January 2011 marked the first time in years in which I actually recorded in a journal the title and author of every book I read. Not coincidentally, my participation in Goodreads and my own book blogging rose exponentially. The last time I had recorded the books I read (and by "books read" I include both unabridged audio books and novel-length fanfiction pieces) was in 2002, and that year I read 113 books. Not wanting to set myself up for failure, my Goodreads goal for 2011 was 125 books, so I was quite gratified to see (as of this writing on 23 December) that my tally actually came to 148, with one week left to hit the Big 150. I might just make it.
Thus my deliberation over my Top Ten for the year--I have never truly read as many terrific books in a single year as I have read in 2011. My personal parameters to be included on this list is that the book had to be published either in hardcover or paperback in 2011, which eliminates a good number of backlist books, not-yet-published books, and some excellent pieces of fanfiction. Here's how my overall reading stacked up:
Fiction: 129
Nonfiction: 19
Audio: 13
YA: 32
Fanfiction: 10 (I did not count re-reads within in the same year)
In no particular order, then, here are my picks for 2011. Each hyperlinked title will take you to my review of the book. Last year, as I recall, I had only reviewed about 2/3 of my Top Ten 2010 list, so here is even more evidence that my book blogging has been on the rise for 2011:
Big Girl Small by Rachel DeWoskin
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (NB: This was probably my favorite, but not necessarily the best, book of 2011. After all, it's not every book that makes you want to dye your hair a color not found in nature)
Faith by Jennifer Haigh
Open City by Teju Cole (In my masterful and superior opinion,
Cole was robbed of the National Book Award for this book)
Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak
The Sweetness of Tears by Nafisa Haji
Submission by Amy Waldman (these last two almost function as two halves of the same coin -- both are stories of politics & religion in a post-9/11, anti-Islamic western world; one is emotionally engaging and the other is emotionally detached)
Best Nonfiction: Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller
Best YA: Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
Honorable mention: The Song of Achilles (not published until next year),
but would have otherwise been in the Top Three.
With the exceptions of The Sojourn, which I picked up from a generic White Box mailing to my bookstore, and Revolution, which I received from my Secret Santa, all of these books came from my wonderful sales reps, whom I'd like to thank here. Y'all are terrific and I'm so very grateful that you keep me in books. In order from the book listed on top: Jennifer Philpott from MPS, Anne DeCourcey from Harper, Ann Kingman from Random House, Michael Kindness from Random House, Roger Saginario from Hachette, and Karl Krueger from Penguin/Viking. (Some publishers are represented more than once, which is why I have more books listed here than reps, and there are some reps, like John Muse from Simon & Schuster and my many great University Press reps, whose books didn't make it to my Top Ten list, but who ought to be recognized, too.)
