the memoir genre’s usual self-centeredness to explore how human beings can always surprise you.”- USA Today Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card 
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton 
"The Luminaries is a true achievement. Catton has built a lively parody of a 19th-century novel, and in so doing created a novel for the 21st, something utterly new. The pages fly." - Bill Roorbach, New York Times Book Review "A finely wrought fun house of a novel. Enjoy the ride."- Chris Bohjalian, The Washington Post "Go ahead and call Eleanor Catton a prodigy. At 28, she's the youngest author ever to win Britain's prestigious Man Booker Prize for THE LUMINAIRES, which warrants every one of its imposing - yet surprisingly breezy - 848 pages." - Stephan Lee, Entertainment Weekly The House Girl by Tara Conklin 
“[G]rabs you by the bonnet strings and starts running.” - Entertainment Weekly “This will be the book-club book of 2013.” - Marie Claire “Conklin ... is a skilled writer ... who knows how to craft a thoughtful page-turner ...We’re glued to the pages.” - Seattle Times Burial Rites by Hannah Kent 
"Enticing.... Kent...convincingly animates Agnes...showing her headstrong humanity and heart-wrenching thirst for life." - Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal "An excellent premise.... [and] a gripping tale about what Agnes was actually guilty of." - Susannah Meadows, The New York Times And TWO more for good luck! Ocean At The End Of The Lane by Neil Gaiman 
“[A] compelling tale for all ages . . . entirely absorbing and wholly moving.” - New York Daily News “His prose is simple but poetic, his world strange but utterly believable—if he was South American we would call this magic realism rather than fantasy.” - The Times (London) This book is a MUST READ: Dreaming of Hope Street by Eder Holguin 